Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, whose notorious murder campaign caused "widespread and permanent harm to the living", will never be released, a judge ruled yesterday.
The serial killer of 13 women must serve a "whole life" tariff, said Mr Justice Mitting, announcing his decision at the High Court in London.
His judgment was welcomed by Richard McCann, whose mother Wilma was one of the victims of Sutcliffe's reign of terror.
Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr McCann said that for many years he had feared Mr Sutcliffe might get released, but now felt a "sense of relief" at the decision. He described it as a "small victory for my mum" and the other victims.
In his ruling Mr Justice Mitting said: "This was a campaign of murder which terrorised the population of a large part of Yorkshire for several years.
"The only explanation for it, on the jury's verdict, was anger, hatred and obsession.
"Apart from a terrorist outrage, it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which one man could account for so many victims.
"Those circumstances alone make it appropriate to set a whole life term."
Now known as Peter Coonan, the former lorry driver, now 64, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1981.
He received 20 life terms for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of others in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
Mr Justice Mitting said he had read statements by relatives of six murdered victims: "They are each moving accounts of the great loss and widespread and permanent harm to the living caused by six of his crimes.
"I have no doubt that they are representative of the unspoken accounts of others who have not made statements.
"None of them suggest any term other than a whole life term would be regarded by them as appropriate."
He said he had no doubt that the "appropriate minimum term is a whole life term".
Mr Sutcliffe is being held in Broadmoor top security psychiatric hospital after being transferred from prison in 1984 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
It was on July 5 1975, just 11 months after his marriage, that he took a hammer and carried out his first attack on a woman.
Mr Sutcliffe is said to have believed he was on a "mission from God" to kill prostitutes - although not all of his victims were sex workers - and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated their bodies using a hammer, a sharpened screwdriver and a knife.
Mr Justice Mitting ruled that it was more likely than not that, if the Home Secretary had set a tariff for Mr Sutcliffe, it would have been a whole-life tariff.
"The very clear impression which I have is that this case comes right at the top of the range of cases in which the Home Secretary has set a whole-life tariff.
"Only Rosemary West and Dennis Nilsen approach the number of victims murdered.
"Even they did not reach the total number of the respondent's victims."
The primary submission made on behalf of Mr Sutcliffe was that the degree of his responsibility "was lowered by mental disorder or mental disability".
The diagnosis of psychiatrists who had considered his mental condition was that he was "suffering from encapsulated paranoid schizophrenia when he committed the crimes and that his responsibility for the 13 killings was, in consequence, substantially diminished".
But the judge said: "These propositions were, however, unquestionably rejected by the jury."
He ruled: "It is not, in my opinion, open to a judge, setting a minimum term, to go behind the verdict of the jury by concluding that, although the defendant's responsibility was not proved to have been substantially diminished, he should be given the benefit of the doubt for the purpose of setting the minimum term, by concluding that it might have been."
It was the opinion of psychiatrists that he "suffers from a chronic treatable mental illness for which he has been willing to accept appropriate treatment, which has successfully contained it for many years".
A report from Dr Kevin Murray, the psychiatrist who has been in charge of Mr Sutcliffe's care since 2001, revealed that in July 1993 the killer was started on anti-psychotic medicine and "has persevered with it ever since".
The judge said: "He has been well-behaved and has posed no threat to other inmates.
Peter Sutcliffe's reign of terror
The Yorkshire Ripper's reign of terror was Britain's most notorious murder spree of the 20th century. The north of England lived in fear as the lorry driver killed 13 women and attacked seven more in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
• June 2, 1946 - Peter Sutcliffe is born in Bingley, West Yorkshire.
After leaving school at 15, he takes a series of jobs, including grave digger and salesman.
• August 10, 1974: Mr Sutcliffe marries wife Sonia.
• Summer 1975 - Less than a year later, he begins attacking women - two in Keighley and one in Halifax. All three survive and police do not link the attacks.
• October 30, 1975 - Mr Sutcliffe carries out his first fatal attack on Wilma McCann, a 28-year-old prostitute from the Chapeltown district of Leeds.
• January 20, 1976 - He murders Emily Jackson, 42, from Leeds, battering her with a hammer and stabbing her with a screwdriver.
• February 5, 1977 - He kills Irene Richardson, 28, another prostitute from Leeds.
• April 23, 1977 - Mr Sutcliffe strikes for the first time in his home town of Bradford, murdering 32-year-old Patricia Atkinson.
• June 26, 1977 - The case comes to the attention of the national press after Mr Sutcliffe murders Jayne MacDonald, a 16-year-old shop assistant. The murder, and the realisation that a serial killer is on the loose in Yorkshire, shocks the country.
The attacker is dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, and West Yorkshire Chief Constable Ronald Gregory appoints his most senior detective, Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, to investigate.
• October 1, 1977 - Mr Sutcliffe chooses Manchester for his next attack - on Jean Jordan, 20. He dumps her body on an allotment and throws her bag, containing a brand-new £5 note he gave her, into nearby shrubs.
Police find the bag and trace the serial number on the note back to the payroll of Yorkshire hauliers T and W H Clark, who employ Peter Sutcliffe.
Mr Sutcliffe is interviewed by police but provides an alibi placing him at a party.
• January 21 to May 16 1978 - Mr Sutcliffe murders three prostitutes - Yvonne Pearson, 21, from Bradford; Helen Rytka, 18, from Huddersfield, and 40-year-old Vera Millward from Manchester.
• April 4, 1979 - Mr Sutcliffe kills Halifax Building Society clerk Josephine Whitaker, 19.
• June 1979 - A tape is sent to police by a man calling himself Jack the Ripper, who has already sent a series of hand-written letters from Sunderland. Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield mistakenly decides that these are the work of the Ripper. Wearside Jack, as he becomes known, is pinpointed to the Castletown district of Sunderland by voice experts. Detectives are told they can discount suspects who do not have a Wearside accent.
• July 1979 - Police interview Mr Sutcliffe for the fifth time. Det Cons Andrew Laptew and Graham Greenwood are suspicious but their report is filed because his voice and handwriting do not fit the letters and tape.
• September 2, 1979: Mr Sutcliffe murders Barbara Leach, 20, in Bradford.
• August 20, 1980 - The Ripper claims another victim, Marguerite Walls, 47, from Leeds, followed by Jacqueline Hill, 20, a Leeds University student, on November 17.
• November 1980 - Det Ch Supt James Hobson replaces Oldfield. Hobson downgrades the importance of the Wearside Jack tape and letters.
• January 3, 1981 - Mr Sutcliffe admits he is the Yorkshire Ripper after police arrest him with a prostitute. Police admit the killer does not have a Wearside accent.
• May 22, 1981 - Sutcliffe is jailed for life at the Old Bailey after saying he was hearing "voices from God" to go on a mission to rid the streets of prostitutes. The judge recommends a minimum sentence of 30 years. He is transferred to Broadmoor secure hospital in Berkshire in 1984.
• March 21, 2006 - John Humble, a former builder, is sentenced to eight years in prison after he admits to being the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer known as Wearside Jack.
• June 1, 2006 - A report kept secret for nearly 25 years reveals that Mr Sutcliffe probably committed more crimes than the 13 murders and seven attempted murders for which he was convicted.
• July 16, 2010 - Mr Sutcliffe learns the outcome of his plea not to have to spend the rest of his life behind bars.