A forensic psychiatrist who worked with violent offenders in Broadmoor has spoken of meeting the Yorkshire Ripper and revealed murders are often ‘struggling to be hated’.
Gwen Adshead, 63, from Crowthorne, Berkshire, has worked in hospitals for 30 years alongside dangerous prisoners like Peter Sutcliffe, but the psychiatrist said she ‘just saw a middle-aged man’ who said there was ‘nothing to see’.
Elsewhere, she claimed that she doesn’t judge the killers she works with because she thinks even she could probably have the capacity to kill, “under the right circumstances.”
Speak with LAD Bible A TV psychiatrist talked about what it’s like to work with murders and provided insight into their minds.
Speaking about her meeting with Sutcliffe, who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980, she said: ‘A very important aspect of forensic psychiatry is that when you work with people who do terrible things have done, you know, it’s not necessarily present in their face or their body.
Gwen Adshead, 63, from Crowthorne, Berkshire, who worked with violent offenders in Broadmoor, told of meeting the Yorkshire Ripper and revealed murders often ‘struggle to be hated’
‘There’s nothing to see. You really have to spend a lot of time talking to people before you can reach the kind of state of mind that leads to causing great cruelty and harm to others.”
Meanwhile, she revealed that the killers who dismember their victims’ bodies often only find “a practical solution to a problem” when trying to dispose of a body.
She said: ‘Cutting up a body seems absolutely gruesome and monstrous. But people I’ve met who have dismembered a body said it was a practical solution to the problem. It is very difficult to get rid of a body. Dead bodies are extremely heavy.
‘People who do that are usually in a slightly strange state of mind when they do it. They are a bit detached from reality. It’s like a terrible dream. That’s what some people say.’
Elsewhere, the psychiatrist said murderers often “struggle with being hated” for their crimes because they sometimes see themselves as “soldiers.”
She added that people often talk about “what it means to have killed someone,” and that killings are often preoccupied with “whether they are different from soldiers.”
“It’s not that people see themselves as victims, that’s not the case, but they sometimes struggle with the feeling of being hated.”
In a conversation with Ladbible TV, the psychiatrist talked about what it’s like to work with murders and gave insight into their minds
Gwen said when she met dangerous prisoners like Peter Sutcliffe (pictured) she ‘just saw a middle-aged man’ who said there was ‘nothing to see’
When asked how many details convicted murderers tell her about the crimes they committed, she replied, “Not that much.”
She finds it “quite disturbing” for people who have committed murders to “talk about that.”
‘People often don’t realize that people who murder sometimes develop PTSD in relation to the murder they actually caused.
“So they have traumatic memories, they have flashbacks to the blood that was present, the smell of the blood.
‘They may have flashbacks to the noise the victim made. They may have flashbacks afterwards of what they did and how they felt.’
She explained that “they are not at all unusual people who have committed murder to have nightmares.”
Gwen described her job as a kind of ghost killing operation because she had to be extremely careful.
She said: ‘You can’t just rush in and say, ‘Okay, let’s talk about the day you killed someone.’ you have to be careful with these things and you have to be very careful with language.’
Gwen revealed she never felt ‘scared’ for her own safety at Broadmoor, but rather ‘felt under attack in the community’
Gwen revealed that she never felt “scared” for her own safety at Broadmoor, but rather “felt under attack in the community.”
She said, “I mean, the place that is most unsafe is the community. So basically, the places where I’ve been attacked have almost all been in outpatient clinics.
‘People who have been in a very disturbed state of mind, often because they were drunk, have come into a clinic and for some reason have been very angry with me and attacked me.
The Yorkshire Ripper died in prison from coronavirus in 2020.
The frail serial killer, who murdered at least 13 women in the 1970s and 1980s, died at North Durham University Hospital after his lungs collapsed overnight. There were no visitors to his bedside due to Covid rules.
Sutcliffe had written regular letters to a pen pal during the pandemic and just months before his death he had boasted that he felt ‘much safer’ in prison than in the outside world, MailOnline can reveal.
Referring to the “terrible global pandemic”, he told the correspondent, who wished to remain anonymous: “The world is stuck with this Covid. It makes me feel much safer being here, with everything going on in the world.”
He had regularly described his fears about contracting the coronavirus in the months before he tested positive. He first reported it on March 16, writing: “Be careful with this terrible virus.”
He also refused to receive visitors because of his fear of the virus. On May 10 he wrote: ‘The visits will continue again, but that does not bother me in the current circumstances. I’d rather wait until they discover an effective vaccine.’
In July 2020, Sutcliffe said he was ‘fed up with lockdown’ and complained that a prisoner friend could not cook him a full English breakfast, before telling how he had taken a Covid test on August 4 which came back negative.
In his last recorded words he wrote: ‘Lockdown has still not brought any change here and with all the new spikes happening outside these walls, there will be no change until the new year. Health-wise, we are both doing well and we are continuing with life as best we can.’
The Ripper had previously signed ‘do not resuscitate’ forms – with friends saying he astonishingly believed he would ‘go to heaven’ after his death because he had become a Jehovah’s Witness.
Families of his victims today celebrated his death, saying the serial killer will ‘rot in hell’.
Marcella Claxton, who required more than 50 stitches after being hit in the head with a hammer, told MailOnline: ‘I’m glad he’s gone. Every day since then, I’ve thought about what he did to me, and while the news of his passing brings back those horrible memories, at least I can get some closure now.
“I hope it will bring me some peace knowing he is no longer with us.”
Neil Jackson, whose mother Emily was killed by Sutcliffe after he hit her 52 times with a hammer, learned of his death today through a phone call from his son.
He said: ‘My first thought was ‘thank God for that.’ It’s a big relief.’