Ian Brady

Peter Sutcliffe was a paranoid schizophrenic. There was no doubt about that.
We will do well to remember the repentant thief who was being crucified with Christ.

Why?

What point are you making?

Criminal insanity is a specific legal term used in sentencing. AFAIK Brady was not considered to be criminally insane when he was sentenced.

The diagnosis of psycopathy was nearly 20 years after the trial and had no bearing at all on the original sentence.

Being a psycopath does not necessarily make somebody criminally insane, so a diagnosis at the trial wouldn't have made any difference, although it's possible he would have been sent to a secure psychiatric hospital in the first place. The only real difference is that psychiatric hospitals are run by the NHS and inmates have access to psychiatric services.

I'm sick of the modern propensity to downgrade the purely evil as being 'mentally ill' - it's an insult to those who do genuinely suffer from mental illness and a cop out.

There's one less monster in the world today.

I was reminded this morning that Hindley and Brady were convicted shortly after capital punishment was banned. Something I supported then and support now

Nevertheless the thought went through my mind that by not being hanged they were able to milk their notoriety for over 50 years. And I began to wish they had been caught tried and sentenced some months early when their rapid execution would have banished them into obscurity and the families they so damaged, would not have had the additional torment of the constant publicity sought and given to this unpleasant couple for all that time.

He and his cohort Hindley were evil, their actions were evil. Is evil the same as mentally ill, I do not think so. The world is a better place without them. If only Keith Bennett's body could be found to give his family a chance to say goodbye.

Because there was no diagnose at the time doesn't mean it didn't exist ,or were psychopaths only born twenty years after the moors murders.

I may not believe in a god, but I believe in the existence of good and evil. To deny the latter is also to deny the former Annie

Mental illness can cause evil acts , is eating human body parts simply evil and not something done because of a mental illness ?

MOnica I don't agree with capital punishment.
But on a practical note, if they had been hanged after the trial, they would never have admitted to killing Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett so her body would never have been found.

Maybe we should just let him rot in peace and stop giving this monster air time.

Anniebach, being mentally ill doesn't stop you knowing right from wrong, he and Hindley were manipulative and truly evil, she became a Christian because it made it easier, if she truly repented she would have spent the the rest of her life trying to atone for her sins, she would have helped to locate that missing boy. I am a Christian, if I hurt someone's feelings it's bad enough, but to torture and kill, how do you square that? Being mentally ill, yes you do things that you shouldn't, but they are not in that heightened state 24/7. So I don't agree with your comments one bit, my thoughts and compassion are with the victims families. We wasted a lot of money keeping 2 worthless excuses for human beings in relative comfort. If only their victims could have lived as long as those 2.

No annievach maybe it does t but intelligence has to be supported by reasonably mental capability to plan the crimes he did.

Someone asked about Brady's childhood. Brady was illegitimate and he was given up for unofficial adoption at 4 months, his real mother visited him often. His adoptive parents took him in and treated him as their own. He was apparently a difficult child and would throw temper tantrums when he didn't get his own way. At school he was considered intelligent but lazy and never applied himself and would bully younger children. He became fascinated by Nazi Germany and also read the Marquis de Sade. As a teenager he started breaking into homes and stealing. He moved in with his biological mother and her husband when he was 17

I don't think he was actually mentally ill when he committed the murders - he enjoyed exercising power and control over people, however, I do think over the time he spent in prison he did become mentally ill.

I disagree, being mentally ill can prevent a sufferer from knowing right from wrong, surely someone has a family member or friend who has for example Bi polar, if so can you say when they are on a high thry can reason on right and wrong?

Yes but mumof Sutcliffe is back in the prison population, he is not now considered actively ill.

daphnedill but Ashworth holds 'forensic' patients..i.e. people who have been judged or clinically assessed as criminally insane or dangerous.

His real mother visited him but never told him she was his mother, he had foster parents not adoptive parents, we are speaking of a child of the late thirties/early forties , can we compare that period with now? children were Autistic and dyslexia then as they do now, they were judged stupid . Did people talk of post natal depression or OCD in the forties ?

He has said he worked out who his real mother was from very early on, and although the family took him in unofficially they did treat him well.

I couldn't care less whether or not he was suffering from a mental illness. I don't waste any thoughts on him at all but I do care about those poor young children and the mental torment he inflicted on their families.

As others have said, the world is rid of an evil man.

What Brady and Hindley did was evil and whether we consider them to have been evil not does not diminish the horror of their crimes.

As sparklygrandma has said, Peter Sutcliffe is now being held in prison as he's not considered to be a paranoid schizophrenic. At the time of his trial it was debated if he were. His wife Sonia was and it was believed by some that he used his knowledge of her illness to be used in his 'defense'.

Denise Nielson did not have an insanity plea as part of his defense. When corresponding with the author of the book 'Killing for Company' he wrote that he couldn't understand why there appeared to be more horror expressed at what he did with the remains of his victims, than the fact that he'd murdered them in the first place.

I agree with capital punishment; the taking of a life is the ultimate crime and should receive the ultimate punishment. I don't agree that Brady should have been force fed for all these years. If as a society we don't have the courage to take a life as punishment for murder I don't believe we should have the right to extend the life of a murderer; just my opinion.

I don't have a problem with having much sorrow for the victims and the families but still have sympathy for someone who must have held so much anger and possibly suffered as a child.

He is no more,the media will calm down , expect there will be a few stories sold to the press though, then nothing more to say about it is there

Having a mental illness and not being able to discern right from wrong may be acceptable reasons for showing sympathy toward a murderer, but having a lot of anger and possibly suffering as a child; no. Not IMO.

Sadly there are many very angry adults who suffered when they were children and thankfully not all of them commit murder especially the sexual abuse, torture and murder of children.

True, not all but some do

So we should feel sorry for them, should we Annie?