For my life Sutcliffe’s shock as he is banged up with jail lif ers
Carl Sutcliffe said the voice of God came to him from the headstone of a Polish man in a cemetery where he worked.
Carl can still see that same cemetery from an upstairs window in his house.
He said: “All this carry-on about him being crazy, I don’t buy that. All them years before he was caught he acted normally, perfectly sane. You think he would’ve shown some signs of insanity.
“I spent a lot of time with him before he was convicted and he never mentioned hearing voices and I didn’t see him taking to himself once.
“I think it was just a ruse to get an easier life. I think he’s mentally ill when he wants to be – when it suits him.
“He said to me he didn’t need the tablets they were giving him in Broadmoor – that there was Kathleen Sutcliffe, holding baby Carl - Died of a heart attack three years before Sutcliffe was arrested nothing wrong with him.” Carl was a teenager living in a flat in Bingley, West Yorks, when Sutcliffe began killing.
At the age of 21, Carl discovered his beloved eldest brother was the Yorkshire Ripper.
He said: “I went to the library to look for jobs and I saw a man reading a paper that had a photograph of my brother’s house on the front page. That’s how I found out.”
All the family – including dad John, brother Mick and sisters Jane, Maureen and Anne – gathered in Maureen’s house in Bingley.
Carl said: “We were in total shock. Jane was so upset she had to be sedated. Once the shock wore off, I was angry. What he did was diabolical. I thought he was a really nice, great guy and a Mick Sutcliffe Now 65 and still keeps in weekly contact with Sutcliffe and has previously said he will always love him. Sister Anne Sumner - Died following a cancer battle in 2005 bloodyb fantastic big brother. He used to run my girlfriend home so the Ripper wouldn’tw get her, and it was him all along. She was actually probably the safest woman on the planet. “When I went to see him in prison, he just admitted it – all calm and relaxed. I felt let down.”
Pampered
Sutcliffe’s mother Kathleen, died of a heart attack three years before the killer was caught.
Carl described their father John, who died in 2004 aged 81, as “a stoic Yorkshireman” who did not show emotion over the murders.
Carl said: “I don’t think he had any feelings about anything. He was never a dad. He spent all his time at work or at the pub.”
Middle brother Mick, 65, still speaks each THE Yorkshire Ripper’s new home at Frankland jail will come as a shock to him after 32 years in Broadmoor hospital. Broadmoor houses around 200 male patients, most of whom suffer from severe mental illness. Patients are not locked in their rooms at night if it is considered detrimental to their well-being. Sutcliffe’s brother Carl, who visited him five times, told the Sunday People: “They’re all pampered in there. “They’ve got their own rooms –TVs, DVD players, all sorts of equipment.They are not locked in their rooms at night.They shut themselves in. “When I visited him and walked round the corridors, there were all sorts of killers and axe murderers in there just walking around with no guards. It’s really strange.” Broadmoor has the status of a Category B prison. Its mix of Victorian wards and modern additional buildings has been likened to a provincial hospital or a university campus. Meanwhile HMP Frankland in County Durham is a Category A high-security jail that opened in 1980. It houses more than 800 male prisoners including terrorists, murderers, rapists. Many are serving life sentences, including Soham child killer Ian Huntley. week to Sutcliffe, who lost his right eye in an attack by an inmate in 1997.
Their sister Anne Sumner died from cancer in 2005. Other sisters Jane and Maureen have nothing to do with the killer, who now uses the surname Coonan after their mum’s maiden name.
Carl said: “He’s never said sorry to any of us for what he put us through. We’ve had to live with it every day since. I can lip read ‘That’s the Ripper’s brother’ from 50 yards. It wears you out after a while.
“He’s been in Broadmoor being pampered while we’ve got to live in the real world with people pointing and staring.”
But Carl said he had not completely cut ties and expected to visit him in Frankland. He added: “He’s still my brother at the end of the day.”