Crematorium may grant the wish of killer
Brady wanted ashes spread in Glasgow
‘We need to be prepared’
A CREMATORIUM at the centre of speculation that it may handle the funeral of Moors Murderer Ian Brady last night refused to rule it out.
Pressure is growing on bosses of the private Lambhill facility, in Glasgow, to join a local embargo on handling the killer’s remains.
However, the charitable company that runs the crematorium is keeping open the door to Brady’s ashes being scattered in his home city, reputedly in accordance with his last wishes.
Police fear that any decision to repatriate the body of the killer, who died aged 79 last week, could spark public disorder, according to reports.
Glasgow has four crematoriums but the city council has already stated that it will not host a ceremony at the two it runs and the other private venue has followed suit.
However, Gordon Armour, secretary of the Scottish Cremation Society, which runs Lambhill, in the north of the city, said that blocking a request could create legal issues.
He said: ‘The law is that a body has to be either disposed of by burial or cremation so, therefore, someone has to deal with that.
‘In this case, from our perspective, this is an individual with a particular profile – and it’s not a particularly pleasant profile – and there’s a lot of public feeling about what he did in the past, but overriding all that is a requirement that he is to be buried or cremated. I think it begs the quesbe tion what do the others [that have refused] think will happen next?
‘Ultimately, somebody has to do it. I’m not saying that we will do it, but therein lies the problem. How do they expect the matter to be resolved – because the law requires that to happen?’
Mr Armour said the charity’s board would meet in the next few days to decide what it would do in the event of any request.
He added: ‘We have not been approached either by an undertaker or by Mr Brady’s solicitor, so at this stage it would be hypothetical. We are looking at whether or not we would be prepared to carry out the cremation.
‘We will be looking at the issues involved here and, if we were taking it on, we would be looking at the safeguards; what we would and would not be prepared to do.
‘Because of the conjecture, we need to be prepared in the event – but that should not be read as me having an expectation that we will approached because I’m not aware of any indication that I should be expecting a call.’
Brady was born in Glasgow in 1938 and brought up in the Gorbals area. He moved to Manchester with his mother in 1951 as part of a court order to help him escape a cycle of petty crime.
Yet he graduated to the notorious series of five murders along with his lover Myra Hindley.
They killed ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey; Pauline Reade, 16; 12-year-olds Keith Bennett and John Kilbride and Edward Evans, 17. The evil pair were convicted in 1966 and Brady was handed three concurrent life sentences.
He had been held in Ashworth special hospital near Liverpool since 1985 before his death from lung cancer. Hindley died in 2002 and was cremated following a private funeral, her ashes reputedly scattered at a country park near Manchester.
Brady’s final request was reported to be a cremation in Glasgow to the strains of a favourite classical piece, with his remains thrown into the Clyde.
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: ‘We would refuse such a request and advise private crematoria to do the same.’
Police Scotland said it regularly speaks to local authorities on a number of issues. But a force spokesman said: ‘This is not a matter for us.’