Ian Brady

It's their job, if no one agreed to defend there couldn't be justice
I know that but some of them will go to enormous lengths to find the slightest technicality on which to get their (obviously guilty) client off rather than accept the evidence and let justice take its due course.

I accept that Annie , but you keep comparing Hindley and Brady murders to the Jamie Burger murder. They cannot be compared. John Thompson and Robert Venables were themselves 2 young children. I don't believe for one moment that, at the time that they carried out their act, that they had premeditated it for 4 months or set up a back up plan in case they were spotted picking a child up to take away. They were, themselves 2 little boys. Hindley and Brady were not children Annie. They were 2 full grown cognitive adults who planned the murders for many months before they set out to take their first victim (Pauline Reade). They had note books with a plan of action, they bought records that they knew would appeal to a child's interest, they knew that children had been taught "don't talk to strange men and don't get into a car with a strange man", so they agreed that Hindley would approach the children first because that would put them off guard.

Thompson and Venables cannot be likened to Hindley and Brady and if you believe that they can, it just tells me that you have no knowledge of the depth of depravity what went on here in 1963.

It's their job, if no one agreed to defend there couldn't be justice

Re the solicitor annsixty, I only saw him briefly on the news but agree that there seemed something about him that could make the skin crawl.

How anyone can defend the indefensible is beyond me but
solicitors/barristers will look for the slightest technicality in the prosecution's case to get their client off or a reduced sentence - knowing full well the evil they have committed and could commit in future.

Chewbacca, I don't know how I would react if I had been the parent of one of those children, grief, anger, all those emotions I am quite sure, a desire to kill them quite possibly.

Your argument is supporting what that mob in Liverpool wanted to do to two little boys.

i have never mentioned forgiveness , it is not for me to forgive them, to want justice yes , they were both found guilty , we do not have the death penalty so they were sentenced to life in prison . Hindly was in law allowed to appeal, it wasn't granted.

I can understand families of victims having hatred, I can understand families of innocent people who have been hanged wanting justice .

I am not pious, I think a discussion on this should be done calmly and without emotion. I do not mean no emotion felt for the victims, but discussing justice and the law. I accept this is not an opinion shared by the majority
Either we have law or mob rule.

I don't subscribe to the theory that if someone does commit murder they are necessarily suffering from a mental illness, yes, some will be but some, as I believe was the case with Brady, are just nasty pieces of work. It is very unlikely that anyone on GN has met or spoken with him, those who have say they believe he was sane when he carried out the murders. I believe the decision to keep him in a mental hospital was to protect him from other prisoners and latterly, when I think he did develop a mental illness, in order to prevent his suicide.

I ask you again Annie, if it had been your child that had been raped, photographed and then murdered; buried for years on a Lancashire moorland before you found where he was; and then discovered that there were 4 more such children; are you honestly able to say that you would not want revenge? That you would not want to get your hands on the b*****s that did that to your child and do it to them? Even when you'd heard the tape recordings of your child begging for help from Hindley? Or hearing your child calling Hindley, "Mummy" in the hope that it would appeal to her and save her from what they were doing to her, but knowing it did not.

Revenge may not be justice Annie but it's all that a lot of us in this area had to keep us going, especially during the many times that Hindley appealed for parole and insisting that she was "normal and well again" and ready to be freed.

Your piety and capacity for forgiveness is awe inspiring. I hope you never have to put it to the test.

i don't expect a brain 'malfunction' would show up on autopsy. A brain abnormality might however.

If, by a brain malfunction, you mean an abnormal response then I think that's entirely possible. Either, through some incidence in their past or some malfunction of their pleasure response centre of the brain, these individuals actually find pleasure in other people's pain and misery. There are quite a few people like that, though to a lesser degree than torture and murder.

When the pleasure centres of the brain are stimulated, usually by experiences such as food, sex, laughter, alcohol, smoking, drugs, etc. we seek to reproduce these pleasures. Part of the reason some people overeat it is, I'm sure, this pleasure response. People who overeat are in control of themselves and could override that response, in the same way a smoker could choose to give up.

Now for some reason in people like Brady, it is the torturing of children that stimulate that response so he sought to replicate that pleasure. Deliberately.

Oh believe me Anya I know that people with mental illness are not necessarily murderers and they are actually much more likely to harm themselves that wasn't what I was trying to portray at all I probably worded it badly I don't think Brady or other murderers necessarily suffer from a mental illness as we know them ...but a brain malfunction which surely would be very useful to investigate I suppose before they are dead it would need their permission to do so and they probably wouldn't give it
I think it was right to keep him locked up and I think it's excellent that he's now gone but with him gone all the information needed for any closure has gone too I can't imagine any punishment would be enough for those poor families but
I was very uncomfortable with that 'let him lose' comment too Anniebach Revenge is never sweet

I have never said I hate anyone, hate what some people do, like Brady. But some crimes are so horrific, I cannot feel any sympathy for those th carry them out. To be told I am not Christian for not loving everyone as equal, is judgemental in itself. To spend millions of pounds extending lives these people, which show no remorse and continue to hate is for want of a better word, pointless.

To say the public wanted them released so they could do the same to them brought to mind the two children being taken to court to stand trial for killing James Bulger. Adults, male and female, a braying mob, trying to reach two little boys . Righteous anger ?

Revenge is not justice

Bluebelle that is not how people with mental illnesses act, think or behave except when having a psychotic incident. At other times they are able to function on a level that knows right from wrong. Even during psychotic incidents many retain that ability. It's the cold-blooded planning, carrrying out and cover up which shows the difference between those acting under a delusional malfunction from those who know exactly what they are doing. It's the pleasure they get from torturing and killing that drives them to do it again.

Many people with severe, debilitating mental illnesses eventually kill themselves, because (in my experience) they know their illness and cannot bear to live with it any longer.

mental health, not metal health.

Every time I attend a school Christmas concert and hear the children's voices singing "Little Drummer Boy", I grow faint and sickened, thinking of Lesley Anne Downey. My heart breaks for the parents of those murdered children, as I am sure everyone else's here does. Yes, the world is a better place without Ian Brady whose crimes are beyond belief for all of us.

It is impossible for me to begin to understand what made him want to do the things he did and to understand how he lead Myra Hindley into participating. They are no more – and the world is a better place for that. Discussions about their metal health, madness – if you will – are for those professionals who study these matters. I am glad I am not one of them.

The people who stand out on the TV are those who say like the lady whose fiance died in the atrocity at Westminster that she felt no hatred for the guy who did it. It helps no- one at all when these horrendous events engender such hatred and anger in response. Of course society has to be protected from murderers and of course it was right for Ian Brady to be locked up for the rest of his life . If the energy could be channelled into love to help the suffering and for the good of all, the world would be a better place. Even Ian Brady was that new born baby once held lovingly in the arms of his parent(s).

annsixty
Robin Makin (Brady's solicitor) is as bad as his father Rex...he'll do anything for his clients, if they pay him well enough!

His solicitor gave an interview on our local BBC news last night.
Quite frankly he made my skin crawl He didn't answer one question put to him in a straight forward manner. While not defending Brady he certainly never gave the impression of even slightly condemning him.

Well you re actually missing the point completely stillalive ' people always have a choice no matter their childhood ' If someone has a mental health problem they probably don't have the same kind of cognitive ability to chose how to act as you and me

I m not defending Brady or any other murderer they need removing from society, it also doesn't mean I have any less sympathy for the families than you, I think they have lived through hell and I can't imagine how they have got through life all I am saying is I don't believe someone is born evil but I do believe they may be born with a mind that doesn't operate from the same peramatures as 'normal'
What if someone is born with a missing link in their brain ? Surely it needs more investigation than interviews with a psycharitrist, brains of these awful murderers should be studied what if research found they had a common link could it be dealt with differently to avoid these dreadful occurances I saw a programme on psychopaths the other week and one chap who was in jail for some bad event it may have been murder was found to have had an injury to his head years back in the very place they were expecting to see a difference in brain activity of a psychopath so he wasn't necessarily ' born evil' but had acquired his pschopathic behaviour along the line probably through no fault of his own
It s NOT black and white they need locking up for the safety of society but research definitely needs to be done to find the reasons behind whatever drives them to this extreme behaviour because surely we all agree this isn't the action of someone with a normal conscience

If he had murdered my child, I would have spent the rest of my life hoping he was in the most pain possible for as long as possible.

Unfortunately no amount of delving will ever get answers. People always have a choice no matter their childhood. Glad he's dead.

I was involved daphne.

But we're not in their shoes, are we? I don't see the point of hatred by people who were never involved. I just don'tsee what it serves, so I agree with Eloethan. Brady and Hindley were caught before they murdered anybody else - thank goodness - and were incarcerated for the rest of their lives. It doesn't really matter whether they were classified as mentally ill. They were dangerous and it was right that they were never released.

Can you imagine being the mum or dad; sister or brother; granny or grandad; aunt or uncle; neighbour or friend of John Kilbride; Lesley Ann Downey; Keith Bennett; Pauline Reade or Edward Evans? Which do you think would be worse to live with for the rest of your life: knowing that Brady & Hindley sexually abused your child before murdering them but their bodies were eventually found? Or never knowing what happened to your child before they were murdered and their body was never found? Because this is exactly what those families have had to live with for the last 50 years; the agony, guilt, misery and hopelessness that would even lead you to begging your child's murderer to please tell you where the bodies are so that they can bring them home.
Eleothan, I can understand you being puzzled by the outpouring of hatred for Brady and wondering what it can achieve. But in Ashton-under-Lyne, and nearby towns, that hatred is as strong today as it was in 1963. The murders of those children scarred us forever. Public feeling was, up until Brady's death, that they didn't want him, or Hindley, to be hanged. They wanted them to be released so that the families of those children could do to them what they had done to their children. And can you truthfully, honestly say that you wouldn't feel the same if it was your child?
Walk a mile in their shoes.......

Bluebelle. I think I'm right in saying that if Jeremy Bamber would admit to the murder of his sister and parents and show remorse, he would have been released by now. It certainly makes me wonder whether a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

I also agree with you that, in my view, anyone who commits these awful crimes must be so emotionally and psychologically damaged or mentally deranged that their way of thinking and behaving is totally alien to most people.

I'm not sure what the point is of outpourings of hatred - there is enough viciousness in the world without adding to it.

There is no capital punishment in the UK. There is no authority that make a decision that someone is so evil that they should be killed as a punishment for her or his crime, however appalling that crime may be. There is no authority that decides someone is not evil enough for a death sentence even though she/he has committed a terrible crime. There is no system that balances the cost of keeping someone in prison or in a secure mental health hospital against the taking of their life, regardless of the criminal's age at the time of conviction, regardless of the severity of the crime, regardless of public and press cries for blood.

These are some of the things that make the UK a civilised country.