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16-11-2002 Scotsman Gone - but not forgiven By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN MOORS murderer Myra Hindley died yesterday, just weeks before a legal challenge in the House of Lords was expected to pave the way for her to walk free from jail after 36 years behind bars. For much of that time in captivity, the woman whose name had become synonymous with evil fought for the right to end her days outwith the walls of a prison. Yesterday, her wish was finally granted, but it was too late for the killer with the blood of at least five children on her hands to enjoy that freedom. After spending more than half of her life in jail, Prisoner 964055 died at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St. Edmunds, a few minutes before 5pm yesterday, after suffering respiratory failure. A priest administered the last rites earlier in the afternoon, for Hindley had become a devout believer. She was aged 60 and had been admitted to hospital on Tuesday. If her wishes are followed, her body will be cremated and the ashes scattered at a secret location. Hindley and her accomplice, Ian Brady, now 64, were jailed for life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the sexual abuse, torture and murder of three children: John Kilbride, 12, in 1963; Lesley Ann Downey, 10, in 1964; and Edward Evans, 17, in 1965. Details of the killings shocked the nation. There was a photograph of Hindley holding her pet dog as she sat on John's grave, and a tape of the final moments of Lesley's life. Stripped, sexually abused and tortured as Hindley and Brady forced her to pose for pornographic photographs, the girl called out to her mother and God. The tape lasted 16 minutes and 21 seconds. In 1987, Hindley and Glasgow-born Brady also confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade, 16, and Keith Bennett, who was killed the day after his 12th birthday. After a series of separate visits to Saddleworth Moor by the two killers, Pauline's body was discovered, but Keith's was never found. Last night, his mother, Winnie Johnson, said she feared Hindley's death meant the end of her 36-year search to find his makeshift grave. "Whatever happens, I'll never give up looking for Keith and I'll keep asking Brady," she said. "I have no sympathy for her even in death. "The pair of them have made my heart very hard and really, I just hope she goes to hell." But Hindley had long insisted she was a changed woman who no longer deserved the hatred that surfaced every time it was suggested that she might one day be allowed to walk free from prison. In 1994, she published a letter, begging: "After 30 years in prison, I think I have paid my debt to society and atoned for my crimes. " When Michael Howard, the then home secretary, confirmed her life tariff in 1997, she insisted she was the only one who truly understood how heinous her crimes had been. "What I was involved in is etched into my heart and mind and my conscience will follow me to my dying day," she said. Yesterday, her lawyers claimed those who knew her well in her final years believed she had genuinely repented. "Myra was deeply aware of the terrible crimes she had committed and of the suffering caused to those who died and to their relatives," said a statement from the London-based firm, Taylor Nichol. "She was acutely aware that she would not be forgiven by many." Yet despite that knowledge, Hindley had clung to the hope that she might one day win her freedom from Highpoint Prison in Suffolk, a freedom which might have been hastened by a recently-launched House of Lords legal challenge aimed at stripping home secretaries of the power to keep prisoners in jail . A ruling on the challenge by Anthony Anderson, a double murderer, is expected within weeks. His lawyers argue that David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, should fall into line with recent European human rights judgments and accept that the tariff should be set by the judiciary, as happens in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Hindley was reportedly considering what she would do if the Anderson ruling led to her being released, including entering a convent in southern England or staying in a safe house in Scotland belonging to a woman prison visitor. A chain-smoker, Hindley had experienced ill-health for much of her 36 years behind bars, suffering from angina, and suspected strokes. She was using 20 pounds worth of nicotine patches a week in an attempt to kick the habit, but, earlier this month, she was admitted to hospital after a suspected heart attack. No members of her family were with her when she died, although hospital and prison staff were present. She had ordered that none of her organs should be offered for transplant. The Rev Peter Timms, a Methodist minister who pressed for Hindley's release, said her death was "a very sad occasion". "Everyone who knows about it knows the sense of injustice that has been done against her," he said. "It was the politicians and the tabloid press that kept her in prison. "She's a very ordinary kind of woman who got caught up in something pretty awful and she couldn't extricate herself from it." But Phil Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, whose constituency covers the moor, said: "She never expressed any remorse. Nobody in my constituency and this part of the world will mourn her passing."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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