BBC News | UK | Brady collapses after hunger strike

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Monday, 27 December, 1999, 14:01 GMT

Brady collapses after hunger strike

Moors murderer Ian Brady has returned to high-security Ashworth Hospital where he collapsed after being on hunger strike for almost three months.

Brady, 61, who received three life sentences in 1966 for the horrific killings of three children, started refusing food and water on 30 September.

He collapsed early on Monday and was taken to another hospital to undergo tests.

It was the first time he had been outside Ashworth's grounds since being admitted in 1985.

A spokeswoman for high-security Ashworth Hospital said: A spokesperson for Ashworth Hospital said: "Ian Brady has returned to Ashworth this afternoon following tests which were carried out at Fazakerley Hospital, part of the Aintree Hospitals NHS Trust.

"The tests showed no cause for concern and Mr Brady will continue to be re-fed at Ashworth Hospital."

Since 29 October Brady has been fed a nourishing mixture via a tube, following a decision to start re-feeding him.

Brady protested he would rather die than "rot slowly" in prison, having said he accepts he will never be released.

The infamous child killer said he was not "remotely interested" in living for another 20 or 30 years behind bars.

In a letter to the BBC, Brady also said he was considering taking legal action over the decision to force-feed him.

He was transferred from Jade ward to the stricter regime of the Lawrence ward at Ashworth, where some of Britain's most disturbed psychopaths are housed.

The move was made after the discovery of a metal bucket handle - which could have been fashioned into a crude weapon - taped under a sink in the Jade ward laundry room.

Brady, jailed with accomplice Myra Hindley, has said that he was assaulted by a squad of male nurses who strip-searched him then pinned him down.

In his letter he said: "I prefer to die healthy rather than rot slowly for their vested interests and expediency."

'The right to die'

He said he had spent 35 years in captivity and was destined to die in "some garbage can".

Brady's solicitor, Robin Makin, said at the time: "Certainly he wants the right not to be force-fed and, if he chooses, the right not to eat and then to die.

"He wants the right to starve himself to death, but I cannot say anything more than that about his state of mind."

In May 1966 lovers Brady and Hindley, then 23, were sentenced to life for killing 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and 17-year-old Edward Evans.

Brady was also convicted of murdering 12-year-old John Kilbride. Lesley Ann and John were buried in unmarked graves on Lancashire's Saddleworth Moor.

Twenty years later, in 1987, Brady and Hindley confessed to having killed 16-year-old Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, 12.

Pauline Reade's body was found, but Keith Bennett's body remains undiscovered.

The killers' identities were discovered after Brady involved David Smith, Hindley's brother-in-law, in the death of Edward Evans - and the terrified man contacted police.

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