In the Media

Moors murderer Ian Brady should not be allowed to die says victim's mother

PUBLISHED June 21, 2012
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Instead, she hopes the authorities will continue to keep him alive by force feeding - in the hope he will finally pinpoint her little son's moorland grave.

Winnie Johnson, aged 78 years, is too ill to attend Brady's historic appeal next month, but is praying he will stop mentally torturing her and identify Keith Bennett's last resting place.

For nearly half a century, since kidnapping and executing the 11-year-old, the monster has played mind games with widowed Winnie, refusing to help grant her final wish of giving her son a proper burial.

Now she wants the judge to reject Brady's bid for the right to be switched from a secure hospital - where he is being kept alive intravenously - to a normal prison, where he could refuse food and drink.

Her family has banned her on health grounds from attending the Mental Health Tribunal where Brady will appeal in public for the first time to win the right to die.

The eight day hearing at Ashworth Hospital, Merseyside, will be relayed by closed circuit television to the public at the Civil Justice Centre in Manchester.

Winnie, of Longsight, Manchester, said she was sorry to be missing out on the chance of seeing Brady emerge on screen but hoped he would do the "honourable thing" by ending her misery over Keith's whereabouts.

"I doubt he will, but I will never stop hoping. I must keep hoping," she said.

The cancer sufferer has been warned by son Alan, aged 50 years, that it would be too stressful for her to attend the eight day hearing.

She admitted, "Normally I would say I wanted Brady dead but now I hope the authorities will think of me and grant my hope, by refusing to let Brady die.

"What rights does he have, anyway? If he's allowed to end his life, then my Keith will always be the lone child left cold and abandoned somewhere up on bleak Saddleworth Moor.

"All I want to be able to do is give Keith a decent Christian burial before I pass away. Its not much for a mother to ask, is it?"

Brady belatedly confessed to Keith's murder while serving life for killing John Kilbride, aged 12 years, Lesley Ann Downey, aged and Edward Evans, aged 17 years.

The landmark hearing starts on Monday July 9.

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