Yorkshire Ripper: Peter Sutcliffe, 69, formerly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, is said to be furious at the prospect of leaving Broadmoor. He is pictured at the psychiatric hospital back in 2005

The Yorkshire Ripper could be moved to a top-security prison after psychiatrists decided he was no longer mentally ill.

Peter Sutcliffe, 69, has been in Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, since 1984 after being sentenced to concurrent life terms for murdering 13 women in the West Yorkshire and Manchester areas.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove will now decide whether the serial killer should be moved into a specialist prison unit.

Sutcliffe, formerly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, is said to be furious at the prospect of leaving the hospital, where he has a Freeview TV and a DVD player in his room.

Were he to fight the decision to move him it would likely be funded by legal aid.

The High Court ruled in 2009 that Sutcliffe should never be released, and doctors have previously said the killer can not be held at a medium-security prison because staff would be unable to protect him against other inmates.

If he is moved to a jail, he is likely to be put in a small unit where he can be protected round the clock.

The son of Sutcliffe’s first victim, Wilma McCann, said: ‘If that’s what the Ministry of Justice decide, I’m fine with that.’

Author Richard McCann, 46, was just five when his mother was killed aged 28 in 1975.

He added: ‘I can understand why some people want to see him in prison. None of this will bring my mum back and where he is locked up does not really change anything.’

Sutcliffe's second victim was Emily Jackson, whose son Neil, a roofer, has welcomed the news that his mother's killer could be returned to jail.

He told The Sun: 'I can’t believe they let him stay in Broadmoor for so long.'

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: ‘Decisions over whether prisoners are to be sent back to prison from secure hospitals are based on clinical assessments made by independent medical staff.

‘The High Court ordered in 2009 that Sutcliffe should never be released. This was then upheld by the Court of Appeal. Our thoughts are with Sutcliffe’s victims and their families.’

According to The Sun, the serial killer is not happy to be leaving the more relaxed setting of the hospital - telling a friend, ‘it’s a disaster’ - and is said to be on suicide watch after learning he could be moved.

His home: Sutcliffe has been in Broadmoor (pictured), a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, since 1984 after being sentenced to concurrent life terms for murdering 13 women

Inside Broadmoor: Sutcliffe has a Freeview TV and a DVD player in his room at the psychiatric hospital (above)

Former boxer Frank Bruno, right, pictured at Broadmoor in 1991 shaking hands with Peter Sutcliffe as Jimmy Savile stands in the background. Mr Bruno has said he was tricked into shaking hands with the murderer

Dr Kevin Murray, a psychiatrist who had been in charge of Sutcliffe’s care, said in a 2006 report that he posed a ‘low risk of reoffending’.

Two years ago Tony Maden, the former head of the dangerous severe personality disorder unit at Broadmoor, said patients such as Sutcliffe should be returned to prison.

Professor Maden, professor of forensic psychiatry at Imperial College London, said: ‘We are far too ready to keep mentally disordered prisoners in places like Broadmoor indefinitely, particularly if they are famous.

‘I think it’s about celebrity, I can’t think of any other reason why a hospital would want to hang on to somebody when essentially the condition is stable.’

The news comes after it emerged that Sutcliffe may change his name so no-one can desecrate his grave. West London Mental Health NHS Trust, which runs Broadmoor, said it could not comment.

Victim's relative: Author Richard McCann (left) - the son of Sutcliffe’s first victim, Wilma McCann (right), who was killed in 1975 when he was five - said that where Sutcliffe is 'locked up does not really change anything'

Investigation: Police search at the murder scene of Barbara Leach, a victim of Sutcliffe, in Bradford in 1979

It costs taxpayers more than £300,000 a year to detain him in Broadmoor, at least five times the cost of a prison cell.

Sutcliffe has been in Broadmoor for more than three decades after he was given 20 life sentences in 1981. As well as the 13 women he killed, he tried to murder seven more in a five-year spree.

He used weapons including a hammer, screwdriver and knives to mutilate women across the north of England.

Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, Sutcliffe believed he was on a ‘mission from God’ to kill sex workers.

Since Sutcliffe's conviction, various reports have indicated he may have killed many more women than those whose deaths featured in the 1981 trial.

The case remains one of the most notorious of the last 100 years and the assessment of what went wrong in the investigation is still having an impact on major police inquiries to this day.