Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe ‘fit to go back jail in 2005’ but was left in hospital costing you £240,000 a year more
Taxpayers money wasted on serial killer's cushy life inside Broadmoor
YORKSHIRE Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was fit to go back to jail 11 years ago.
One medic declared him sane in 2005 and another a few years later.
Yet more than £3million was wasted on his cushy life in Broadmoor.
The psychiatric hospital costs £325,000 a year against £45,000 in jail.
The serial killer, 70, finally moved to Durham’s Frankland jail last month after a tribunal said his paranoid schizophrenia was cured.
John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, revealed that £3m would pay the first year's salary for 141 nurses.
He said: "Britain's finances are in a terrible state and wasteful spending like this needs to be eliminated.
"If Mr Sutcliffe was well enough to go into regular prison many years ago, as the experts suggest, then he should have been sent there so the money could be used elsewhere."
Neil Jackson, 58, whose mum Emily, 42, was Sutcliffe's second murder victim, added: "It's unbelievable to learn that he had this cushy lifestyle in hospital when he should have been in prison.
"For more than ten years he was enjoying Easy Street in Broadmoor despite doctors saying there was no reason for him to be there.
"Will anyone let us know why he was given preferential treatment? I doubt it."
Sutcliffe, 70, was dreading a return to prison after 32 years at Broadmoor and was so depressed that he was placed on suicide watch.
He hated the idea of losing his cushy lifestyle and was fearful of attack in a top security nick.
There have been a string of violent assaults on inmates in recent years at Frankland - one was stabbed to death by two other prisoners and Soham monster Ian Huntley had his throat slit.
Sutcliffe told a pal: “Category A prisons are a pit of black despair and hopelessness. It’s all violence, weapons and drugs. It will be so depressing."
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But he has settled in well since arriving at Britain's biggest top security jail where he is in a single cell on A wing which holds 108 vulnerable inmates who enjoy enhanced status.
A source said: "Other inmates have been fine with him and the staff have all been very professional.
"He doesn't have any complaints so far - unlike all the moaning he did at Broadmoor. He hated the regime there but seems happy in Frankland."
Sutcliffe underwent a major medical assessment every four or five years while at Broadmoor.
In September of 2014 as he was about to have another one, he told a friend that the doctor he was seeing was the same one he saw in 2005 who said his mental illness was cured and he was fit to return to prison.
Sutcliffe said: "I last saw him nine years ago and he said I was all right, I wasn't ill.
"He wanted to send me back to prison. That wouldn't be a good idea.
“I'd lose all my contacts, I wouldn't have my correspondence, I wouldn't be able to ring people every night.
"It would be a real downer, it wouldn't be much good for my health either. You're just banged up and they forget about you."
Despite that diagnosis Sutcliffe remained at the Berkshire hospital.
At his next assessment a different psychiatrist concurred and also said he was cured and could go back to prison.
Sutcliffe explained: "Four or five years later I saw another doctor from the same hospital. He was the same mind, he wanted to send me back to prison."
But once again, Sutcliffe remained at Broadmoor where killers and rapists are treated as patients rather than inmates and enjoy greater freedom and privileges than in prison.
They receive visitors five days a week for up to four hours a day, or six on a Saturday.
In prison, inmates are normally allowed just two one-hour visits every 4 weeks.
Broadmoor patients are also allowed access to soft porn, nightly phone calls and lavish barbecue parties.
Sutcliffe, a Jehovah’s Witness who regularly attends bible classes, made desperate attempts to remain at Broadmoor, including trying to pull the wool over doctors' eyes about his mental state.
He said: "I can't really say I'm cured because they'd send me back to prison - but I feel ok now."
The authorities eventually decided to send him back to prison last month after a mental health tribunal ruled he was “bad not mad”.
The 32 years he spent at Broadmoor cost the public a total of £11 million, including the wasted £3 million over the last 11 years.
The panel, which met in July, concluded his paranoid schizophrenia was successfully treated and he no longer needed specialist care.
But because he is on a “whole life tariff” he will never be released and must die behind bars.
Sutcliffe — who now calls himself Peter Coonan after his mother’s maiden name — was given 20 life terms in 1981 for 13 murders and seven attempted murders.
Earlier this year it emerged cops had launched a cold case review into his links to 13 unsolved killings and violent assaults dating back more than 40 years.
Broadmoor bosses refused to discuss why he was not sent back to prison earlier.
A spokesman said: "For reasons of patient confidentiality, we are unable to comment."