27/01/98 - Deranged killer
admits Yorkshire Ripper blinding
BBC News Online
A deranged killer has admitted attempting to murder the
Yorkshire Ripper by stabbing him in the eye with a pen.
Ian Kay, 30, was ordered to be detained in a secure mental
hospital without time limit on Tuesday after he admitted
attacking Peter Sutcliffe at Broadmoor hospital in Berkshire
in March last year.
Reading Crown Court was told that Kay, who was serving
a life sentence for stabbing to death a Woolworth's shop
assistant, pinned the 47-year-old serial killer to the
floor of his room after asking to borrow an envelope.
Kay stabbed Sutcliffe ten times in both eyes with a Parker
Rollerball pen, blinding him in one eye and severely damaging
the other. Kay was sentenced to life for killing 21-year-old
John Penfold in Teddington, Middlesex, in 1994 but had
been transferred to Broadmoor after showing signs of mental
illness.
Loud music hid attack
Paul Reid, prosecuting, said Kay asked another patient
to put on some loud music before he launched his 15-minute
attack. Mr Reid said the pair attended the same art therapy
classes but there was no history of hostility.
He said: "The defendant struck Sutcliffe five or
six times deep into the left eye and three or four times
in the right eye. "He only stopped when Sutcliffe
managed to grab hold of the pen and push it away from
him." Mr Reid said Kay had also brought a length
of electrical flex with him but decided against using
it and left the room before staff arrived.
Blood on his hands
They found Sutcliffe leaning over a sink in his room screaming:
"I can't see. I think I'm blind." Kay, who was
spotted shortly afterwards with blood on his face and
hands, told a doctor he had thought about killing the
Ripper for some time.
Kay told him: "He said God told him to kill 13 women
and I say the Devil told me to kill him because of that."
Sutcliffe was taken to Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey
for treatment by an eye specialist, who was unable to
save the sight in his left eye. Mr Reid said: "Even
now he has restricted movement still in his right eye
and his sight is very considerably diminished."
Due to move out of ward
The court was told Kay brought his plans for the attack
forward because he was due to move wards. Bill Clegg QC,
for the defence, said Kay's personality was "the
product of a deeply disturbed mind. He is an extremely
dangerous man, and that danger presents an obvious risk
to the public".
Sutcliffe, a former lorry driver from Bradford, was jailed
for life in 1981 for murdering 13 women -- mostly prostitutes
working in the red light districts of Bradford, Leeds
and Manchester -- and trying to kill seven others.
The judge recommended that Sutcliffe, who used hammers
and knives to mutilate his victims, serve at least 30
years. He was moved to Broadmoor in 1983 after a fellow
inmate at Parkhurst jail on the Isle of Wight slashed
him with a broken coffee jar. |
