Inquest into death of Moors murderer

The inquest, which is standard procedure when a prisoner dies in custody, will be held at Highpoint Prison in Suffolk, where Hindley had been held.

It will be overseen by Greater Suffolk coroner Peter Dean.

Hindley, 60, died on Friday of respiratory failure, following a chest infection, after 36 years in prison.

Police have refused to say when her funeral will take place, but a contingency plan was prepared for Hindley to be cremated in Cambridge.

Pathologists have carried out a post-mortem examination on the body, which will remain under police guard at West Suffolk Hospital until the inquest is underway.

Prison authorities feared that someone might attempt to do her harm even after death, or take pictures of the coffin to sell to newspapers.

Hindley wanted her body to be cremated and the ashes scattered at a secret location.

A Cambridgeshire Police spokeswoman urged people not to gather near Cambridge Crematorium to wait for the body, for safety reasons.

Hindley, who was jailed for life in 1966 for her part in two sadistic child murders and later confessed to two more, was Britain's longest-serving woman prisoner.

Death penalty

Her death has sparked debate about when it is right to keep criminals in jail until they die.

Some feared she could have been freed in coming weeks, following an appeal by another inmate that "whole life" tariffs should be set by judges, not by home secretaries as hers had.

Shadow chancellor Michael Howard, who was home secretary in the 1990s, said Hindley had been lucky to have escaped the death penalty, abolished for murder in 1965.

"The tariff... reflects the appropriate punishment for the act that was committed, and these were unspeakably dreadful acts," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

But friend and supporter Peter Stanford said Hindley had become a different person from the woman who committed the murders.

"If we run a prison service where we hope in some way there can be the possibility of reform, rehabilitation, redemption... Myra Hindley was a reformed character who was no longer a danger to society."

Hindley's accomplice Ian Brady, now 64, is currently being held at the high security Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside.

The pair's crimes of sexual abuse, torture and murder of children shocked the nation.

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.

Their final victim, Edward Evans, 17, was murdered in front of Hindley's 17-year-old brother-in-law, who alerted the police.

The couple were both jailed for life in 1966.