One of Britain's most notorious serial killers, dubbed the 'Yorkshire Ripper', has started a bid to be freed from prison.

Peter Sutcliffe, who was jailed for life in 1981 for the murder of 13 women and seven counts of attempted murder, has applied to the High Court in London to grant him a finite minimum sentence.

The 63-year-old is being held at the high-security Broadmoor Hospital, west of London, after being transferred from prison in 1984 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

At a preliminary High Court hearing on Monday, judge John Mitting began deciding what form the full hearing should take, and what evidence should be admitted.

Sutcliffe's original judge said he must serve a minimum of 30 years behind bars - a period which expires next year.

The truck driver's murderous campaign against prostitutes and young women in northern England between 1975 and 1980 sparked widespread fear across the country until he was eventually jailed in 1981.

Eleven of the women Sutcliffe murdered were found in west Yorkshire, where he was from.

He would batter women over the head with a hammer and stab them in the chest and abdomen with a knife or a screwdriver.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in February last year that it was "very unlikely" Sutcliffe would be released.

The court move revolves around a November 2006 medical report by Doctor Kevin Murray, who is treating Sutcliffe.

The treatment "has had, in Dr Murray's view, very considerable success", said Judge Mitting.

Since 1993, Sutcliffe had been "relatively responsive to treatment", leading to a conclusion that "so long as treatment continues he should be regarded as posing a low risk of re-offending", the judge said, citing the doctor's report.

In his report, Dr Murray said it was his "blunt and firm conclusion" that the 1981 verdicts of guilty to murder were wrong.

If verdicts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility had been accepted by the prosecution or returned by the jury, then Sutcliffe could have been given an unlimited hospital order.

Sutcliffe is now known as Peter Coonan.

-AFP