Whole life term for Yorkshire Ripper... and upland birds in decline
YORKSHIRE RIPPER Peter Sutcliffe was told by a judge that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars during this week of 2010.
At the High Court in London Mr Justice Mitting said that the Bingleyborn serial killer, now known as Peter Coonan, must serve a “whole life” tariff.
He said: “This was a campaign of murder which terrorised the population of a large part of Yorkshire for several years.
“The only explanation for it, on the jury’s verdict, was anger, hatred and obsession. Apart from a terrorist outrage, it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which one man could account for so many victims.”
The judge’s ruling was widely welcomed among the victims’ families. Richard McCann, whose mother Wilma was the first murdered during Sutcliffe’s reign off terror, said his overwhelming feeling was one of relief.
Sutcliffe, who was 64 at this point, was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1981, receiving 20 life sentences for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more.
He was transferred to Broadmoor top-security psychiatric hospital three years later, after a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.
Mr Justice Mitting said he did not believe that “exceptional progress” by Sutcliffe while in hospital merited any reduction in a whole life term.
Some of the county’s best-loved upland birds were in unexplained decline, according to a survey by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Species such as the skylark, twite and meadow pipit were found to be decreasing in number, and an RSPB spokesman said: “The overall picture is of many birds ebbing away from our uplands.”
The survey compared bird numbers in the first decade of this century to those from the 1990s and 1980s in 13 areas.
In North Yorkshire, the skylark had dwindled in 73 per cent of sites.
Also affected were five varieties of wading birds, including the snipe and curlew.
A £3m artificial surf reef could end up costing the taxpayer more after a task force was announced to help create rideable waves suitable for stand-up surfing.
A council cross-party committee was to investigate how to improve performance at the “sub-standard” reef in Boscombe in Dorset – the first artificial reef in Europe.
Plymouth University’s report had shown that the reef fell short of surfers’ expectations, and Bournemouth Borough Council was withholding a £150,000 performance payment from its creators until the issues were resolved.
Meanwhile, academics at Nottingham University called on business leaders to look to the nation’s beer drinkers for inspiration on how the country could fight its way out of recession.
The country’s real ale fans represented the perfect example of how greater consumer awareness could revitalise a struggling industry, economists said.
Equally, the ever-growing number of microbreweries satisfying their demanding palates offered hope for the UK’s small businesses.
The experts came up with their findings after studying the history of brewing in England.
They believed the industry’s rebirth in the wake of the Campaign for Real Ale’s founding in 1971 had wider implications.
It was widely accepted that Camra’s campaign against bland, massproduced beers began the decline’s reversal.
This was a campaign of murder which terrorised the population of a large part of Yorkshire.