No trace of Brady left
Cremated in secret in the dead of night before his ashes were dumped at sea in a salt urn designed to dissolve. Now there’s...
IAN Brady has been secretly cremated and his ashes dumped at sea in a dissolvable salt urn – leaving no trace of the monster.
Against his final wishes, the Moors murderer’s body was disposed of without ceremony in the dead of night.
Officials used a ‘standby’ crematorium oven not used by the public, which underwent a professional ‘deep clean’ immediately afterwards, court documents reveal.
Just a handful of officials and police, plus Brady’s solicitor, were present at the after-hours cremation in Southport, Merseyside, last week.
No music, flowers or photographs were allowed.
Afterwards the child killer’s ashes were placed in a £125 bio-degradable urn, made of pink Himalayan rock salt and weighted to ensure it would drop straight to the bottom of the Irish Sea.
Under the cover of darkness, the remains were driven in an unmarked police car to Liverpool Marina before being taken out to sea in a police boat and tossed overboard.
Last night relatives of Brady’s victims said his remains should have been ‘flushed down the toilet’ but claimed they were relieved the ‘ saga’ surrounding his funeral had finally ended.
Terry West, 66, the older brother of ten-year-old victim Lesley Ann Downey, said: ‘When I heard the news I just thought, “That’s it now, wherever he is he’s there for eternity.” We might get a bit of closure, but you never really get over it ... If I had my way, I would have flushed his ashes down the toilet. I’m just glad this was the one time he didn’t win, they didn’t respect his wishes. After all, my sister and the other kids didn’t get any say in how they were buried, so why should he?’
Terry Kilbride, 63, whose brother, John, 12, was mur- dered by Brady and Myra Hindley, said: ‘I honestly think he should not have had any wishes, I don’t think he had any rights at all to expect anything when he died. This was the only way to really put the families at ease and the public as well.’
Writing on Facebook, Alan Bennett, 57, whose 12-yearold brother Keith has never been found, added: ‘At last... just pleased a decision has finally been made to get rid of him. Not the place I would have chosen but can’t do anything about that now.’
Brady was 79 when he died in May of chronic lung disease and heart failure at high-security Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside, where he had been held for 32 years.
His body remained in storage for five months while lawyers for Tameside and Oldham Councils – which cover Saddleworth Moor, where he and Hindley buried four of their victims – sought assurances that his ashes would not be scattered there.
High Court judge Sir Geoffrey Vos ruled last month that the cremation must take place in secret.
He also refused Brady’s last wish for the fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique – which celebrates a ‘Satanic orgy’ – to be played at the ceremony.
Sefton Council, whose area covers Ashworth Hospital, was ordered to carry out the cremation. Tameside Council was given the task of organising the disposal. Brady’s body was collected from the mortuary of the Royal Liverpool Hospital at around 9pm last Wednesday. It was taken in a police vehicle to Southport Crematorium, where the cremation began at 10pm.
Eleven people were present. At 12.45am, Brady’s ashes were driven to Liverpool Marina. There, the crew of a boat from the North West Police underwater search and marine unit took the urn out to sea and threw it into the water at around 2.30am.
With no surviving relatives, the cost of Brady’s cremation and disposal of his ashes is likely to be footed by the taxpayer.
Brady and Hindley were jailed for life for three killings in 1966. They went on to admit another two murders. Hindley died in jail aged 60 in 2002. Up to 20 local funeral directors refused to deal with her body, so it eventually went to a firm based 200 miles away.
‘I’d flush ashes down the loo’