Free the Yorkshire Ripper campaign

The leaking of information that the man who murdered 13 women and tried to kill seven others has been classified as "low risk" and recommended for release from the top security medical facilities at Broadmoor was no chance affair.

It was clearly calculated to test public opinion and to begin a process of familiarising those of us outside the prison walls to the idea that the 62 year-old could be on his way to the rehabilitation process.

Then there's the history of disastrous of decisions over the release of psychiatric patients. Only last year the Tyndale column listed a series of cases in which supposedly "cured" inmates had been released only to commit rape and murder.

Common sense tells you that a mass murderer who battered and mutilated his victims with a hammer, a knife and a sharpened screwdriver must spend the rest of his days behind bars.

But common sense does not come into it.

Not when Peter Sutcliffe has a human rights lawyer on his team and is in a system which has apparently declared him "effectively cured as long as he never stops taking his medication".

Yes, of course you and I are horrified at that that word "effectively" and the prospects of what might happen if the schizophrenic missed his morning drugs top up.

After all Peter Sutcliffe was - we are told -- turned into a monster who prowled the night looking for prostitutes to disembowel because his mum had an extra-marital affair.

Goodness knows what might happen if he had forgotten to take his pills and the paper shop had sold out of Racing Posts.

But what's really worrying about this case is the opinion of Gordon Brown.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference he said: "I don't think he will ever be released".

If even the Scotsman, who is usually prepared to prepared to promise the nation anything, is not prepared to go further than a "very unlikely" on the release of the Ripper, then that really sends a chill down the spine.