Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe complains life in jail is 'a hell of a burden'

Peter Sutcliffe – the "Yorkshire Ripper" – has said he would prefer to be given a lethal injection, instead of face life in a tough prison. The serial killer will leave Broadmoor after a ruling by a mental health tribunal. He has spent 30 years in Broadmoor, which has cost the taxpayer £11m ($14.21bn).

Sutcliffe, now 70, who now uses the name Peter Coonan, has claimed that going to jail is like being given a "second life sentence", describing time spent in prison as a "hell of a burden," according to The Sun. He added: "I've done 35 years and now they've given me another sentence.

"Who'd rather do life than have a lethal injection?"

He has threatened to go on hunger strike if he was moved from Broadmoor Hospital – a high-security psychiatric hospital, in Berkshire, England.

Coonan is due to be sent to a category A jail in a few weeks and will spend the rest of his life behind bars. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent life terms in 1981 for killing 13 women and the attempted murders of seven more women. On 16 July 2010, he was given a whole life tariff by the High Court, meaning he would never be eligible for parole.

After Coonan's trial he was imprisoned at HMP Parkhurst. Despite being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he was not transferred to a psychiatric hospital until he was the victim of a vicious attack by another prisoner.

It is possible that Coonan will be transferred to Belmarsh jail, which holds the UK's most dangerous prisoners. Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, said in a Guardian report that the south-east London jail is the only one in the country to hold "exceptional risk category A prisoners"and they are held in "dark and oppressive" conditions.

Another category-A prison where Coonan could be sent is Frankland jail in Durham, where Soham murderer Ian Huntley is incarcerated.

Coonan is returning to a top-security prison after doctors said the killer no longer needed treatment for any mental disorder. Dr Stephen Shaw, a retired criminal psychiatrist from Leeds who interviewed Coonan after his arrest in 1981, told the BBC: "I saw him in Armley [prison in Leeds] when he was on remand," he said. "He was no more a schizophrenic than I was. I thought this guy was not mentally ill."

Families of Coonan's victims also did not believe he was suffering from mental illness. Denise Long, whose mother Maureen survived a 1977 hammer attack, told The Telegraph: "I don't believe he was ever ill, he was just pure evil. He knew exactly what he was doing."