Maggie blocked secret move to free Moors killers
SECRET suggestions that the Moors murderers could be released early were shot down by Margaret Thatcher who said they should never be freed from custody.
Files released by the National Archives show that in 1985 Home Secretary Leon Brittan suggested Ian Brady could be released after 40 years while Myra Hindley could go free after 30.
But Mrs Thatcher insisted the pair should die behind bars for crimes she described as ‘the most hideous and cruel of modern times’.
The Prime Minister also described Brady as a ‘ maniac’ and ordered extra security to prevent his escape from a psychiatric hospital.
The notorious couple kidnapped and tortured to death five children around Manchester in the 1960s – Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride and Keith Bennett, both 12, Lesley Ann Downey, ten, and Edward Evans, 17.
Three of the victims were later found buried on bleak Saddleworth Moor, near Oldham.
Brady and Hindley were arrested in 1965 and given life sentences the following year, with the trial judge recommending they should spend ‘a very long time’ behind bars. In 1985 their cases came up for review by the parole board for the first time, in line with policy at the time.
In a note to Mrs Thatcher, Mr Brittan said that while he did not expect the parole board to recommend their release on this occasion, there would come a time when they might be safely released.
‘At present I have in mind a tariff of 30 years for Hindley and 40 years for Brady, implying that after 1992 and 2002 respectively the question of release (in 1995 and 2005 at the earliest) will be determined on risk grounds rather than on grounds of retribution or deterrence,’ he wrote.
But his remarks were given short shrift by the Prime Minister, who told him: ‘I think the sentences you are proposing are too short. I do not think that either of these prisoners should ever be released from custody.
Their crime was the most hideous and cruel of modern times.’ Mr Brittan insisted he had no intention of releasing the pair, remarking that the Home Secretary was not bound by the decision of a parole board.
But Mrs Thatcher said she was reluctant to even countenance a review of the life sentences.
A note was sent on her behalf saying: ‘The Prime Minister said that she would be concerned if the fact that these cases were to go through the procedure outlined in the Home Secretary’s minute were to be interpreted as an indication that either Hindley or Brady would be released at some identifiable point in the future.’ Hindley made several appeals against her life sentence but was never released. She died in 2002, aged 60.
Brady was declared criminally insane in 1985 and confined in the high-security Ashworth Hospital where he died earlier this year aged 79.
The files also reveal that Mrs Thatcher agreed to his transfer from prison but wrote on the memo: ‘I hope that extra security will be put on to make doubly sure that this maniac cannot escape.’