The Aftermath
A MONKEY IN A CAGE BEING POKED BY A STICK The bisexual Brady maintained a long distance relationship with Hindley for his first years in jail. But from love letters and requests for marriage, rifts soon started to appear. Brady accepted he would never again be free. Hindley couldn’t. The couple drifted apart. And when Hindley ended their connection, he said that she was a manipulative liar and as evil as him. Betrayed, he plotted his revenge.
“How many instruments of murder do you suppose there are in this room?” Brady’s first question to Dr Alan Keightley
Dr Alan Keightley was requested to meet Brady by Anne West, the mother of Brady’s fourth victim, Lesley Ann Downey. It was hoped that Dr Keightley, an ‘eccentric academic’ and former head of religious studies, would form a relationship with Brady based on their mutual interest in religion.
For the next 25 years, he became Brady’s confidant.
In jail, Brady mixed with Buster Edwards, the Great Train Robber and Ronnie Kray of Kray Twins infamy.
In 1985, Brady was diagnosed as a criminally insane psychopath and was transferred from prison to high security Ashworth psychiatric Hospital, Merseyside. He would be there for nearly the next thirty years. It was there that he confessed to tabloid reporters that he had in fact killed Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. But it wasn’t remorse that prompted his revelations. It was revenge. He wanted to hurt Hindley for cutting him out of her life and his confessions hurt her bid for freedom.
In 1987, he returned to the Moors with the police.
In 1997 Brady strangled another patient after mocking the patient’s coughing fit. Only the intervention of staff saved the man.
In 1999 he went on hunger strike. He was therefore force fed. A feeding tube protruding from his left nostril became a permanent feature. Some might believe it unnecessary as every morning he eats toast and soup. But he’s embarrassed to admit this so if his nurse observes he’s eating, she’ll knock before entering so he has time to clear his food away.
His daily diet also consists of being dosed with sedatives. He chain smokes Gauloises and has complained often that they are not killing him fast enough.
LAUREL AND HARDY
He wanted to be judged sane and be transferred back to prison where he could starve himself to death. At this time, he believed that he could ‘talk to Laurel and Hardy.’
Brady’s demands to die were refused by the High Court in March 2000, which upheld the hospital’s right to force-feed him. They judged that his desire to die through starvation was simply part of his ‘obsessive need to exercise control.’
In April 2001, the High Court in London again rejected Brady’s appeal ‘for the right to die’.
Brady continued to write and offer his opinions:
“I’m glad I’ve lived to see an enemy prepared to die for something other than their bank balance and pensions... They’re even being trained to die at schools. Admirable commitment."
Brady’s take on the 9/11 suicide bombers
Brady’s confidant, Dr Keightley, smuggled out Brady’s book ‘The Gates of Janus’.
In August that year, Brady was front-page news once again, when it was revealed that he stood to earn £12,000 for his analysis of serial killers. Brady did not talk about his crimes in the book.
In February 2006, Brady sent the mother of victim Keith Bennett a letter. In the letter he complained of his treatment at the high-security hospital saying he was being kept alive by force-feeding for "political purposes". Brady also claimed that he could take police to within 20 yards of where Keith Bennett is buried.
It was revealed in December 2011 that Brady would face a public mental health tribunal hearing on whether he should be returned to prison, having been detained at Ashworth hospital since 1985.
In August 2012, Brady was in the news again as police investigated whether he had given details of the location of Keith Bennett’s grave to his mental health advocate, Jackie Powell. Keith’s mother Winnie, after a lifetime of hoping that Brady would reveal where her boy was, sadly died that month.
RECREATIONAL KILLINGS
In June 2013, the 75-year-old Brady spoke in public for the first time since his 1966 trial. Brady went to tribunal seeking permission to be transferred from a psychiatric hospital back to prison. It was believed to be only the second time in English history that such a hearing had been heard in public.
He received legal aid for his bid. The cost to the taxpayer was initially estimated to be £250,000. In his evidence he referred to his torture and murder of five children as ‘recreational killings’ and an ‘existential experience.’ He also bemoaned his lack of control and that he was nothing more than a ‘monkey in a cage being poked by a stick.’
The medical panel decided that Brady was still a paranoid schizophrenic and rejected his appeal.
On 30 July 2013 The Daily Mirror revealed through a Freedom of Information application that Brady’s transfer attempt had cost the taxpayer twice the expected amount and the bill was now £500,000. The NHS had had to pay £200,000 of that to prove the serial killing paedophile was insane. The Mirror reported that NHS costs alone were ‘equal to the annual salary of nine nurses or maternity care for 70 women.’
Around this time, there were claims that the grave of Keith Bennett may have been 40 miles away from the Saddleworth Moor.
Brady has been collaborating on an autobiographical book to be published on his death. The manuscript is said to be in the safe of his solicitor. In it, it’s claimed he will admit to nine murders, four more than the five known. He has written that he killed two men in Glasgow and a man and a woman in Manchester. It is also believed the book is intended to implicate Hindley in the sexual abuse of the children.
Brady suffered from cataracts and spondylitis meaning he has chronic back pain before passing away at age 79 on Monday 15 2017. Brady had revealed that he had chest and lung issues in December 2016. Although the NHS Spokesman stated that the cause of Brady's death was unknown, they confirmed that he was on oxygen for a while.
It is reported that Brady had died hours after being urged to "do the right thing" and reveal the location of Keith Bennett, however Brady has taken this to the grave with him:
“Keith Bennett’s unfound body is very important to Ian Brady. He has one actual murder which he can consider to be perfect.”
Dr David Holmes, Criminal Psychologist
“If there is a hell, that will be where Ian Brady is going to go.”
Professor David Wilson, Criminologist