Police secretly kept body parts of Brady victim Pauline for 30yrs
Family of Moors Murders teen blast cops over remains found in storage
BODY parts from a Moors Murders victim were kept by police for 30 years without her family’s knowledge.
Pauline Reade was murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley at the age of 16.
Her body was discovered 24 years later in 1987 after a search of Saddleworth Moor.
Pauline’s family believed they had finally laid her to rest after an emotional funeral.
But after the death of Glasgow-born Brady in May this year, an audit was carried out and some of her remains were discovered at Leeds University, where they had been kept on behalf of Greater Manchester Police.
It is understood parts held include her jaw bone and hair samples. Her family now face having to stage a second funeral.
Jackie Reade, Pauline’s niece, was told about the body parts in a call from police.
The teenager disappeared before Jackie was born but she was 13 when her body was found.
This week, GMP delivered a casket with Pauline’s remains to Jackie’s solicitors.
Jackie, 44, told the Manchester Evening News: “I am devastated. I am disgusted that part of Pauline could be kept like this.
“The police called me in the middle of August and said they had ‘stumbled’ across some stuff.
“They said it was a piece of her jaw bone. It was heartbreaking. We thought she was all there together. They asked did I want it donated to science, or cremated? I said no way. These parts should not have been separated from her.
“They knew who she was. There was no need for them to keep the jawbone.”
Pauline’s grave is a family plot in Gorton cemetery, Manchester. Her mother Joan, father Amos and brother Paul, who all died after her, lie in the same place.
It means that to bury Pauline’s remains, four licences will be required from the Ministry of Justice to move the bodies of all the family members.
Head of GMP’s cold case unit Martin Bottomley said: “We felt contacting them was the right thing to do and we’ve given them a number of options, all of which GMP will pay for.”
Pauline was murdered in July, 1963. Brady and Hindley went on to kill four more children aged 10 to 17.