Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe escaped serious injury when he dodged a knife-wielding fellow patient who was trying to blind him.

Sutcliffe, 61, of Heaton, Bradford, was attacked by paranoid schizophrenic Patrick Sureda with a metal cutlery knife during lunch on the Dorchester Ward at Broadmoor secure hospital in Berkshire, where he is being held.

Sureda, 41, who was locked up for strangling his mother to death, lunged at the 13-times killer with the knife in a bid to stab him in the right eye.

But Sutcliffe turned his head away and the blade went into his cheek. Hospital nurses bundled his attacker away and the Ripper was tended by Broadmoor medics.

His injuries were not serious enough for him to be admitted to hospital but police have been called in to investigate and former lorry driver Sutcliffe is entitled to press charges.

The Ripper, who was jailed for life in 1981 for the murders of 13 women and attempted murder of seven others, was blinded in his left eye when he was repeatedly stabbed with a pen by knife murderer Ian Kay, in 1997.

Sutcliffe's younger brother, Mick, of Bingley, said the family had contacted Broadmoor to find out what had happened but had been told nothing.