The Moors Murderer Ian Brady has appeared at his mental health tribunal to tell the court that he is not “psychotic” and should be allowed to return to prison from hospital. However there’s a risk the 75-year-old serial killer may kill himself if his wish is granted.
Brady was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for the murder of five children between the ages of ten and seventeen - Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans. At least four of these victims were sexually abused.
These crimes were carried out between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around what is now Greater Manchester, England, along with his now dead partner in crime Myra Hindley.
Speaking at the tribunal Brady refused to say whether he would kill himself or not if released from maximum security Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside, where he has been held for 28 years.
Earlier this week the tribunal heard that Brady claims he has been on hunger strike for 14 years, since 1999. He is being fed through a tube, through his nose. However it has emerged that Brady has toast and a packet of soup daily.
It is believed that pleading to re-enter prison is a ploy to have access to means of committing suicide.
His lawyer Nathalie Lieven QC asked, “If you are transferred back to prison, you will try to commit suicide, is that right?”
He answered, “I have been asked the question repeatedly. I have answered hypothetically from all angles.
“In prison you are a monkey in a cage being poked with a stick. How can you pretend to be omnipotent? You cannot make plans when you have no freedom of control, movement or anything. As I say, a monkey in a cage being poked by a stick.
“You cannot talk sensibly about anything with a question like that.”
When asked why he wished to leave Ashworth he said that during his 28-year tenure at the hospital it had changed from being run by the Home Office to being under the control of the National Health Service.
He called it, “security ruled care.”
“Of course, that was not official policy, it was covert.”
Lieven asked why he was not prepared to be treated with antipsychotic drugs.
Brady responded, “I am not psychotic.”
Brady added that he was also not interested in being analyzed. He said, “Some of these psychiatrists, I would throw a net over them. I would not allow them on the street. They are unbelievable. How has this person got the job in the first place and how is it they’re able to hold the job?”
He also conveyed his disdain for the media saying, “Why are they still talking about Jack the Ripper, after a century? Because of the dramatic background, the fog, cobbled streets.”
“Mine’s the same... Wuthering Heights, Hound Of The Baskervilles.”
The murdered said he has more freedom in prison and remembered his time in Durham, Parkhurst and Wormwood Scrubs when he was able to mix with other prisoners such as the Kray twins, the Great Train Robbers and various terrorists.
Brady’s defence team says that while he is suffering from a severe narcissistic personality disorder, he is not mentally ill. However the officials at Ashworth maintain he is chronically mentally ill and remains a paranoid schizophrenic who needs round-the-clock care.
The family of Keith Bennett believe that Brady’s request to be moved should be denied until he tells the authorities where the boy was buried. Of the five children the Moors Murderers killed, Bennett’s body is the only one still missing.
Winnie Johnson, Bennett’s mother, had campaigned for decades to find the final resting place of her 12-year-old son. Sadly she passed away last year. Her lawyer, John Ainley, told the Sun, “She took the view that he did not give her son and the other children any choice and consequently he should not be able to control his own fate.”
Here’s the BBC report on Ian Brady’s appearance:
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