Moors Murderer Brady Is Playing A Macabre Game Of Chess, Says Solicitor

A solicitor who has interviewed Moors murderer Ian Brady believes today’s tribunal into the killer’s wish to be transferred to a prison to die is part of a game he should not be allowed to win.

Brady, 74, has expressed a desire to starve himself to death but as a psychiatric patient he does not have the right to do so. A Mental Health Review Tribunal due to begin today will decide if Brady should remain at high security Ashworth Hospital in Maghull, Merseyside, and continue to be force fed through a tube in his nose.

David Kirwan, managing partner with North West based Kirwans law firm, had a series of face-to face meetings with Brady at Ashworth Hospital in 2006 while representing Keith Bennett’s mother Winnie Johnson.

Today he told ITV’s Daybreak programme: “Sadly I have given up hope that Brady will reveal the whereabouts of Keith Bennett’s body. I was convinced in 2006 when I met him that he knew Keith’s final resting place and that he still does, but he’s not going to reveal it.

“This is a macabre game of chess and the pawn is the whereabouts of Keith Bennett. Brady knows that if he reveals that piece of information it is check mate. He’s lost.

“Brady has, for all his life been a control fanatic. He controlled his victims. Now, near his end, he wants to control the authorities. It is a great insult to his victims and very distressing to their families if we allow him to do that. We should not give him that privilege.”

Mr Kirwan believes Brady is a cold-blooded killer who enjoys bizarre mind games and manipulation.

He added: “During interviews Brady told me mischievously how when he was on the moors with the police in 1986 he walked them across the graves of his victims. We are dealing with a highly unusual, unpredictable and controlling person.

“Information about the location of Keith Bennett’s body is one of the few assets Brady has left; he has so little control over anything in his life, even over whether to eat or not. Brady is a man without conscience and without one drop of remorse.”