Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is suffering from diabetes, his family has revealed.

But the mass murderer from Bradford has denied claims that he has lost five stones and can barely walk.

Sutcliffe, 56, has told relatives that a national-newspaper story which claimed he has lost the will to live and is refusing treatment is untrue.

The story also claimed that Sutcliffe, currently held at Broadmoor secure hospital, is unrecognisable and in a mentally and physically critical condition.

It quoted an insider at Broadmoor as saying: "Sutcliffe has lost the will to live and is a shadow of his former self."

But a source close to the Sutcliffe family told the Telegraph & Argus that he had contacted relatives to reassure them over the claims.

She said: "Peter has spoken to his younger brother Mick and another relative by phone.

"He has told both of them that the story is a load of rubbish and he has not lost the will to live.

"Peter is suffering from diabetes, which was diagnosed a couple of years ago. But he has told the family that he is not refusing treatment for it and he has not lost weight.

"He is not happy about the story because he is concerned about the effect it could have on his father who is very poorly. But he is used to rubbish being printed about him."

Sources at Broadmoor have also scotched the allegations.

Former lorry driver Sutcliffe, who lived in Garden Lane, Heaton, was given 20 life sentences at the Old Bailey in 1981 for the murders of 13 women and the attempted murders of seven more.

Six years ago he was blinded in one eye when he was stabbed with a felt-tip pen by a fellow patient.

He has been visited in Broadmoor by his former wife, ex-schoolteacher Sonia, who divorced him in 1994.

Sutcliffe has also kept in regular phone contact with his ailing father John, 80, of Bingley, who is suffering from emphysema.

A spokesman at Broadmoor said they could not discuss individual patients.