Brady 'has just days to live'

by LIZ HULL, Daily Mail

Last updated at 09:17 09 May 2005


Moors murderer Ian Brady could have only days left to live.

Persistent hunger striking over the past five years has taken its toll on the child killer, who is being force-fed by doctors to keep him alive.

Sources at Ashworth Special Hospital on Merseyside say the 67-year-old's weight has dropped from 15st to 10st and his kidneys and liver are failing. Staff say he may not survive the week.

His death - two years after his accomplice and former lover, Myra Hindley - would mean the mother of Keith Bennett may never learn where her 12-year-old son was buried on Saddleworth Moor.

Last night, a source at Ashworth said: "Brady is jaundiced and his body is very weak. Since he went on hunger strike he has lost around 5st and his once powerful frame is now very thin. Doctors do not think he will survive much longer.

"It's unlikely he will last the week. He's counting the days until he is in his grave."

Life sentences

Brady and Hindley were given three life sentences in 1966 - a year after the death penalty was abolished. They were convicted of killing ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, 17.

Brady also murdered 12-year-old John Kilbride and Hindley was convicted as an accessory to that murder.

In 1987, both confessed to killing Pauline Reade, 16, whose body was discovered on Saddleworth Moor months later, and Keith Bennett.

Keith was snatched by Hindley and Brady as he walked the short distance from his home to his grandmother's house on June 16, 1964.

His mother Winnie Johnson, 71, of Fallowfield, Manchester, said: "I hope his (Brady's) final hours are unbearable. I hope he rots in Hell.

"Brady is an evil man. I am not glad he is dying, I want him to live a long and painful life. I want him to suffer like I have. Death is too good for him.

"To this day I don't know where Keith is. When Brady goes I have got nothing to fight for.

"I am just hanging on waiting for him to break his silence, praying that he will tell me where my son is. Not knowing is like a death sentence."

Hunger strike

Brady started hunger striking on September 30, 1999, when a sixstrong "control and restraint" team, wearing full riot gear, moved him to another ward at the hospital for closer observation.

The hospital source said: "Brady is taken every day to a room where the drip is administered. He is chained to the machine for up to ten hours each day, but the solution has not stopped him losing weight. His weight has plummeted from 15st to 10st.

"He is pencil-thin. Brady used to be an avid reader of quite intellectual books, but he seems to have lost interest in that as well."

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