The Moors murders

Brady and Hindley: Crimes shocked the nation

The Moors murders were a series of crimes that shocked Britain when they first came to light.

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered four children during 1963 and 1964 and buried their bodies on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester in northern England.

Lesley Ann Downey, 10, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, and Pauline Reade, 16, were all sexually assaulted before their deaths at the hands of the couple.

Police were able to identify the location of a grave from this snapshot

Brady and Hindley often spent days out on the moor, picknicking and taking photographs of each other - sometimes on the graves of their victims.

Their downfall came when they killed Edward Evans, a 17-year-old they had met in Manchester city centre and lured back to their home at Hattersley, a council estate on the outskirts of Oldham.

Brady murdered the youth with an axe in the front room of the house while David Smith, Myra's brother-in-law, was there.

Horrified, Smith returned home and contacted the police.

He also told officers that Brady had talked of other murders and of burying bodies on Saddleworth Moor, which at the time he had dismissed as fantasies.

Leslie Anne Downey: Torture tape recorded by Brady and Hindley

After the bodies of Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride were recovered from the moor, Brady and Hindley went on trial on 27 April 1966 at Chester Assizes, where they pleaded not guilty to all charges.

During the trial, recordings of Lesley Ann Downey's last moments - recorded by the pair as they tortured and sexually assaulted the girl before strangling her - were played to the court.

Brady and Hindley were convicted of murdering Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, while Brady was also convicted of the murder of John Kilbride. They both received life sentences.

Although they were strongly suspected of the killings of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, their bodies had not been found at the time of the trial.

The body of Keith Bennett has never been found

In fact, it was not until the 1980s that fresh light was thrown on their disappearances.

Hindley and Brady finally admitted the killings, and Saddleworth Moor was sealed off while they returned to the scene of their crimes and attempted to help police pinpoint the graves of the two children.

After months of digging, officers recovered the mummified remains of Pauline Reade.

Keith Bennett's body has never been found, and police have no plans to carry out more searches on the moor.