Hindley 'should never be released'

The moor murderers: Myra Hindley and Ian Brady

By BBC News correspondent Peter Gould

On the day Myra Hindley resumes her legal battle for freedom, the former policeman who took her confession has told the BBC why he believes she should never be released.

Peter Topping, formerly Detective Chief Superintendent with Greater Manchester Police, says he does not accept Hindley's claims that she only took part in the moors murders because she was terrorised by her partner Ian Brady.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Mr Topping said: "Without her involvement, the murders couldn't have taken place.

Peter Topping: Hindley crucial part of murders

"She deliberately went out and abducted young children off the street knowing that she was delivering them to a madman for him to abuse and murder.

"Her role was pretty damning. She's taken part in the most evil of murders, and it's something that the public are not willing to forgive."

Hindley, 56, is going to the Appeal Court in London on Monday to contest the decision that she should never be released.

She has served 32 years for the murders of Lesley Anne Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.

Brady, now 60, was also convicted of murdering 12-year-old John Kirkbride.

"It's going to absolutely devastate the families of the victims if she is released. It's going to affect public confidence in justice," said Mr Topping.

"She is by her own confession an evil murderer, and as such I believe the public is entitled to be protected from her.

"People say, oh well, she's a reformed person. Well, we've seen many occasions when reformed people have left prison and gone out and murdered again. One doesn't know ... but it's a risk that needn't be taken, so why should we take it?"

Hindley wants freedom

Hindley believes that after more than 30 years behind bars she should now be released.

At the end of last year she tried to argue that the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, did not have the power to keep her in prison indefinitely.

Hindley's face still creates a powerful impression

But three High Court judges ruled against her and it is that decision her lawyers are challenging on Monday in the Court of Appeal.

In a recent newspaper interview, Hindley said she had been sadistically abused by her accomplice Ian Brady and forced into helping him to carry out the murders.

But in a letter to Mr Straw, obtained by the BBC, Brady says the claims are an insult to the relatives of their victims.

He wrote: "Hindley, in her usual Barbara Cartland prose, has created a Victorian melodrama in which she portrays herself as being forced to murder serially by being drugged, blackmailed, whipped, raped, battered, having her family threatened with slaughter, bitten strangled, etc, etc.

"At first I was staggered and appalled... then I slowly realised that desperation had driven her over the top into a surrealistic landscape of hyperbolic fiction, in which all the concrete evidence against her was conveniently ditched and forgotten."

Finding the bodies

Mr Topping interviewed the two killers in the 1980s during his efforts to find the bodies of two children, still missing after more than 20 years.

Brady and Hindley were taken back to the moors, separately, to help in the search. The remains of Pauline Reade were eventually discovered but Keith Bennett's body has never been found.

The search for the remaining bodies lasted 20 years

After studying all the evidence in the case, Mr Topping said it simply was not credible for Hindley to portray herself as Brady's unwilling accomplice.

"There was ample opportunity throughout her association with Brady, when he was getting involved in these murders, for her to go to the authorities," he told the BBC.

"When she was arrested in the 1960s she had the protection of the law around her, but she didn't help the investigating officers at all to try to resolve what had happened to those children.

"She chose to remain silent and not to admit anything at all. Quite honestly, that doesn't equate with somebody who is now saying, 'Look, I didn't really want to get involved in it, I was having to respond to this man because I was in fear of my own safety'.

"Once she had been arrested there could be no question of her safety being at risk."

Confession 'conditions'

In his interview, one of the few occasions that he has spoken at length about his investigation of the murders, Mr Topping revealed that when Hindley confessed she imposed certain conditions.

Myra Hindley confessed to Peter Topping

"She wanted to go through her confession without me taking notes or recording any detail," Mr Topping said.

"In other words she wanted a rehearsal before she actually made the confession proper. That is very unusual.

"And the confession itself, it was delivered in such a way it was very controlled. She became very emotional at times, but on reflection you have to wonder whether the emotion was, or was not, genuine.

"There were times when she did seem, I have to say, very upset. But given the whole circumstances as they eventually washed up, it does lead you to believe - or led me to believe - that I probably witnessed a very convincing performance."

Mr Topping believes Hindley should now abandon her efforts to secure her freedom, because of the strain her legal battle is imposing on the families of her victims.

"Every time that she makes some application, challenges a decision that seeks to keep her in prison, seeks to appeal against her incarceration - which I know it is her right to do - she brings this back into the public domain, and it causes grief and anxiety to the families.

"The kindest thing that she can do is to accept her lot and quietly spend the rest of her time in prison."