THE TRIAL

MONDAY, MAY 11 1981: PETER SUTCLIFFE

Case: Regina v Peter William Sutcliffe
Place: Number One Court, Central Criminal Court, "Old Bailey", London
Judge: Mr Justice Boreham
Prosecution: Sir Michael Havers, QC, the Attorney General
Prosecution: Harry Ognall, QC
Defence: James Chadwin, QC
Defence: Sidney Levine

Detective Inspector John Boyle was called by the defence to outline some of Peter Sutcliffe's history, which included the reputation that Mr Sutcliffe had of being a "somewhat reserved man," and had no interests in sports or other social activities.

Mr Boyle said that Mr Sutcliffe was born in June 1946 at Bingley, leaving secondary modern school at age 15. Since then he had a total of eleven jobs. He had been dismissed from his grave-digging job with the Bingley Parks Department in 1965 because of bad time-keeping. In 1968 he began work as a labourer with the water board, but was sacked because of unauthorised absence. Mr Sutcliffe was a heavy goods vehicle driver earning about £75 a week at the time of his arrest.

Mr Boyle agreed with James Chadwin, QC, for the defence, that Peter Sutcliffe did not have any convictions for violence, nor had the police ever received any reports of domestic altercations.

Mr Boyle said that Mr Sutcliffe had some convictions for driving and other minor offences. In October 1969, he had been fined £25 at Bradford for going equipped for theft. He had been found with a hammer in his possession.

The court proceeding had only gone on for seventeen minutes when Mr Chadwin asked for an adjournment so he could "take more detailed instructions." He told the judge, Mr Justice Boreham, that there were "certain events over the weekend," but did not elaborate as to what they were.

The court resumed after an hour's adjournment. Mr Chadwin then said: "I call Peter William Sutcliffe."

Once Mr Sutcliffe was in the witness box, Mr Chadwin asked: "Is it right that you have admitted both to the police and by your pleas you have tendered in this court that you have killed 13 women?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I have."

Mr Chadwin: "You have plead guilty to attempting to kill seven other women?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Chadwin: "You are recorded as having said it was your intention to kill Miss Reivers, the girl in whose company you were when you were arrested."

Mr Sutcliffe: "It was."

Mr Chadwin asked if, while talking to Miss Reivers in his car and the police approached, he wanted to run away. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I had an opportunity to drive away."

Mr Chadwin: "That is not the answer to the question. Did you want to get away at that stage?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No. I could have done. I could have literally driven away before the police knew I had false number plates."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you want her to try and make a run for it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Chadwin: "Were you intending to get away at that stage?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I thought so."

Mr Chadwin: "Why did you want to get away?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I am not entirely sure that I did."

Mr Chadwin: "You said you had thought of it, why didn't you make any attempt?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because, by the time the police had arrived, I didn't feel the vengeance. I felt very little animosity at all towards Miss Reivers."

When asked whether the hammer he was carrying, when convicted for going equipped for theft in 1969, had been intended for the purpose of attacking women, Mr Sutcliffe relied: "That is right."

Asked if he remembered an incident where he had left a friend's car taking a sock with a stone in it along with him, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Yes."

Asked by Mr Chadwin what he had done with the sock, Sutcliffe replied: "I hit a woman on the head with it."

Mr Sutcliffe had two spells of employment at Bingley cemetery, the second one ending in November 1967. Mr Chadwin: "Was it in the first or the second of these spells that something occurred there?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "In the second term of employment."

Mr Chadwin: "During that second spell, what age do you recall you were?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Twenty, I think."

Mr Chadwin: "What was it that happened at Bingley cemetery that you particularly remember?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Something that I felt was very wonderful at the time. I heard what I believed then and believe now to have been God's voice. I was in the process of digging a grave."

Mr Sutcliffe said that he was in the Catholic section at the top of the cemetery, but could not remember which grave he was digging at the time. Mr Sutcliffe: "I was digging and I just paused for a minute. It was very hard ground. I just heard something - it sounded like a voice similar to a human voice - like an echo. I looked round to see if there was anyone there, but there was no one in sight. I was in the grave with my feet about five feet below the surface. There was no one in sight when I looked round from where I was. Then I got out of the grave. The voice was not very clear. I got out and walked - the ground rose up. It was quite a steep slope. I walked to the top, but there was no one there at all. I heard again the same sound. It was like a voice saying something, but the words were all imposed on top of each other. I could not make them out, it was like echoes. The voices were coming directly in front of me from the top of a gravestone, which was Polish. I remember the name on the grave to this day. It was a man called Zipolski. Stanislaw Zipolski."

Mr Sutcliffe was shown a photograph of Bingley cemetery, and pointed out the grave of a man called Stanislaw Zapolski. Mr Chadwin: "There are a number of graves in that photograph. Which one is the grave of Stanislaw Zapolski?"

(NOTE: The name on the gravestone is really Bronislaw Zapolski.)

Mr Sutcliffe: "It is the one with the statue of Christ on the top."

Mr Chadwin: "In relation to what we can see on that photograph, where had you been working when you heard the voice you described?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "To the left of the grave, lower down the slope."

Mr Chadwin: "Up to that moment in time had you ever heard a voice which you could not identify, a voice which you could not attach to some human source?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I had never heard this voice before. That was the first occasion."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you look at Mr Zapolski's grave?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Chadwin: "Why did you look particularly at this grave?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because that is where the sound was coming from. That is what made me walk closer to it."

Mr Chadwin: "What did you see on that grave when you looked at it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I remember getting a message from the grave. I looked at several graves. I was looking round to determine where the sound came from. After looking at the grave I walked back. I was kind of transfixed because of the voice. I just stepped back and I didn't know what to think at first." Reading on the gravestone the Polish word "Jejo", he assumed it meant "Jesus".

Mr Chadwin: "Did that convey anything to you in particular?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Something did, because immediately afterwards as I stepped back to the path immediately in front of the grave, I saw what I took to be a definite message about the echoing voice. I always thought it was on the same grave."

Asked what the message was, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I recall, as Jesus was speaking to me." He also remembered the phase: "We be the echo."

Mr Chadwin: "What is your recollection, not of what you heard, but of what you saw, that conveyed a message to you?"

Mr Sutcliffe replied he read the words "Wehvy" and "Echo" in Polish. "Echo" was spelt "Ecko." Mr Sutcliffe: "I thought the message on the gravestone was a direct message telling me it was the voice of Jesus speaking to me."

Mr Sutcliffe was then asked to look at a photograph of the gravestone. He agreed that the words he had described did not appear on the gravestone. Mr Sutcliffe: "I remember seeing them." He also said that he had looked at other graves in the vicinity of that particular one.

(The gravestone of Bronislaw Zapolski. From the above exchange, it appears that the photograph Peter Sutcliffe was shown did not display any part of the lower section of the gravestone which contains the words "POKOJ JEGO DUSZY")
(Photo credit: Guy Hatton, 2001)

When asked whether anyone else was working with him at the time, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "No, I was digging on my own."

Mr Chadwin: "What effect did all this have on you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "It had a terrific impact on me. I went down the slope after standing there for a while. It was starting to rain. I remember going to the top of the slope overlooking the valley and I felt as though I had just experienced something fantastic. I looked across the valley and all around and thought of heaven and earth and how insignificant we all are. But I felt so important at the moment."

Mr Chadwin: "As a result of that experience, you felt important. Why did you feel important?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because I felt for some reason I had been chosen to hear the words of God."

Mr Chadwin: "What at that time, if anything, was being said to you in any words you heard?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I could not tell at all. I had no idea what was being said."

When Mr Chadwin asked what he thought about that, Mr Sutcliffe answered: "It was not the context of what was said, it was how it was said. It was so real, yet it was so unreal in quality."

Mr Chadwin asked whether he told anyone of his experiences. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I told no-one because I thought that if it was meant for everyone to hear they would hear. I felt I had been selected."

When Mr Chadwin asked whether he knew why he had been selected, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "No."

Mr Sutcliffe said he had been a regular church-goer during his school life and for about two years afterwards. He followed the Roman Catholic faith. In response to a question from the judge, he stated that he was interested in religion between the ages of 15 1/2 and 17 1/2. As well, he had been an altar-server for three years. He first heard the voices when he was approximately age 20.

Mr Chadwin: "Did it puzzle you why you were selected when you weren't active in any religious way?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes, it served to create even more puzzlement."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you find any answer?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No. I tried but I couldn't find any reason why I should have been selected."

Mr Chadwin: "Who did you think that voice had come from?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I thought it was the voice of God."

Mr Chadwin: "At any stage from that incident until now have you changed your mind about that?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Chadwin: "Have you ever stopped thinking that it was the voice of God?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I have stopped thinking that on several occasions for maybe a day or two, but never more than that. Then I got very depressed, especially if I read in the newspapers where somebody was supposed to be innocent and I had killed them. I had been quite convinced by the message I received that they were prostitutes. I would be very depressed by this, but had advice during the depression which lifted me out of the depression and I thought I was all right and I wasn't wrong. God didn't make mistakes and the newspapers did."

Mr Sutcliffe said that he had met Sonia, whom he later married, on St. Valentine's Day, 1967, when she was 16 and attending Grange grammar school, Bradford. He saw Sonia at the weekends after he first met her. Mr Sutcliffe: "I did not go to her home for the first few months. I used to see her on Saturday and spent half the day and the evening with her."

When asked whether he had any contact with any prostitute at this stage of his life, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "No." He said he had no interest in prostitutes and was really not aware of the red-light areas.

Asked whether his relationship with Sonia was happy at that time, Mr Sutcliffe replied that it was. Five months after they had met, Sonia left school to go to Bradford Technical College for A-level studies. It was while she was there that something happened which first caused any trouble between them. Mr Sutcliffe: "It was an involvement with another man. I was informed about it by my brother."

When asked if he had believed his brother, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Yes, I had no reason to think that he would deceive me."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you raise the matter with Sonia?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes. I was working on contract with the waterworks and had an assistant with me who did not understand very much about the workings of the job. I had arranged to leave early that day to catch Sonia coming out of the tech." The other man had taken advantage of the fact that Mr Sutcliffe could not meet Sonia during the week.

Mr Sutcliffe: "I wanted to catch her before she got home and before she got into his company again. I left early and unfortunately there was a disaster at the waterworks which nearly drowned several men through the assistant. I was blamed for that, although they said I could leave at the time suggested. I caught Sonia going down the road. I approached her but she walked the other way as if shocked to see me, so I knew what I had heard was true."

Mr Sutcliffe confronted Sonia about what he had been told of her relationship with the other man. They had argued all the way to her home. Mr Chadwin: "Did you resolve this argument by the time she got home." Mr Sutcliffe said they had not, nothing had been settled, and: "we just parted."

Asked what had happened about his absence from work on that occasion, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I was asked to go to the head office for a meeting with the water works chief." Subsequently, he had been demoted for leaving his post.

Mr Sutcliffe said that he was depressed because of the situation between himself and Sonia. His depression was also a result of an earlier motorcycle accident. He said that his depression dated back to 1965 or 1966. He also said that he did not recalled suffering from depression before that time.

Mr Sutcliffe said that the motorcycle accident was a result of a tyre having been partly let down: "after some trouble with a coach-load of engineers." As a result, the motorcycle skidded and he hit a lamp-post head-first.

When asked by Mr Chadwin how long it took before the situation was resolve with Sonia, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "It was resolved eventually when she gave me her word that she was not going to see this chap any more."

Mr Sutcliffe said that approximately six months elapsed between the time they first quarrelled and when she gave her promise. He also said that during that time he had been very depressed at first. Mr Sutcliffe: "I was so depressed, in fact, that this led to my first encounter with a prostitute."

Mr Justice Boreham inquired whether, in the end, Sonia had admitted she was seeing this other man. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "She was seeing him, yes."

Mr Justice Boreham: "And you wanted her not to see him, is that the sum total of it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Sutcliffe also stated that prior to that incident he had not had any encounters with prostitutes.

Mr Chadwin: "The quarrel with Sonia led to that encounter?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "It did. I could not resolve the situation, no matter how I tried, because I saw her once a week and he was meeting her twice or three times during the week. When I saw her at weekends, she would tell me where she had been with him and I gathered that it must have been two or three times she had been with him. The only times I saw her was on Saturdays and we used to end up arguing."

Mr Sutcliffe, when asked why this had led to his first prostitute, replied: "I didn't know where I stood at all." He had been blaming Sonia and was suspecting that the relationship with the other man was not just platonic, that something more was going on. He had asked whether anything more was going on, as he was sure it was. He hadn't wanted to blame her, and decided his only way out was to do it himself.

Mr Sutcliffe: "So I got involved with my first prostitute. By this time I knew there were prostitutes operating in Manningham Lane, Bradford, because I'd seen them blatantly along the road. I approached one and she agreed to get into the car. We were on the way to her place and I realised what a coarse and vulgar person she was. By this time we were practically there and I realised I didn't want anything to do with her. Before getting out of the car I was trying to wriggle out of the situation, but I felt stupid as well."

(Mr Sutcliffe:) "We went into the house and when she got into the bedroom she started taking her clothes off. She had told me it was £5 and when we were in the car I gave her a £10 note. She had told me that when we got to her place she would change it, but she started getting undressed and I asked her if she was going to change it. She said 'No' without looking at me. I said to her: 'We'll call it off then,' because I was only too glad to call it off. She didn't want to call it off and said we could get the note changed at the garage where I picked her up."

(Mr Sutcliffe:) "We went back to the garage by car and she went inside and there were two chaps in there. I don't know whether she did this regularly, but she wouldn't come back out. One of the men came banging on the car roof when I refused to go away and the other escorted her away. There wasn't much I could do about it, but I was a bit annoyed and drove off."

Mr Chadwin asked whether it was a case of being out of pocket and having nothing to show for it. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "It wasn't just the money. It was the fact that I felt annoyed because I wanted to resolve the situation with Sonia and hadn't done. It made me feel worse than ever."

When asked why he felt worse than ever, Sutcliffe replied: "Because I thought I had got involved with someone like that in that way."

When Mr Chadwin asked if he had any strong feelings about prostitutes, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "No." He also had not had any desire to harm prostitutes up until that point.

Mr Chadwin: "You said you felt not only had you lost your money but that you felt worse because of the way you felt about Sonia?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "That is right. I felt more depressed as I felt I would feel better and that it would put me in a better frame of mind - but it had an adverse effect."

Mr Sutcliffe said that he would get so depressed he didn't think he could go on with anything, and then he would received messages from the voice. Mr Sutcliffe: "Then I would get reassurance and was brought back to a state where I felt all right."

Mr Sutcliffe said that he had received hundreds of messages from the voice. Mr Sutcliffe: "Soon after this incident my attitude towards prostitutes changed."

When asked by Mr Chadwin about the connection of the voices to his change in attitude towards prostitutes, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I heard a voice which kept saying I had got to go on with a mission and it had a purpose. It was to remove the prostitutes. To get rid of them."

Mr Chadwin asked him when he had got the message of a mission or purpose. Mr Sutcliffe said it was during the episode with Sonia and the other man, who was an Italian. When asked to explain what he meant, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "When I was depressed, when she was involved with this man, I had the incident with the prostitute in Manningham Lane. It went worse and I felt worse than ever. I went home and I was really feeling bad. I felt so depressed that I was reassured again."

Asked what had reassured him, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "This is what I believed was the voice of God saying it was prostitutes who were responsible for all these problems."

About two or three weeks later, Mr Sutcliffe saw the same prostitute with another woman, who he assumed was also a prostitute, in a Bradford public house. Mr Sutcliffe: "The two were talking to men in the pub and acting in the way you expect prostitutes to act. I went and approached the one I had been with three weeks earlier and told her that I hadn't forgotten about the incident and that she could put things right so that there would be no hard feelings. I was giving her the opportunity to put things right and give back the payment I had made to her. She thought that this was a huge joke and, as luck would have it, she knew everybody in the place and went round telling them all about the incident. Before I knew what was happening most of the people were having a good laugh."

At the time of the visit to the pub, he did not hear any voices from God. Mr Sutcliffe: "I heard it later when I was thinking all kinds of things about Sonia, perhaps not reasonable things to think about an innocent person. My mind was in turmoil and it could have passed through my mind that she was a prostitute as well, but I had reassurances that she wasn't and she was a good girl. They told me that the prostitutes were responsible for all the trouble."

He did not know what had made him believe Sonia was a prostitute. Mr Sutcliffe: "The reassurances that she wasn't one still made me think along the lines that the prostitutes were responsible for everything." Up until that point he had never attempted to harm a prostitute. Later he did attack one, with a sock containing some gravel, in Manningham Lane, Bradford. That attack took place between one and four weeks after the incident in the pub.

Mr Chadwin asked why he had attacked the prostitute. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I was attempting to kill her."

Mr Chadwin: "Why?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because it was what I had to do. It was my mission."

Mr Chadwin: "Why?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because I had been told they were the scum of the earth and had to be got rid of."

Mr Chadwin: "Who had told you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "God."

Mr Chadwin: "How did the message come to you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Exactly as I just said. The same voice that I had been hearing for a matter of years."

When asked how he knew the woman was a prostitute, Mr Sutcliffe answered: "Because she was walking slowly along the kerb, looking at cars across the road. I think I was accompanied by another man."

When told he did not need to be coy about naming him, Mr Sutcliffe agreed that the man in question was Trevor Birdsall. Mr Sutcliffe continued: "I got out of the car, went across the road and hit her. The force of the impact tore the toe off the sock and whatever was in it came out. I went back to the car and got in it."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you enjoy striking that blow?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Sutcliffe also said that the police had spoken to him at the time about the incident, but no charges had been brought against him.

Mr Chadwin: "What did you feel about the fact that the lady whom you had hit with the sock had not pressed any charges and nothing had come of it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I felt I was not meant to be caught or punished for the attempt."

Approximately four weeks later, Mr Sutcliffe had taken a hammer into the Manningham area, where he intended to kill a prostitute. He was caught and later convicted of going equipped for theft with a hammer.

Mr Sutcliffe said that during the period from 1969 to 1975 he took no interest in the activities of prostitutes, and did not attempt to attack one until July 1975. During this period he had married Sonia, and at first they lived with her parents, and later got a home of their own.

Mr Chadwin: "How were you during that period 1969 to 1975 yourself?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Just the same. I suffered from depression. I came to live in London for a year and then I went to work on nights because I didn't like carrying on with the mission and I was in turmoil a great deal of the time."

In reply to a question from Mr Justice Boreham, Mr Sutcliffe stated he went to live in London for a year in 1970 while Sonia was at the MacMillian Teacher's Training College at Deptford. Before she finished her teacher training course he returned to Bradford and got a job at Bairds Television, Lidgett Green.

Early in 1972, Mr Sutcliffe and Sonia's family first realised that she had mental problems. Mr Sutcliffe: "It was while I was there (Bairds Television) that I got a telegram from Sonia saying 'Meet me at King's Cross station.' That was all, no time, no date, nothing. I thought there was something strange about it. So I took it to her parents. She was still their responsibility. Her father dashed off to London and found she had had a nervous breakdown and had been taken to Bexley (a mental hospital)."

The full implications of the telegram were brought home to him the next time he saw Sonia. He had last seen her a week before and she had been highly excited and agitated, as well as having lost about a stone of weight. When he saw her at Linfield Mount Hospital in Bradford, all the colour had gone from her face. Mr Sutcliffe: "She just looked grey. She looked terrible."

Mr Sutcliffe said that Sonia's parents had advised him not to see her. She was taking tablets and had started to put on a great deal of weight. He had not recognised her as the person he used to know, as she had lost her personality altogether. Sonia received treatment for about two or three months, and then she suffered a relapse. By the time they got married, that episode was over.

Mr Sutcliffe was asked by Mr Chadwin whether he was happy with Sonia. Mr Sutcliffe : "Very much so, yes."

After they were first married they lived with Sonia's parents, which Mr Sutcliffe said was "difficult." He kept suggesting that they should find somewhere on their own and move out. However, Sonia's mother insisted they should stay there and save for a house of their own.

Mr Chadwin asked whether between years 1969 and 1975 he had any doubts in his mind or asked himself about the mission. Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes. Why it should be me that did it because I found it so difficult. When I went to live in London, I saw Sonia practically all the time and it never had the chance to get on top of me. Then, I went to work nights for about three years and this kept me busy every night, and at weekends I saw Sonia, so I was able to overcome it."

Mr Justice Boreham: "In London, when you were seeing Sonia, you still got messages and resisted them, or what?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I didn't see any prostitutes."

Mr Sutcliffe said that he had taken a night job to keep away from his problem, and that he did nothing to prostitutes from September 1969 until 1975. Mr Sutcliffe: "There was a voluntary redundancy scheme at work and I accepted that so I was no longer on nights and I did the attack. I took the job on nights to keep myself away from the problem and having taken voluntary redundancy... it just became possible for me to carry on."

In reply to Mr Chadwin's question about whether he heard any voices in 1975, Mr Sutcliffe said: "Yes. Before the attack on Anna Rogulskyj and during the time I worked on nights. They kept reminding me that I had a mission and wanted to know why I was on nights. I knew why I was on nights and stayed there as long as possible. The voice reminded me where I had to go next. I went in my car. I was told again that this was the night to go. It was about two days after hearing the first voice. I went there and it culminated in the attack on Anna Rogulskyj."

Mr Sutcliffe had taken a hammer and knife with him "with the purpose to killing a prostitute." He had hit Anna Rogulskyj on the head, but had been disturbed by someone on the road. He did not think he had stabbed her.

Mr Sutcliffe was questioned about his attack on Olive Smelt in Halifax in 1975. He was asked why he had gone to Halifax. Mr Sutcliffe: "I went with Trevor Birdsall. We went for a couple of drinks. In one of the public houses I had seen her and on the way back, I saw her again. I said to Trevor that is a prostitute we saw in the public house."

After he stopped the car, he got out and followed her down the street, and then hit her. Mr Sutcliffe: "She fell down. I was going to kill her. I had the knife with me at that time. I was going to kill her, but I did not get the chance." He had been disturbed by a car.

Mr Sutcliffe stated that earlier in the night he had very strong feelings that he must kill a prostitute. These feelings did not subside as he hoped they would: "Consequently, I did it with Trevor still in the car. I knew it was my mission. I heard voices - echoes. Sometimes it was the voice, sometimes an echo, sometimes it was very clear, sometimes not."

Mr Chadwin: "I have dealt with the first two out of 20 incidents. The next one, two-and-a-half months later, was the first time you had killed. Did you go out intending to kill a prostitute that night?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

When asked why, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "The same reason as before. I was reminded it was my mission. It had to be done, so I went."

Mr Chadwin: "This time you did kill."

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you enjoy striking the blows you struck?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Chadwin: "How did you feel about the physical act of striking those blows?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I found it very difficult, and I couldn't restrain myself. I could not do anything to stop myself."

Mr Chadwin: "Why could you not stop yourself?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because it was God who was controlling me."

Mr Chadwin: "How was he doing that?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Before doing it, I had to go through a terrible stage each time. I was in absolute turmoil, I was doing everything I could do to fight it off, and asked why it should be me, until I eventually reached the stage where it was as if I was primed to do it."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you ever look forward to killing anyone with pleasure?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No, certainly not."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you ever try to resist what you had been told to do?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "There was one time. It is not in the records because nothing happened. I was on my way to the Leeds red-light area. I got halfway there and I was still in turmoil. I do not think I was quite in that state where I could possibly do it. I was arguing all the time. I was not always getting answers, and there was a lot I did not understand. I finally stopped the car, and turned it round. I was shouting in the car. I set off back and was changing up and down the gearbox. Eventually, I got back home, locked the car in the garage, and went to bed. I felt a great sense of achievement at that stage."

Mr Sutcliffe claimed that he had been advised by God how to carry out each attack and murder, except for one. He had received no instructions in regards to the murder of Yvonne Pearson. Mr Chadwin asked him why he had murdered Yvonne Pearson.

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because of the directness of what she said and the way everything happened."

Mr Chadwin: "What did that convey to you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "That it was all arranged."

Mr Chadwin: "By whom?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "By God."

Detailing the events that led up to the murder of Yvonne Pearson, Mr Sutcliffe said: "It was a sequence of events. I was simply on my way home from work at the time. As I was proceeding along Lumb Lane, a car backed out into the road. He obviously hadn't looked where he was going and I had to stop suddenly. She came straight round the same corner the car had reversed from. She tapped on the window and opened the door. It was a complete surprise to me because I wasn't looking for a prostitute at all. She said, 'Are you' - you know, having business or something. I asked her where she sprung from because it happened so suddenly. She said, 'It's good timing, or you can put it down to fate.' Unfortunately for her, I thought this was my direct signal. I had a hammer on the car floor, and she said very little after that. I took her to where she wanted to go and after I killed her I apologised. I said I was sorry and she could get up, and that she would be all right."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you think she would be able to get up?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Oh, yes. I thought if I was wrong she would be perfectly all right and she would be able to get up. She didn't and I realised it was meant to be."

Mr Chadwin said Yvonne Pearson skull was completely shattered, and that she was the worst-injured in the series of killings.

Mr Chadwin: "If that incident, so far as you were concerned, and all the other incidents, had not been arranged by God, would you have committed any of these attacks?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

The type of women Mr Sutcliffe thought he was attacking in all the cases were: "Prostitutes every time," and that he had never attacked one whom he didn't think was a prostitute.

When asked if his relationship with his wife, Sonia, had involved any violence, he replied: "No. I have taken hold of her wrists, but I never hit her. When she loses control over absolutely nothing she maybe hits me or starts kicking, but I just get hold of her wrists. She loses control quite often."

Mr Chadwin asked whether he remembered the first time that he read in the newspapers that a victim of his was not a prostitute. Mr Sutcliffe: "I am not sure - but I do remember the effect it had on me. Oh, yes, it was the MacDonald one in Leeds." He had no doubt that she was a prostitute at the time he had killed her.

Mr Chadwin: "When you read in the Press she was not, how did you feel?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I felt utterly shattered. Mentally I could not accept it. I felt terrible - full of remorse."

Once or twice he thought the woman he was attacking might not be a prostitute. Mr Sutcliffe: "But my feelings were completely overruled." When Mr Chadwin asked if he could identify these occasions, Mr Sutcliffe said that one time was the Josephine Whitaker murder in Halifax.

Mr Chadwin: "How did it come about that you entertained some doubt at the time but were reassured?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because I was walking along chatting to her, and she was telling me things which I thought sounded completely innocent - she had been to her grandma's, she had bought her a watch, and liked to go horse-riding."

Mr Sutcliffe said that at the same time he was getting advice saying: 'This is a likely tale. She is really trying to play tricks on me. She is very clever, this one.' The voice also said: 'You are not going to fall for all this.' Mr Sutcliffe said: "It resulted in the killing eventually."

Because he was being guided and protected by God, Mr Sutcliffe wasn't frightened by the search for the Yorkshire Ripper: "I was intended to go on and carry on doing it all the time."

Mr Chadwin: "Intended by whom?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "By God."

In regard to the anonymous letter the police had received from someone purporting to the man responsible, Mr Sutcliffe said: "I thought it was a diversion, so I could be left to carry on."

Mr Chadwin: "Who did you think was responsible for this diversion so you could carry on?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I thought it was an indirect act of God."

When asked by Mr Chadwin whether he remembered hearing the cassette tape with the Geordie accent, and the publicity involved, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Yes, I heard the tape as well."

He realised that many inquiries were then being made in the Wearside area. Mr Sutcliffe: "It served to take a great deal of police investigation elsewhere."

Mr Sutcliffe said that he did not have anything to do with the sending of the tape: "I don't know who sent the letters and the tape." He agreed that he had friends or acquaintances who had Wearside accents, and also said that he used to deliver steel in the area.

When asked how many times he had been interviewed by the police in connection with the attacks, Mr Sutcliffe: "I can't remember how many times the police interviewed me. So many times I have lost count." He also knew what was behind their questions and dates that they were inquiring about.

Mr Chadwin: "Did that frighten you?"

Mr Sutcliffe:"No."

Mr Chadwin: "Did you think that the net was going to close in and that you would be caught?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "It was a miracle that they didn't apprehend me earlier. They had the facts. They knew it was me. They had the facts for a long time, but then I knew why they didn't catch me."

When asked why the police had not caught him, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "The police did not catch me before because everything was in God's hands. The way I escaped, the way they went away satisfied. There was no chance of them getting me."

Mr Sutcliffe said of the police detectives: "They questioned me at work and at home. One of them said they knew it was me and that he had no doubts at all, but he did go away. He must have had doubts. Another officer said that he knew it was me and he had a picture in front of him with my bootprint on it. He had been in my car accusing me of being the Yorkshire Ripper."

He also had to climb up four big steps to get in his lorry. Mr Sutcliffe: "If he wasn't going to catch me, nobody ever would. The boots were new and the soles and the heel were quite plain to see. The pattern was the same as he had on the picture. I knew they knew it was me. I expected them to come back, really, and question me again, but they didn't. I had no option but to tell them it wasn't me. Not that it was a deliberate lie, but that the mission was more important."

Mr Chadwin then inquired about why Mr Sutcliffe had returned to the scene of the Jean Jordan killing to try and find the £5 note he had given her. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Because I was told that this would point a finger directly at me and I would be traced, and the mission would have to stop unless I retrieved it."

Mr Justice Boreham: "Who were you told by?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "By God. I thought it would probably be found and the voices told me that I ought to get it back. I was persuaded that it was perhaps better not to go back, because there were cars going in and out with prostitutes taking their clients into the allotments. I got the message that it would probably be too risky to go back, but couldn't understand why there was nothing in the news about the body being found."

Mr Sutcliffe said it seemed impossible that the body had still not been found a week after the killing: "By the following weekend, I was getting advice again to get the £5 note back. I realised the reason it had not been found was to give me the chance to go back and get the note."

Mr Sutcliffe could not find the banknote when he went back to the body. He was also eventually questioned by the police about. He had also received further advice about the banknote. Mr Sutcliffe: "If it was traced back to me, to say I knew nothing about it and it would be all right. This did happen and as it turned out, it was all right, although I could not see why I had not been discovered. But then again, God took care of the situation. I was puzzled that I did not get advice to where the £5 was when I was looking for it. I was quite often left to work things out for myself. I was not able to do so and this troubled me."

The trial was adjourned until tomorrow.

TUESDAY MAY 12 1981: PETER SUTCLIFFE, DR MILNE

James Chadwin, QC, started the day by continuing to question his client, Peter Sutcliffe. He asked Mr Sutcliffe why he had placed the weapons he was carrying against a wall in Sheffield shortly before his arrest. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Because they were obvious pointers to what my intentions were."

Mr Chadwin observed that throughout the interviews with Detective Sergeant O'Boyle, Mr Sutcliffe had not made any admissions about the offences. Mr Sutcliffe: "I did not expect to be charged with murder even when I was caught with that prostitute in Sheffield. I had confidence in God. I gave a false name and address to the police, because the fact that I had been caught in that situation had no bearing on the mission being terminated whatsoever. Even when I was transferred from Sheffield to Dewsbury I told the police lies because the point had not been reached where I could do otherwise. I was waiting and hoping that I would get advice from God."

It was not until he was later interviewed by Detective Inspector Boyle that he had admitted to being the Yorkshire Ripper. Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes, that's right."

When asked what had made him admit to being the Yorkshire Ripper, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I had just been given a signal through the police that it was time to tell them."

Mr Chadwin: "How did that come about?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I was asked if I remembered going to the wall where I had parked the car in Sheffield and I realised that this was the time to tell them, because they were saying, in other words, that they had found the weapons I had hidden."

Mr Chadwin: "I want you to explain to the jury; you have said you had been given the signal through the police that now was the time to tell them. You said through the police - from whom?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "From God."

Mr Sutcliffe was then asked if, up to that point following his arrest, he had heard any voices or had had any advice from God. Mr Sutcliffe replied that he had not.

Mr Chadwin: "At that stage, could you understand in your own mind why God was giving you a signal to tell the police?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No, I just realised that it was time to tell them everything I had done."

Mr Sutcliffe agreed that he had said to the police that he was: "glad it was over." When asked why, he replied: "Because I had been through terrible suffering all the time."

Mr Chadwin: "In what way did you suffer?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Through having to go through with the mission against my will."

Mr Sutcliffe was reminded by Mr Chadwin that, at first, he had only admitted to the police twelve killings and two attempted killings. He was asked whether he thought it would make things worse for him by admitted to all twenty attacks. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "No, not at all."

Mr Chadwin: "One thing you don't mention is the incident in Bingley cemetery. Why not?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because I thought that would lead them to find out about the mission. I didn't want them to find out about the mission. I was by no means convinced it was finished."

Asked by Mr Chadwin how he envisaged his mission would continue, Mr Sutcliffe stated: "I had no definite thoughts in that direction. I did not know how, but God was in control of the situation and anything was possible so I said nothing about the cemetery."

When Mr Sutcliffe had told the police the various places he had been employed, he had not told them about his employment at Bingley cemetery. When asked why he had not mentioned it, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I did not want them to have the faintest idea about the vision at the cemetery. I thought they would ask me all kinds of questions about why I worked there, I just thought it best to steer clear of the place altogether."

When the police asked about a cord found in his possession, Mr Sutcliffe had admitted the attack on Dr Upadhya Bandara, but not to the murder of Marguerite Walls, whom he had strangled with the cord. Mr Sutcliffe: "This was because there was so much pressure on me. But I was aware that admitting to this would probably open lots of new lines of inquiry that were nothing to do whatsoever with me and I thought I would deal with the ones which were attributed to me."

Mr Sutcliffe also said that he had not been responsible for any other killings using the method of strangulation.

Mr Sutcliffe had used the cord on Dr Bandara, but said that he could not go through with it when he attacked her. Mr Sutcliffe: "At the time I was having messages. I simply heard the word 'Stop' and I felt that way about it myself so I left the scene. I was having a conflict and found it extremely horrible, the act of strangling her. That is when I heard the word 'Stop.'"

Mr Chadwin asked about the conversation with prison officer Anthony Fitzpatrick, where he had said that an agreement had been reached to accept the plea of diminished responsibility. Mr Sutcliffe: "I simply told the truth of what I believed and what I had been informed, and that was that the prosecution had agreed to accept the plea of diminished responsibility."

In Armley Jail, while taking to Sonia, he mentioned something about how long he would be in prison. Mr Sutcliffe: "She was very upset and I thought I could try and make her forget me and start a new life. I suggested that to her, but I don't think she was prepared to do so. She was alarmed by it. I tried, against what I wanted to do, to persuade her and I said I would be serving 30 years or more and it was pointless her wasting her life, waiting for me. I could see the effect what I was saying was having on her and I couldn't go through with it, pretending I didn't care and turning her away."

Mr Chadwin asked him if he had said anything to her about spending less time in custody if he could make people believe he was mad. Mr Sutcliffe: "I said something like that, yes."

When asked how this came about, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I had seen what affect my words had on her and how distraught she was and it was my means of cheering her up that I said something to the effect of: 'Not to worry, they will probably think I was a loony or I was mad, and I would spend maybe 10 years in a loony bin."

After telling her this it had succeeded in cheering her up. She was crying and he had wiped the tears from her face and licked them. Combining that with what he had said had cheered her up. At that time he had a solicitor and had admitted a very substantial number of attacks.

Mr Chadwin: "Had you by this time any idea of the defences to the charge of murder which might be available to you?" Mr Sutcliffe replied that he had not.

Mr Chadwin: "Did you then, or at any time, have it in mind to pretend to be mad?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Chadwin: "Do you think you are mad?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Chadwin: "Do you think there is anything wrong with you mentally?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Nothing serious at all, no."

Mr Chadwin: "Do you think you will spend less time in custody if people think there is something wrong with you mentally?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No. There would be something wrong with me mentally if I thought that."

Sir Michael Havers, QC, for the Crown, then cross-examined Mr Sutcliffe and began by asking about the night of his arrest.

Sir Michael: "On the night of your arrest you picked up Miss Reivers, intending to kill her?" Mr Sutcliffe agreed that had been his intention.

Sir Michael: "Because God expected it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Sir Michael: "When did God last speak to you that night?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "When I arrived and when I picked Miss Reivers up - and on the journey with the girl in the car."

Sir Michael: "And then no more?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Sutcliffe also agreed that he had suggest that Miss Reivers run away from his car when the police arrived. He also agreed that it was his instinct to protect himself that led him to say he had gone to urinate, when he was in fact hiding weapons behind a oil storage tank, and to make an excuse to go to the lavatory on arrival at the police station, where he again hid a weapon when he placed a knife in the cistern.

Sir Michael: "Then for a considerable time, you lied, and lied, and lied again."

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Sir Michael: "You had a ridiculous explanation about picking up people on the motorway."

Mr Sutcliffe: "Ridiculous, yes."

Sir Michael: "All to protect yourself?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "The mission."

Sir Michael: "All to protect Peter Sutcliffe?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Sir Michael then turned to the confession, which Mr Sutcliffe had given to the police when he realised that they had found the hammer and knife he had hidden. Sir Michael: "Do you understand the phrase 'bang to rights'?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "Do you understand when I say 'I have got you. I have all the evidence well and truly. The game is up'? And you say 'God told me to tell,' or was it just that you realised the game was up. Did you say you were the Ripper because you knew the game was up?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I knew it was the time to tell them."

Sir Michael: "Then, when found out, you decided to tell the truth, like any other criminal?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Like any criminal - not any other."

After receiving the message from God, Mr Sutcliffe said he had told the police everything they wanted to know.

Sir Michael: "No, Mr Sutcliffe. The police were being perfectly friendly. With God's message ringing in your ears, telling you to tell them everything, the first sentence you tell them is a lie (referring to the number of victims)."

Mr Sutcliffe: "It is, yes. I interpreted it that God said tell everything. I did not have a message."

Sir Michael: "If God's message was so clearly instructing you to tell the truth why on earth did it take you so long?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "On the contrary, I wanted to tell them as quickly as possible."

Mr Sutcliffe said that it had been "a great ordeal" for him to got through with his confession to the police. He admitted that, at first, he had not told them about the attempted murder of Dr Bandara or the murder of Miss Walls. Sir Michael picked up the piece of rope and inquired whether it was the same piece of rope he had used on both victims. Mr Sutcliffe confirmed that it was. He also said that he had had the same piece of rope with him in his Rover when with Miss Reivers. Sir Michael then pointed out that he also had a hammer and knife. Sir Michael: "You were keeping your options open."

Sir Michael then questioned Mr Sutcliffe about the time he had first heard the voices when he was working as a grave-digger at Bingley cemetery, and how Mr Sutcliffe had described being "transfixed" by the voice and felt he had been chosen to her the words of God.

Sir Michael: "At this time Sonia was your girlfriend. Were you in love with her?" Mr Sutcliffe replied that he was, and that he trusted her.

Mr Sutcliffe also agreed that he was devoted to his mother, who was still alive at the time. He also stated that he was a lapsed Catholic at the time, so there was not a priest he could go to. He also stated that he did have a best friend, Eric Robinson.

Sir Michael: "This was the most stunning thing in your life and you did not tell Sonia?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "You didn't tell your devoted mother?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "You didn't tell anyone until years and years had gone by and then you told them on the eighth interview in Armley Jail?" Mr Sutcliffe agreed with Sir Michael that "it is very odd".

When Sir Michael asked why had he not mentioned a word about it during his otherwise exhaustive confessions to the police, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Because I was waiting for a direct message saying that it was over, to fully convince me that the mission was terminated."

Sir Michael: "What you are saying is that you had to have a 'mission finished' or 'mission terminated' signal? Did you ever get that?" Sutcliffe replied that he hadn't.

Mr Justice Boreham: "Do you mean never? You still haven't had it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "To this day you believe you are an agent for God in a mission only partly fulfilled?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Sutcliffe also said that he hadn't realised that he had mentioned to the doctors the mission until "shortly afterwards."

Sir Michael: "What was so secret about this marvellous message?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "The first two years were the best. There were no signs of purpose or why I had been chosen to be here. None whatsoever."

Sir Michael: "Then there was nothing to be ashamed of in telling Sonia, your mother, your priest or anyone."

When Sir Michael asked what the words of the first message were, Mr Sutcliffe replied that he hadn't heard them. Sir Michael: "The first time the line was clear, what was said?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "That I should have faith and that I should believe and that there was no need to be so depressed."

Sir Michael: "Should that not have encouraged you to go back to the Catholic faith?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No, because I had been chosen when I was out of faith."

Sir Michael:"But you have gone back now?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes"

Sir Michael: "So for all these years, this great miracle - to you it must have been a miracle - was kept entirely to yourself?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes".

Sir Michael asked Mr Sutcliffe about his Catholic upbringing, and Mr Sutcliffe agreed that he had learned about a great range of miracles involving: "healing, restoring faith, comforting in sickness, and in loss."

Sir Michael: "When did it first pass your mind that the God you were in touch with was very evil, quite contrary to the sort of miracles you had been told about as a Catholic boy?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "It seemed similar to the contradiction between the Old Testament and the New."

Sir Michael: "It must have been a great experience, this miracle - and you were transfixed - suddenly turns out to be instructing you to become a murderer?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Sir Michael: "After you had been taunted by a prostitute, the first one you had met, you developed a hatred for her and her kind, that is a fact." Mr Sutcliffe agreed.

Sir Michael: "So God very conveniently jumped on the bandwagon after that and said: 'You have a divine mission, young Peter, to stalk the red-light districts and avenge me by killing prostitutes?'"

Mr Sutcliffe: "It is a very colourful speech, sir, but it does not apply."

Sir Michael asked whether he realised that his divine purpose in life had come about after he had been short-changed by a prostitute. Mr Sutcliffe added: "And the incident with Sonia."

Sir Michael: "After you began to hate prostitutes."

Mr Sutcliffe: "No, I do not hate prostitutes."

Sir Michael: "But you were pretty cross, especially after she taunted you - you came out frustrated and tormented?"

Mr Sutcliffe:"Yes."

Sir Michael: "Humiliated, outraged and embarrassed?"

Mr Sutcliffe:"That is what I said."

Sir Michael: "God had not spoken to you then."

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael said that, by his answers, he was saying that he hated prostitutes before God had spoken to him about his mission. Sir Michael: "When forced to accept that you hate prostitutes, God comes to the rescue as far as this case is concerned?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "That is after the incident when I got into a very depressed condition."

When asked whether he had seen a doctor about his condition, Mr Sutcliffe said that he had not.

Mr Sutcliffe also said that he remembered that he told one of the doctors about becoming unconscious and falling down, and that his wife had given him artifical respiration. He said that the incident had taken place probably in 1978 or 1979.

Mr Sutcliffe also agreed that he had given different answers to doctors about the length of time he had been unconscious at the time of his motorcycle accident. He denied that he was making it up to persuade doctors that he was "loony."

Sir Michael asked Mr Sutcliffe whether the blackouts he suffered where of significant importance that it had made him got see a doctor. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "No. I was frightened of going to the doctor's."

Sir Michael said that he could have told the doctors he had been in a motorcycle accident and could have told them he suffered blackouts and depression. Why was he frightened? Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I was in control. I thought to go to the doctor's would probably result in a brain operation or something like that which I did not want."

Sir Michael: "I suppose you read newspapers?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I get a daily yes - the Daily Mail."

Sir Michael: "They covered the Ripper murders pretty heavily?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "They had items, yes."

When asked what sort of man the newspapers were making the Ripper out to be, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "They made him out to be a monster. Oh, a terrible thing."

Sir Michael: "Did you read articles which seemed almost unanimous that the Ripper had a loathing of prostitutes?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

When asked when he had realised that there could be a special defence involving his state of mind, Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I can't be sure exactly."

Sir Michael said that Mr Sutcliffe must have heard about such a defence within a few days after being arrested. Sir Michael: "You were telling your wife on January 8 that you were expected to get 30 years in prison but if you could convince people you were mad then it would be 10 years in a 'loony bin.'"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I said that quite openly."

Sir Michael asked how he knew that. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "I couldn't possibly know I would get 10 years in a 'loony bin'. The sole reason was to cheer her up and bring her out of a depression. I tried to comfort her, to tell her things weren't that bad. I didn't like to see her crying."

Sir Michael: "You are over 30 years of age, you read newspapers, you have a higher than average intelligence, and you have been murdering and attempting to murder people for years. There has been endless talk in pieces in the newspapers. Are you going now to turn round and tell members of the jury that on January 8 you had no idea what you were talking about?"

Mr Sutcliffe turned to the jury and said: "Yes, I had no idea it would be less if I got sent to the loony bin."

Sir Michael said that when Mr Sutcliffe had spoken to a prison officer on April 5th, he had been cocky and arrogant.

Mr Sutcliffe: "I can see why he thought I was arrogant." He also said that his solicitor had told him that the plea of diminished responsibility had been accepted.

Sir Michael: "You can take it from me that there was no agreement of any kind."

Mr Sutcliffe: "I was told that the doctors were agreed. My solicitor said that the doctors for the prosecution had agreed."

Sir Michael asked Mr Sutcliffe what sort of symptoms his wife, Sonia, had when she was suffering from schizophrenia. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "She told me later that she thought all the machinery was stopping and the world was coming to an end."

Sir Michael asked in Sonia had ever if Sonia ever hallucinated. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Yes, if you call that a hallucination." He also said that, because of her illness, Sonia had not been able to work for three years.

Sir Michael asked Mr Sutcliffe to explain the different versions of the attack on Wilma McCann. Mr Sutcliffe had told police that he had killed her because he had lost his temper, while telling the doctors he had left home with the purpose of killing a prostitute and that he always intended to kill her. Sir Michael: "Was it because you realised that what you had said about McCann would not be of much help to you if you wanted to pull the wool over the doctor's eyes?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No. That wasn't the reason." Mr Sutcliffe explained that he had not been telling the whole truth when he had been talking to the police.

Mr Sutcliffe denied that he had heard about the case of Mark Rowntree, who had been sent to Broadmoor after being found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and asking prison officers if he was at all like Mr Rowntree.

Sir Michael said that Mr Sutcliffe, having decided to persuade the doctors he was mental ill and that the series of attacks and murders was part of a mission, knew that the mission story would collapse if he admitted to the doctors that five or six of the women he attacked he knew were not prostitutes. Sir Michael: "Is that why you had to maintain through thick and thin in the face of the clearest evidence that these six women were prostitutes?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No, I knew when I did it that each one was."

Sir Michael: "Your story would have gone straight down the drain if you had to say to the doctors that six of them were not prostitutes?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "It is not a story, sir."

Sir Michael: "But the mission requires them to be prostitutes."

Mr Sutcliffe: "It didn't require them to be, they were."

Sir Michael then referred to the statement Mr Sutcliffe made to the police about the killing of Josephine Whitaker and the phrase: "I realised she was not a prostitute," when he attacked her. Sir Michael: "Had you got to the stage where your lust for killing meant that everybody that you saw, if in a quiet spot, could meet their death at your hands?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No." He also explained that he told the police that because he: "couldn't divulge anything else." He had believed that she wasn't a prostitute until he received a message that she was one and not to believe what she was saying to him.

Sir Michael also referred to Mr Sutcliffe statement that shortly before killing Miss Whitaker he had said to her: "You can't trust anyone these days." Sir Michael: "Can you think of a more horrible and cynical thing to say to someone you were just about to murder?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "Why did you say it?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because I couldn't trust myself."

Sir Michael: "You were trying to convince her she was safe with you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes, in a sense."

Sir Michael: "Did God tell you to do that?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "It was a bit of private enterprise on your part, was it?"

Mr Sutcliffe agreed that his confession to the police about the attack on Miss Whitaker was of "a cold-blooded, calculated, sadistic murderer." He also agreed that he had asked her to look at the time on a clock to get her to stop, and had feigned poor eye sight himself.

Sir Michael: "Was this a sort of macabre play-acting while you got her jockeyed into the right position?" Mr Sutcliffe conceded that it was, and insisted that God had been giving him detailed instruction while it was taking place.

Sir Michael: "Did God tell you to tell that poor girl to look at the church clock?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Sir Michael: "Did God instruct you as far as Yvonne Pearson and the horsehair was concerned? Did he tell you to hide behind the garden wall when you were escaping after attacking Theresa Sykes? "

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Mr Justice Boreham: "Did you need God to tell you that unless you did hide you might be caught?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Maybe, maybe not. I am not sure."

Sir Michael: "When Yvonne Pearson was lying there gurgling and moaning and there was someone in a car nearby, with your high average intelligence you must have known you were in danger of being caught. You don't need God to tell you to ram it (the horsehair) down her throat?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "Did God tell you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Mr Sutcliffe admitted that he removed some of his victim's clothes once they were unconscious, but it was only so that they "would not hinder" him while he stabbed his victim. It was also "to show them for what they were." He denied that there was anything sexual in his actions.

Sir Michael said that Mr Sutcliffe had sometimes inserted his knife several times into the same wound. Sir Michael: "Do you realise how difficult it must have been to do that?" Mr Sutcliffe denied that he had done it.

When Sir Michael began to read from a pathologist's report, Mr Sutcliffe interrupted and said that he might have moved a knife about inside a wound. Sir Michael: "It hasn't been challenged, Mr Sutcliffe, by your very experienced leading counsel."

Mr Sutcliffe denied that he had stabbed his victims "in areas of sexual attraction in order to get sexual gratification" such as the breasts, and one victim in the vagina. When asked why he had placed a piece of wood against Emily Jackson's vagina, Mr Sutcliffe replied that he was: "just pushing her out of sight with it. I pushed her with it because I could not bear to touch her again."

Sir Michael: "How did you use this rusted old screwdriver, that has been sharpened to a hideous point, to stab Josephine Whitaker through the same wound three times. How can you get that into the same place three times?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "By moving it about."

Sir Michael: "Your case throughout has been: no sexual gratification, not doing it for lust or anything like that."

Sir Michael then moved on to the case of Helen Rytka. Sir Michael: "You say you feel contaminated by the blood of a victim. You talk about your mission, and then surprise, surprise, here's pretty little Helen Rytka and you have sex with her. Why?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I didn't have sex. I entered her, but there was no action. It was to persuade her that everything would be all right." Mr Sutcliffe said that he had had no choice, it had been important to keep her quiet due to the nearby taxi drivers.

Sir Michael: "Of course you had a choice. God didn't tell you to put your penis in that girl's vagina."

Sir Michael asked about the stabbing of Jacqueline Hill in the eye with his screwdriver, and want to know why he had done it. Mr Sutcliffe replied that her eyes had been: "staring at him accusingly."

Sir Michael: "You are not going to tell the jury she was not entitled to look accusingly at you?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I don't know. I think she was already dead but her eyes were open."

Sir Michael: "Do you have any regrets about what you did to her eyes?" There was no response from Mr Sutcliffe to the question. Sir Michael: "Do you find that a difficult question to answer?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes."

Sir Michael: "Is it difficult because you are not quite sure which is the right answer to give for the jury and the doctors?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "You are much quicker than I am, sir, I have not considered this at all."

Sir Michael: "Did it matter whether she was giving you an accusing look? You had God on your side. She was a mere mortal who you were about to take off the face of the earth."

Mr Sutcliffe: "Despite being told what to do, still partly inside I feel guilty."

Sir Michael: "So you felt sorry about what you were doing? I'm sure you don't want to say that you enjoyed it."

Sir Michael: "Did it occur to you that God is meant to be merciful and you are killing people in a painful way?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I'm quite sure that the ways I killed them meant they never knew anything."

Sir Michael: "You mean to say that your victims never felt anything at they were lying there moaning, groaning, gurgling, a screwdriver in the eye, stabbed, and one disembowelling?"

Sir Michael then asked if Mr Sutcliffe had ever had a favourite dog or cat, and: "would you have ever killed them in any of the ways you killed these women?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael said that Mr Sutcliffe's occasional ability to resist the commands of the voice, his choice of sites, and his quick thinking and play-acting during the events of the attacks, all suggested that he had a great capacity for personal control. Mr Sutcliffe denied it.

Sir Michael: "Are you saying that if the urge came over you in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, you would have done it there?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes. That's exactly what I said in my police statement."

Sir Michael then asked, repeatedly, why Mr Sutcliffe had never killed inside his car. Mr Sutcliffe replied, repeatedly, that it would be impossible because there was no room. Sir Michael persisted in the question until Mr Sutcliffe added: "They would probably make a lot of noise and there would be evidence all over the car."

Sir Michael: "That's it. Well done. Stop there. There would be blood all over your car. It would make your detection more likely. A messy job to get rid of it. That's what I am getting at: your capacity for control. Do you see?"

Mr Justice Boreham asked Mr Sutcliffe why he had tried to cut off Jean Jordan's head with a hacksaw. Mr Sutcliffe replied: "Because she was in league with the Devil and between them they had hidden the £5 note and I was going to do the same thing with her head."

Pointing out that Mr Sutcliffe had not found the £5 note, Mr Justice Boreham said: "I don't want to get into a theological argument, but are you saying that she and her colleague the Devil had beaten you and your God?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes. It seemed very much so."

Sir Michael: "Had you realised by about mid-February that you were not getting on too well in persuading these learned gentlemen that you were fit for the loony bin?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Sir Michael: "And then did you say: 'Right. We'd better pull some more aces out of the pack.' The mission was the floater and the bait on the hook was God's message, and they (the doctors) fell for it hook, line and sinker. Is that what happened?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "No."

Peter Sutcliffe was briefly re-examined by his defence counsel, James Chadwin, QC, where he again denied that he was trying to feign insanity. He also stated that he had never been told by a doctor that he would only get 10 years if in an asylum.

Mr Chadwin said that Mr Sutcliffe had told the doctors that he would kill again, if he was released. Mr Sutcliffe: "Yes, yes."

Mr Chadwin: "What is your view about that now, Mr Sutcliffe?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "I still feel the same."

Mr Chadwin: "Under what circumstances might you kill again?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "If I am allowed out."

Mr Chadwin: "Yes, but who would you kill if you were allowed out?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Prostitutes."

Mr Chadwin: "Why?"

Mr Sutcliffe: "Because I still do not believe the mission is finished."

The fist medical expert witness called by the defence was Dr Hugo Milne, a consultant psychiatrist for twenty years. He said to James Chadwin, QC, for the defence, that he had dealt with 200 homicide cases, personally examining them for both the Crown and the defence. He first saw Mr Sutcliffe on January 14th, after being instructed by the defence and had interviewed him on eleven occasions at Armley jail.

Dr Milne agreed that he had come across cases of simulation of mental illness. He had: "always been very much on my guard" about possible attempts by the defendant to persuade him that he was mentally ill. Dr Milne: "There was no evidence whatever to say he was simulating. I had been looking for this all the time, and I cannot accept that, in the sequence his symptoms were made known to me, that he could have been simulating.'

Mr Chadwin: "What conclusion did you eventually come to at the end of all your examinations?"

Dr Milne: "I do not believe that the accused is, in fact, simulating mental illness. He is suffering from schizophrenia of a paranoid type."

Mr Justice Boreham: "When you talk of simulating mental illness, do you mean simulating the symptoms and manifestations of the that illness?"

Dr Milne: "Yes, I think it is what lay people may think what madness may be."

Asked by Mr Chadwin how it was possible to diagnose paranoid schizophrenia, Dr Milne replied: "By taking into consideration not only one symptom but a series of symptoms together which eventually, like a jigsaw, complete the full picture."

Asked by Mr Justice Boreham what was meant by symptoms, Dr Milne replied: "The great difficulty is that what the individual says is very often the symptom, is in fact the sign of underlying schizophrenic disorder. If a man says that he is the king of Siam when it is patently obvious he is an ordinary office clerk, the symptom he presents is 'I am the king of Siam'. But the nigh would be that he has grandiosity."

Asked by Mr Chadwin if there were any other symptoms, apart from what the patient told the doctor, Dr Milne replied: "The way he might behave as if he was suspicious of other people's behaviour. The way he may misinterpret people's behaviour and the way he may react to what he believes."

Mr Justice Boreham: "It sounds as if you are saying that you are very much dependent upon what you are told and, rather as we in these courts, you have to test its accuracy."

The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13 1981: DR MILNE

Dr Hugo Milne, a consultant psychiatrist, returned to the stand, James Chadwin, QC, for the defence continued his questioning.

Mr Chadwin asked Dr Milne to list the signs and symptoms of Peter Sutcliffe mental illness. Dr Milne said that he had discover them at various stages during the eleven interviews that he had with Mr Sutcliffe.

Dr Milne said that part of his observations of Mr Sutcliffe's condition included suspicion, and uncontrollable impulse and paranoia concerning prostitutes. A further symptom was the preoccupation with prostitutes to the extent of delusion.

When asked by Mr Chadwin to what he was referring, Dr Milne replied: "I am referring to his phrases that have come out in court here about prostitutes being the scum of the earth, and being responsible for all sorts of problems to the extent that he could not see beyond that idea."

Another symptom observed was ideas of grandeur with special powers. Dr Milne: "By that I mean an individual who demonstrates this, believe himself or herself to have powers greater than those endowed within a normal individual."

Dr Milne also listed hallucinosis, where an individual may have experiences where they hear, see, smell, or feel something when there is no identifiable external stimulus to account for it.

Other symptoms that Dr Milne found were feelings of depression, including ideas of suicide, and ideas of reference. Dr Milne: "This is misinterpretation of that which is written, spoken or demonstrated by some form of behaviour which misinterpretation implies a different meaning to that which a normal person might apply."

When asked by Mr Chadwin to give an example of what he meant, Dr Milne replied that someone suffering from the illness might see people across the street and might immediately think that they were talking about him, or if he saw people laughing might think they were making fun of him.

Another symptom was misidentification. Dr Milne: "I use this in particular, relating to what has been given in evidence, relating to his confusion at times to identify absolutely and with certainty who and who were not his victims - that is prostitutes."

Dr Milne also mentioned over-controlled behaviour. In Mr Sutcliffe case it applied to his ability to remain completely calm in the most stressful situation, such as giving evidence. Mr Sutcliffe had also been completely calm during interviews and questioning by the police and by doctors. Dr Milne: "He always showed a tremendous degree of control, which to my mind, was to an abnormal degree"

Dr Milne also included psychotic detachment, which in Mr Sutcliffe case was his ability to detach himself from the enormity of what he had done. Schizophrenics could be both in touch and out of touch with reality, and schizophrenia was a psychosis, and a sign of which would include psychotic detachment.

Mr Justice Boreham asked Dr Milne to explain what he meant be psychosis. Dr Milne replied: "In layman's terms, it is madness, but what I wish to say is that because people might be clinically mad they are not necessarily out of contact with reality."

Dr Milne said another symptom was a lack of insight, where someone would loose touch with what he was doing, and would distance himself from it, and no longer realised he was ill.

Mr Justice Boreham: "That might imply that he doesn't realise that he is hitting someone over the head with a hammer."

Dr Milne: "No, I don't mean that. I am referring to the reason why he is doing it."

Dr Milne said that another classic sign of schizophrenia was thought argument. Dr Milne: "This was where an individual may tell you, and it may take him a long time before he does, that he is having an internal argument between his mind and his voice or a voice. He may feel torn between the two, not knowing which way to go."

Mr Justice Boreham: "You mean the voice he thinks he is hearing?"

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Dr Milne said that another side of the illness was schizophrenic thinking. This involved a person thinking illogically, where deductions from what was going on were made, and drawing illogical conclusions from them.

Dr Milne said that another sign was where a person no longer believed there was anything wrong with him. They would be completely satisfied that the experiences and behaviour caused by the illness were acceptable to himself, and therefore should be acceptable to others.

Dr Milne also said that primary schizophenic experiences were a sign of schizophrenia which was not always identifiable. Dr Milne: "It is the one the text books describe and the majority of schizophrenics are never able to describe in a clinical interview because the experience has usually happened so long ago that it is completely buried in years and other symptoms."

Another symptom Dr Milne found was religious delusion, which dealt with ideas of grandeur and special powers.

Mr Chadwin asked Dr Milne if he could detect paranoid schizophrenia merely by recognising one of the symptoms on the list. Dr Milne replied that, in his mind, the primary schizophrenic experience was: "the most crucial symptom in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. With that initially and after the other aspects relating to his delusional content and his hallucinations, and disappearance of perception - one would confirm a diagnosis of schizophrenia."

Dr Milne agreed with Mr Chadwin that an example of a delusion was like looking at a microphone and thinking it was a tree. Dr Milne also agreed that an example of a hallucination was like looking at a spot on the floor and thinking a voice was coming from it, although no-one else could hear it.

Mr Justice Boreham: "Or even if others could hear it but, in fact, there was no voice?"

With laughter from the court, Dr Milne replied: "Yes."

Mr Chadwin: "Let's grasp the nettle. It is easy for anyone to allege they have heard voices urging them to do what they have done?"

Dr Milne: "Yes, this is something frequently put to someone like myself."

Mr Chadwin: "If that allegation was made to you, would you then look to see if the experience was possible, for example, to see if there was a graveyard where the man says it is and whether he worked there. You would get a picture of a possible schizophrenic but would that be enough to convince you?"

Dr Milne: "No, it is not enough. In general terms this man has more than sufficient symptoms to make up a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia."

When asked by Mr Chadwin whether a man suffering from schizophrenia would display all the signs and symptoms at the same time, Dr Milne replied: "No."

Dr Milne said that Mr Sutcliffe's account of of his early relationship with his wife, Sonia, also had some significance due to his reaction to being told that she was interested in another man. Mr Sutcliffe seemed to have also over-exaggerated what might have been taking place. Dr Milne: "He became, if one accepts his testimony, distressed by it, distressed to the extent he walked out of a job. He seemed to see things in Sonia's behaviour in a way we know could never be borne out in fact. For example, he wondered whether she might be a prostitute."

Mr Chadwin asked Dr Milne whether he attached any significance to when Mr Sutcliffe was mocked in a public house. Dr Milne: "Many men are mocked, no doubt, by prostitutes and somewhat cheated. We do not know whether he was mocked. He thought he was mocked."

Dr Milne said that perhaps this was the beginning of Mr Sutcliffe's "ideas of reference", where he misinterpretated what prostitutes, or women who might not be prostitutes, were saying. Dr Milne said that it appeared that at a later stage Mr Sutcliffe would, based on very flimsy evidence, assume that a woman was a prostitute.

Mr Chadwin: "Would an example of that be saying a woman was a prostitute because she was wearing a split skirt?"

Dr Milne: "That is correct."

Mr Chadwin asked about the words that Mr Sutcliffe said he saw on a gravestone in Bingley cemetery, one of the words being "Eko." Dr Milne: "Once again he is trying to explain to himself what the voice might be and to help identify it. He had already said that the words were echoing and he was using the word 'Eko', which was a misidentification."

Mr Sutcliffe had also seen other foreign words on another gravestone. Dr Milne: "Translated they mean 'somebody is speaking to you.' This is a most incredible place for someone to have a primary schizophrenic experience."

Mr Chadwin: "The jury will have noticed I have in this exercise highlighted parts of the statement and the reference to this urge (to kill) becomes more marked towards the end of the statement."

Dr Milne: "He is beginning to expose that which I know to be a sign of paranoid schizophrenia. He is beginning to use more frequently the phrases that would lead to that diagnosis - that is to show more evidence of his mental illness."

Mr Chadwin then mentioned the evidence that Mr Sutcliffe had deliberately taken weapons with him when he went out to kill. Mr Chadwin: "It is suggested for the purpose of killing he created that horrible, sharpened screwdriver we have all seen. A deal of deliberation and what people might say, premeditation, of what he was going to do. Is that inconsistent with someone suffering from paranoid schizophrenia?"

Dr Milne: "Not at all." He also stated that the ability to act with premeditation and planning like that was not unusual from a person suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Dr Milne was asked if, during the first interview with Mr Sutcliffe, he had gotten anywhere near to concluding that Mr Sutcliffe was suffering from a mental illness. Dr Milne replied: "No." He also said that he had always been "very much on my guard" about possible attempts by the defendant to persuade him that he was mentally ill.

Dr Milne also said that during the January 27th interview Mr Sucliffe continued to have paranoiac ideas in relation to prostitutes. Uncontrollable impulses, in relation to the stone in sock attack in Bradford and to the attack on Olive Smelt in Halifax, were other symptoms observed.

Dr Milne said that a further interview on February 5th was of particular importance, as it was then that Mr Sutcliffe first mentioned having a mission. Dr Milne: "I didn't respond to this in the clinical sense because I wanted to avoid getting drawn into what might have been an attempt to persuade me that he was mentally ill."

Dr Milne said that the second interview had left him: "slightly suspicious that the man was not as mentally well as he might be."

When asked by Mr Chadwin about the third interview, Dr Milne replied: "If I could have detached myself from the reason I was seeing him, I would have thought that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. But because he was charged with such violent offences, I could not come to that conclusion as readily as I would have if it was someone else."

Dr Milne said that Mr Sutcliffe later told him: "I know it is wrong to kill. If you've got a good reason, it's justified and all right." When asked if he felt justified in killing, Mr Sutcliffe had replied: "Yes, I have no doubt whatsoever. I was not as rational then as now but if there were women around now it would not take long to get those thoughts again. I'm glad to be here because of the innocent people. I am not glad really because of the trouble and the family. The prostitutes are still there, even more on the streets now, they say. The mission is only partly fulfilled."

During one of the interviews Mr Sutcliffe had told Dr Milne that at the time of his last killing in November 1980, he thought lots of women were prostitutes. He also had claimed he had been at the stage when he could have gone into a town while people were shopping and attacked any woman.

When asked by Mr Chadwin how long Mr Sutcliffe had been a paranoid schizophrenic, Dr Milne said that it was since the date of the primary experience in Bingley cemetery, when he was aged 19 or 20.

Mr Chadwin asked Dr Milne whether Mr Sutcliffe could have been misleading him and simulating symptoms. Dr Milne: "There was no evidence whatever to say he was simulating. I had been looking for this all the time, and I cannot accept that in the sequence his symptoms were made know to me, that he could have been simulating."

In a later interview, Dr Milne had asked Mr Sutcliffe about religion. Mr Sutcliffe told him: "I wondered if God's purpose was to get me back into the Faith. I had been having Mass regularly and had been asked about confession."

Mr Sutcliffe had also told Dr Milne that he thought all the doctors who had seen him and diagnosed his illness were wrong. Dr Milne: "I think he thinks we are all wrong and he is right."

Dr Milne said that since his interviews he had seen Mr Sutcliffe four times, three of them after the trial began. Dr Milne: "He is quite pleased to be seen, affable, pleasant and extremely controlled."

Dr Milne said that nothing had happened to affect his opinion that Mr Sutcliffe was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Mr Chadwin: "Have you ever, in any interviews with Peter Sutcliffe, suggested to him that if he was found mentally abnormal, he would have to be kept in custody for 10 years to satisfy the public?"

Dr Milne: "Certainly not."

Mr Chadwin: "Do you believe that at intervals he has indicated if he were at liberty, he would likely kill again?"

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Mr Chadwin: "Do you regard him as dangerous?"

Dr Milne: "Not dangerous, extremely dangerous."

The trial was adjourned until tomorrow.

THURSDAY, MAY 14 1981: DR MILNE

The day began with Dr Hugo Milne, a consultant psychiatrist, being cross-examined by Mr Harry Ognall, QC, for the prosecution.

Mr Ognall began by inquiring about the symptoms of Sonia Sutcliffe's illness. After consulting the judge on the ethics of the matter, Dr Milne replied: "Sonia suffered from schizophrenia in 1972. She heard voices talking to her."

Mr Ognall: "Sonia is described as having grandiose ideas. That is what this man (Sutcliffe) has set out to display to you. This man has spoken of being in communication with the Almighty and Jesus, hasn't he?" Dr Milne agreed.

Mr Ognall: "Sonia had the delusion she was Christ, didn't she?"

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Mr Ognall: "Prison officers have told us that six days before you first saw Sutcliffe he had said: 'I'm going to do a long time in prison, 30 years or more, unless I can convince people here that I'm mad. Then I'll do 10 years in the loony bin.' What do you make of that Dr Milne, in the context of your evidence?"

Dr Milne: "I think it is a very straightforward decision to make. Is this man pretending to be mad, and has duped me and my colleagues, or am I, from my clinical examination right in saying that he is a paranoid schizophrenic? As far as I can see in particular case, either he is a competent actor, or I am an inefficient psychiatrist."

Mr Justice Boreham: "This is not for any of us to decide, it is for the jury."

Dr Milne: "Perhaps I have been duped. It is for the jury to decide."

Mr Ognall inquired why Mr Sutcliffe had told the court he was not mad, but had told the doctor that he was mentally ill. Dr Milne replied: "His mental state flucuates and so does his insight into his illness. Sometimes he would think he was mentally ill, and at times he would completely deny it."

Mr Ognall: "It is possible that he was very much on the alert as to what you and other doctors wanted to hear?"

Dr Milne: "If he knew the symptoms and signs of schizophrenia and he was as cool and calculated as he might have been, then it is possible."

Mr Ognall: "Morbid depression. That's a very learned phrase for a lorry-driver? And 'pathological hatred'. That's a rum phrase for a lorry-driver to use? He is an intelligent lorry-driver."

Dr Milne: "Yes he is." Dr Milne said tha Mr Sutcliffe had an IQ of between 108 and 110, whereas the average was between 90 and 100. While not a genius, Mr Sutcliffe was of above average intelligence.

Mr Ognall said that Mr Sutclffe was also: "articulate."

Dr Milne: "Yes.

Mr Ognall: "And astute."

Dr Milne: "He is."

Mr Ognall noted that with the timing of the attacks, exactly half of the twenty attacks had taken place on a Friday or Saturday night when Mr Sutcliffe's wife was working. Mr Ognall: "This is a man who is prompted by God, the hapless and hopeless victim of God's will. This is a man who believed he was God's instrument. Why did God direct him only on Friday and Saturday nights?"

Dr Milne replied that he didn't think God had, and that: "paranoid schizophrenics are extraordinarily cunning, extremely involved in premeditation and determined not to be found."

Mr Ognall: "A very great proportion of normal criminals are also cunning, clever and anxious not to be found. That isn't the hallmark of a schizophrenic. It is the hallmark of the normal criminal. I suggest that this pattern is a badge of a premeditated killer.

Dr Milne: "I don't accept that."

Mr Ognall said that paranoid schizophrenics often found it very difficult to relate socially with other people and progressive introspection and withdrawal, with loss of interest in friends, relations, and hobbies. Dr Milne agreed that Mr Sutcliffe had not shown a loss of drive or will, often associated with the illness, or shown any of the other symptoms Mr Ognall mentioned.

Dr Milne said that he had found three external matters which helped verify Mr Sutcliffe's account of his illness. These were photographs of Bingley cemetery, where Mr Sutcliffe claimed to have first heard God's voice, Mr Sutcliffe's own evidence, and forensic evidence that related to the injuries inflicted on Yvonne Pearson.

Dr Milne: "I don't think I can draw any other practical external matters to confirm my diagosis."

Mr Ognall: "This is all to be seen in the context that you recognise as a psychiatrist that people do sometimes often try to pull the wool over your eyes."

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Dr Milne also agreed with Mr Ognall that Mr Sutcliffe had not previously displayed signs of mental illness. Dr Milne: "Yes, I agree that my inquiries have shown that Sutcliffe never displayed to family, friends or workmates any external indications of mental disturbance."

Mr Ognall then asked about the event where Mr Sutcliffe, upon hearing that his trial had been switched to the Old Bailey from Leeds, had appeared to a prison officer to be cheerful, bright, and very pleased at the news. Mr Sutcliffe had seemed highly amused that the doctors thought he was disturbed, and told the officer: "I'm as normal as anyone."

Asked by Mr Ognall what the court was to make of that statement, Dr Milne: "Perhaps he does believe he has fooled us and he believes that we think he's mad, yet he knows he is not mad. This is a very long 'Catch 22 ' situation where he has set out to make us think he is ill. If this is so he has finished up by making us accept he is ill and now denies it. If it is a simulation it is a very incredible simulation where he has completely lost insight and does think he is normal."

Mr Ognall detailed the various explanations that Mr Sutcliffe had given for his attacks and murders. He had given explanations of Sonia having an affair with another man, being humiliated by a prostitute who had duped him out of £10, he had developed a hatred of prostitutes, and he had been given a divine mission from God. Mr Ognall suggested that Mr Sutcliffe had built up a hatred of prostitutes in order to justify why he had killed his first victim, Wilma McCann.

Dr Milne: "I believe that the most crucial thing in this matter was that he was, prior to meeting that first prostitute, pre-disposed, because he was schizophrenic. It was chance that led him to meet the prostitute because he had a row with Sonia. From that moment on it is the logical, in psychological terms, development of his illness. It might have been something else that had gone wrong and his delusions might have taken a different form."

Mr Ognall suggested that all the differing explanations Mr Sutcliffe had given could not be reconciled. Dr Milne disagreed, saying the could all 'hang together", and they described a long-standing paranoid schizophrenia and gradual loss of insight. Dr Milne: "It is an eventual admission of the full symptoms of long-standing paranoid schizophrenia."

Referring to the pattern of attacks and the gaps between them, Mr Ognall said that Mr Sutcliffe had told of having morbid depression and hallucinations and described them as being attacks. He had told police that he sometimes had two attacks a month. He would think he was all right, but the attacks would always returned. He had said the attacks did not fit any regular pattern. Mr Ognall asked whether any pattern could be discerned from Mr Sutcliffe's crimes.

Dr Milne: "This has been one thing which has occupied my thoughts before he came to trial. The only pattern that I can see that eventually makes clinical sense is that towards the end there were an increasing number of attacks. Earlier on they seemed to be much more sporadic and then a cluster. It was only in the last few months one seemed to follow another, when he became much madder."

After referring to Mr Sutcliffe's statement where he mentioned a "grudge" against prostitutes, Mr Ognall asked if this was what started things off, and where did the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia lie. Dr Milne replied that Mr Sutcliffe's hatred for prostitutes was perfectly logically developed, which had extended into delusion. This had to be accounted for to himself by identifying it, as he did, with his experience in the cemetery. If the jury did not accept that, then it did not accept Mr Sutcliffe was mentally ill.

Mr Ognall: "In reaching this conclusion were you satisfied you had all the necessary information at your disposal?"

Dr Milne: "Yes"

Dr Milne was asked whether Mr Sutcliffe had related to him the incident in 1969 when he had been caught with a hammer by his car, and subsequently charged with going equipped for theft. Dr Milne replied that Mr Sutcliffe had not informed him of the incident.

Mr Ognall: "How can you possibly say that he has not withheld information from you and has satisfied you that he has told the whole truth?"

Dr Milne: "I agree that as he lied to the police, he could have also lied to me."

Dr Milne said that during the period between 1969, when he first claimed to hear voices, and 1975 when he first killed, Mr Sutcliffe's illness may have been in some remission. As well, he may also have been closely involved with his wife, which might have diverted his underlying desire.

Commenting on Mr Sutcliffe's lack of criminal activity during the year he was in London, Mr Ognall said: "This appears to be a very local God, speaking to him in Yorkshire but not in London." Dr Milne said that Mr Sutcliffe schizophrenia might have been in a period of remission.

Mr Ognall suggested that Mr Sutcliffe was a selective liar to suit his own purposes. He had deliberately told lies to both the police and to the doctors. He had said that his first attack was on Wilma McCann when, in fact, he had attacked four times before then. Mr Ognall said that the central weakness of Dr Milne's diagnosis was that it was based almost exclusively on what Mr Sutcliffe had told him. The doctor had now admitted that he could have told him lies. Dr Milne stressed once again that he didn't feel that Mr Sutcliffe had "wilfully misled" him.

Mr Ognall: "You take the view so far as this man is concerned that there is no underlying sexual component to his homicidal attacks?" Dr Milne agreed.

Mr Ognall then pointed out that in one statement, later altered, Mr Sutcliffe pulled up the clothing of one victim in order to satisfy some sort of sexual revenge. Mr Ognall: "When you say there is no underlying sexual component, what do you mean?"

Dr Milne: "In simple terms, although his victims were female and it might be thought he might be a sexual killer, I am not of the opinion that he is primarily a sexual killer."

Suggesting that it would be a minus against Dr Milne's diagnosis if Mr Sucliffe had been disposed to mutilate his victims or show an unhealthy interest in their sexual parts, Mr Ognall asked: "If we can discern here a sexual element, that tends markedly to go against the divine mission theory, do you agree?" Dr Milne agreed.

Mr Ognall then referred to remarks in Dr Milne's report that suggested that injuries caused to Josephine Whitaker's vagina might have been accidental rather than deliberate. While holding up the seven-inch sharpened screwdriver, Mr Ognall said: "How on earth are we to reconcile the pathologist's evidence of three stab wounds deep into the vagina with what you said? There is no doubt that this wicked agent was introduced with almost no injury to the external parts of the vagina. I suggest that indicates the most fiendish cruelty, deliberately done for sexual satisfaction, do you agree?"

Dr Milne: "It may be a most vicious and foul thing to do, but not necessarily for sexual satisfaction. Mutilation of the genitalia for sadistic satisfaction would have to be repetitive, and there is no evidence, as far as I know, that this man has attacked any of the other victims in this way. There is no other evidence that he has in any way despoiled them or carried out any unnatural acts with them during the killings."

Mr Justice Boreham asked Dr Milne, if Mr Ognall was correct, would the observations made in his report would still stand. Dr Milne replied that it did not seem as accurate as it should be, and that he would withdraw the observation that it was accidental.

Asked by Mr Ognall what else the screwdriver attack could be but sexual, Dr Milne said: "It may well have been sexual."

Mr Ognall: "What else could it have been? I will have an answer."

Dr Milne: "I do not think it could have been anything else other than sexual."

Mr Ognall said that the screwdriver attack on Josephine Whitaker was not the only example, although by far the most horrendous, of a sexual component. When asked whether Mr Sutcliffe had told him that the injury had been accidental, Dr Milne replied that he had not.

Mr Ognall: "Did Peter Sutcliffe tell you there was no sexual element in the attacks?"

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Mr Ognall: "Well, that doesn't seem to be right, does it?"

Dr Milne: "No."

Mr Ognall: "He deceived you. Why did he do that?"

Dr Milne: "Perhaps he might have been very reluctant to talk about this because of what people might think of him."

Mr Ognall: "He had admitted thirteen killings and seven attempted killings. But he thought he might be worse thought of, because he stabbed one of them in the vagina? Is that a considered reply?"

Dr Milne: "It is a considered reply. He has said he never ever wanted to be seen as a sexual killer."

Mr Ognall: "I expect he has never wanted to be seen as a sexual killer because, if he puts himself forward as a sexual killer the divine mission goes out of the window. That's why, isn't it?"

Dr Milne: "It could be."

Mr Ognall: "If you were to find a number of instances of sexual molestation, the more instances you find, the more it would erode the validity of the diagnosis?"

Dr Milne: "It would lead to erosion, yes."

Mr Ognall reminded the jury of how Mr Sutcliffe had exposed, and then stabbed Jacqueline Hill's breasts. He had told the police that he did it because: "It's just something that comes over me." Mr Ognall: ''Unless I'm very naive, that betrays a specific, clear sexual element in his killing."

Dr Milne: "If you interpret it in that way, it does suggest that there may be a possible sexual component.

Dr Milne was again asked by Mr Ognall if he still thought there was no suggestion that Sutcliffe had specific sexual reasons for the killings. Dr Milne again repeated that he still did not think that Sutcliffe was a sexual sadist.

Mr Ognall then discussed the evidence of how Mr Sutcliffe had attacked Olive Smelt and then scratched her buttocks with a hacksaw blade. When asked what he made of that, Dr Milne replied:'I don't make very much of it, apart from the fact he thought she was a prostitute and I don't see any particular sexual significance, certainly not as a sexual sadist."

Mr Ognall then mentioned the Emily Jackson murder, where Mr Sutcliffe had pushed a two-foot to three-foot piece of wood against her vagina. In relation to her murder, Mr Sutcliffe had told police that he pulled her clothes up: "In order to satisfy some kind of sexual revenge as, on reflection, I had done with Wilma McCann."

Dr Milne: "If in fact you believe what he said, then it obviously could imply a sexual component."

Mr Ognall: "Helen Rytka - he had sexual intercourse with her."

Dr Milne said there was a sexual component to the murder, but it was not an abnormal act.

Mr Ognall reminded Dr Milne of Mr Sutcliffe's description of the murder of Helen Rytka, by hitting her with a hammer, having sex with her, stabbing her, and taking her clothes off. When he had sex with her after hitting her with the hammer, he complained: "She just lay there limp and didn't put much into it." Mr Ognall: "Normal?"

Dr Milne: "Not normal, no."

Mr Ognall: "Could you think of anything more obscenely abnormal than his behaviour with that unfortunate girl?"

Dr Milne: "I entirely agree with you, but I still think that this was a use of sexual behaviour for entirely the wrong reason - to avoid detection, quieten her and get away."

Mr Ognall: "Why did he have to have intercourse with her to keep her quiet? I don't suppose he could have just put his hand over her mouth?"

Dr Milne: "As he himself said, this was what the girl expected."

Mr Justice Boreham: "At that stage did she really expect it, doctor?"

Dr Milne conceded that he didn't know whether she did or not.

Mr Ognall: "Look Dr Milne, he is having intercourse with a woman who has been cruelly attacked and is near death. I ask you again - no underlying sexual component?"

Dr Milne: "A sexual component, yes."

Mr Ognall contended that the killing of Marguerite Walls also had a sexual component, in that Mr Sutcliffe had left fingernail scratches at the entrance to her vagina. Dr Milne was asked if he agreed that there was an underlying sexual component in that case. Dr Milne replied: "You may possibly be right."

Mr Ognall: "I put it to you that the injuries to these women betray quite clear sexual components in the attacks. Do you agree?"

Dr Milne:"Yes."

Mr Ognall: "This isn't a missionary of God, it is a man who gets a sexual pleasure out of killing these women."

Dr Milne: "I don't accept that."

Mr Ognall: "It is not God telling the tortured soul, 'You must kill.' It is a man who craves for it like an addict for the next shot of heroin. What he is saying is: 'I am hooked on it.'"

Dr Milne agreed when Mr Ognall suggested that the "mission to kill" was central to the diagnosis. Mr Ognall: "If there's a sexual component in the attacks, how is that to be reconciled with the divine mission simply to put their lives to an end? If the central point of the divine mission doesn't bear close analysis in the eyes of the jury, where then lies your diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia?"

Dr. Milne: "Very simply, nowhere."

Mr Justice Boreham asked Dr Milne whether any of this could come to pass without the primary schizophrenic experience. Dr Milne said that it could not.

Mr Ognall: "Without the incident at the grave this man is a murderer?" Dr Milne agreed.

Mr Ognall: "If the jury were to decide that Sutcliffe knew full well that the last six women he attacked were not prostitutes, then the divine mission to kill prostitutes as a theory lies in smithereens?"

Dr Milne: "I agree. If he knew they weren't prostitutes, and killed them knowing they were not, then the diagnosis fails."

Mr Ognall: "He then becomes a murderer."

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Mr Ognall then mentioned the comments Mr Sutcliffe had made after the Vera Millward murder. Mr Ognall: "I would put this to you, as he said himself to the police: 'There was a compulsion inside me. Sometimes it would lie dormant but eventually it would come welling up, and each time they were more random and indiscriminate. I now realise I had the urge to kill any woman.' This is what the circumstances of those six killings show, isn't it?"

Dr Milne: "I do not agree."

Mr Sutcliffe had also said he had driven round aimlessly before he killed Josephine Whitaker: "The mood was in me and no woman was safe." Mr Sutcliffe had also said: "I realised she wasn't a prostitute but at that time I wasn't bothered. I just wanted to kill a woman." Mr Sutcliffe had completely changed his method of operation for the last six victims, instead of going to red-light areas and luring prostitutes into his car, he had driven to isolated spots, parked, and attacked innocent women. Dr Ognall asked Dr Milne why Mr Sutcliffe last victims were not prostitutes and had not been lured into his car in the same way as his earlier killings.

Dr Milne: "It was a change of behaviour, a sign of Sutcliffe's increasing madness."

Mr Ognall: "I suggest that the circumstances of these last six killings show this man, with compelling clarity, to be a liar and a fake." Dr Milne said he did not agree.

The trial was adjourned until tomorrow.

FRIDAY, MAY 15 1981: DR MILNE, DR MacCULLOCH

The day began with the resumed cross-examination of Dr Hugo Milne, a consultant psychiatrist, by Harry Ognall, QC, for the prosecution.

Mr Ognall said that Mr Sutcliffe's experience in the Bingley cemetery fifteen years previous, where he claimed to have heard a message, had never been disclosed to anyone until after his arrest when he spoke to psychiatrists. Mr Ognall asked whether it was possible that, due to the type of questions that Mr Sutcliffe was asked by the different psychiatrists, he had been prompted into talking about some sort of message. Therefore, it could have been "planted" in his mind by those who were questioning him.

Dr Milne stated that he always recognised that Mr Sutcliffe might be trying to convince the doctors that he was ill when perhaps he was not.

Mr Ognall: "He could have been deliberately trying to deceive you."

Dr Milne: "Yes."

Replying to another question by Mr Ognall, Dr Milne said: "Yes, he could have learned 'ideas of reference' and learned some of the symptoms from Sonia's mental illness but I do not believe that anyone could learn schizophrenic thinking."

Dr Milne also said that, from his 29 years of experience, he would have expected that someone who was trying to simulate schizophrenia would show some outwards symptoms, for example, jumbled speech, irrational behaviour, excessive moving or running about, or frequent dressing and undressing.

Dr Milne also noted that Sonia Sutcliffe during her illness had at times been violent, agressive, restless, and would often dress and undress at inappropriate times. Despite the fact that Mr Sutcliffe had probably seen this type of behaviour in his wife during her illness, he himself had displayed none of these signs.

Mr Ognall said of Mr Sutcliffe: "That man is one who has set out deliberately to deceive the doctors as to his mental state, because rightly or wrongly he confidently believes that it may be to his enormous advantage to be convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility."

Dr Milne agreed with Mr Ognall that many men who killed repeatedly were not necessarily suffering from a mental abnormality or from diminished responsibilty. Dr Milne: "I am not saying because someone is a multiple killer that it would point to schizophrenia or any other abnormality."

Dr Milne did say that, having diagnosed Mr Sutcliffe as a paranoid schizophrenic, he did believe that Mr Sutcliffe fell into the category of diminished responsibility.

The next witness for the defence was Dr Malcolm MacCulloch, medical director of Park Lane special hospital in Liverpool, who was questioned by by James Chadwin, QC, for the defence.

Mr Chadwin: "What in your opinion was his mental condition at the time of the killings in this case?"

Dr MacCulloch: "He was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia."

Dr MacCulloch told the court he had interviewed Mr Sutcliffe on three occasions in Armley jail. Dr MacCulloch: "I concluded within half an hour of my first meeting with him that he was suffering from schizophrenia of the paranoid type."

Dr MacCulloch added that he had continued to check the diagnosis, and still had the same opinion. He also stated that nothing he had heard in court had caused him to change his mind.

Dr MacCulloch said that in some cases of the illness there were also external signs, such as certain kinds of movement or expression. In other cases no such external signs were evident, even during examinations lasting ten hours. Dr MacCulloch: "As far as I am concerned there were no external signs on Peter Sutcliffe when I saw him on three occasions in Armley prison."

Dr MacCulloch said that he had been observing Mr Sutcliffe during the trial, and had noticed that he had displayed certain signs which were immediately consistent with his schizophrenia. He said that one such sign was Mr Sutcliffe's persistent and repeated looking up, on approximately thirty-eight occasions, to the same spot, a light cluster about ten feet above Mr Justice Boreham's head.

Dr MacCulloch also said that he had noted Mr Sutcliffe's abnormal lack if emotion, especially during heated exchanges about the weapons he had used and the wounds that he had inflicted on his victims. Dr MacCulloch: "I think he has appeared unduly passive in his expression. I don't put that forward as a diagnostic sign, but it is consistent with someone suffering paranoid schizophrenia."

When he first met Mr Sutcliffe, Dr MacCulloch had expected to find a man suffering from an abnormality of personality, as well as some sort of sexual deviation. While the possibility of schizophrenia was also in his mind, it was on a much lower level of probability.

In reply to a question from Mr Chadwin, Dr MacCulloch said that there were eight 'first rank signs' which aided the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. If a patient had just on of these signs, it would be fair to say that they would be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Dr MacCulloch said that Mr Sutcliffe had four of these first rank signs.

Dr MacCulloch said that Mr Sutcliffe had bodily hallucinations, which involved either a sensation of being touched, or an electrial sensation, or feelings, deep in the chest or abdomen. Mr Sutcliffe had mentioned a feeling of a hand gripping his heart.

The second sign display by Mr Sutcliffe was influence of thought, where Mr Sutcliffe had believed that his thoughts were influenced, or tampered with, by an outside force. As well, he thought he could read the thoughts of other. This was best exemplified in the case of Josephine Whitaker.

Mr Sutcliffe had also displayed delusional perception. Dr MacCulloch: "If a person was having a schizophrenic experience and he saw a piece of screwed-up paper, he would see it and know it was a piece of screwed-up paper, but the delusion was the instant and certain knowledge that he himself was 'all screwed up.' The point is that there is an instant knowledge which is unshakable, which cannot be deduced logically from the perception. He would think it had a meaning special to him and would not be shaken from that conviction."

An example in Mr Sutcliffe's case was where he had read in a newspaper that a priest had described Manchester as a wicked place. Mr Sutcliffe had interpreted this statement as a message from God that he should go to Manchester and kill a prostitute. Mr Sutcliffe had said: "Prostitutes should be exterminated. They corrupt men. It affects their lives. The mission is from God. I have read something in the Bible which confirms these women should be shown up."

The fourth sign displayed by Mr Sutcliffe was his passivity, where he had a feeling of being driven or controlled and was able to do things under the influence of this outside force.

Dr MacCulloch also said that unless the diagnosis could be excluded for some other reason, any person who heard a hallucinatory voice that lasted for as long as a sentence, should be assumed to be suffering from schizophrenia.

During the first 50-minute interview in Armley jail, Mr Sutcliffe claimed that he could read the thoughts of his victims, telling Dr MacCulloch that he knew, and he was quite sure about it, what his victims were thinking during the conversations before he attacked them. Mr Sutcliffe had given an example of what he meant by referring to Josephine Whitaker. Mr Sutcliffe had told Dr MacCulloch: "She was clever. She thought she could fool me. She said she was coming from her grandmother's, but I knew she was a prostitute and that she was lying."

When asked by Mr Chadwin whether Mr Sutcliffe had told him what Miss Whitaker's thoughts were, DrMacCulloch replied: "No, he said her thoughts were not what she was telling him."

Mr Justice Boreham: "What he said was that she was lying, in other words he knew she was a liar?"

Dr MacCulloch: "He knew she was lying because he knew the thoughts were not the same as what she was telling him, and that is a description of delusional deception." It was this symptom which led him to his diagnosis.

Dr MacCulloch said that Mr Sutcliffe had told him that when he saw in the newspapers that Miss Whitaker was an "innocent" victim, he couldn't come to terms with the fact that the voice from the Bingley cemetery could have been wrong about her. At that time Mr Sutcliffe concluded that the voice could have been the Devil's, but was: "not sure whether it was God or the Devil."

Realising the fact that there was a danger that Mr Sutcliffe might be simulating the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, Dr MacCulloch said: "If somebody is seeking to deceive, in my view, they would not be able to stand up to questioning on such fine details as delusional perception, which go right through this man's history."

Dr MacCulloch also stated that he regarded Mr Sutcliffe as "an extremely dangerous" man.

Mr Chadwin asked about possible medical treatment. Dr MacCulloch: "It is difficult to prognose in medicine, but I think it likely that some amelioration will take place under drug treatment."

Mr Chadwin: "Enough to make him other than dangerous?"

Dr MacCulloch: "No."

Dr MacCulloch also told the court: "I have considered the alternative diagnosis of personality disorder involving sexual abnormality and sadism, but there appears to me to be no evidence of it."

Dr MacCulloch also said there was nothing in Sutcliffe's history to suggest a personality disorder such as was often linked to a sadistic killer.

Dr MacCulloch was cross-examined by Harry Ognall, QC, for the prosecution, who asked what, in the doctor's vocabulary, a man had to do to be a sexual deviant.

Dr MacCulloch replied that a man would have to derive pleasure or sexual arousement from his behaviour or fantasies. He stated that he had found no such evidence of that in Mr Sutcliffe.

While holding up the sharpened Phillips screwdriver that Mr Sutcliffe had used on Josephine Whitaker, Mr Ognall said that Mr Sutcliffe had thrust the screwdriver three times: "deep within the luckless girl's body. Do you say in this man there is no element of sexual deviation?"

If Mr Ognall was inquiring whether there were sexual elements in the case, Dr MacCulloch said that the answer was: "Yes." However, the way in which he used the term sexual deviation was a different one.

Mr Ognall: "When did you first learn of the Crown's case?"

Dr MacCulloch: "On April 28th."

Mr Ognall: "Are we to understand that the first time you considered the Crown's case against Peter William Sutcliffe was the day before he was due to appear here to stand this trial?"

Dr MacCulloch: "Yes."

Mr Ognall: "You say that with remarkable calm and apparent indifference. How were you going to, if called upon, justify your diagnosis on oath, without knowing the nature of the Crown's case? How on earth do you diagnose a man's psychiatric condition without knowing the nature and quality of that which he is alleged by outside evidence to have done?"

Dr MacCulloch: "By examining the mental state and taking history."

Mr Justice Boreham: "Are there not truly occasions when that homely old phrase applies, that a man's actions speak louder than his words?"

Dr MacCulloch: "I am sure there are occasions."

Mr Justice Boreham: "I think that is what Mr Ognall is getting at."

Dr MacCulloch also confirmed that he had not made any other inquiries. Dr MacCulloch: "Yes, Mr Ognall, I would agree that in reaching my diagnosis I made no enquiries of Sutcliffe's family, friends, workmates or general practitioner."

Mr Ognall inquired why Dr MacCulloch had not looked at the police interviews before he came to his conclusions. Dr MacCulloch said that a police interrogation was not the same as a psychiatrist's interrogation.

Mr Justice Boreham: "There comes a moment of time when he is asked if he wants to make a statement. As you know, that is a voluntary act - no more questions, no nonsense. The duty is to write down exactly what he wants written down so his case can be put. Perhaps the jury don't know that and there is no suggestion here that he was not allowed to write down exactly what he wanted to say. Do you think it is wise to look at that voluntary document before you made up your mind?"

Dr MacCulloch: "Yes, I think it would be wise."

Mr Justice Boreham: "And in this case you did not do that?"

Dr MacCulloch: "No, my lord."

The hearing was adjourned until Monday.

(NOTE: Trial source material: Bilton, Burn, Cross, Jones, Yallop, Daily Telegraph, London (Canada) Free Press, The Times, The Guardian.)

THE TRIAL: WEEK THREE

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