Ian Brady's body should not be released if his ashes will be scattered on moor where he buried victims, says coroner

Moors Murderer died in hospital on Monday night without revealing where he buried fifth victim

Police searching on Saddleworth Moor for Brady’s victims in 1965 (PA)

Ian Brady’s body will not be released until a coroner is satisfied that his ashes will not be scattered on the same moor where he buried his victims.

The serial killer, one of the Moors Murderers, carried out five killings between 1963 and 1965 and buried four of his victims on Saddleworth Moor in the South Pennines.

The body of his fifth victim, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, has never been found and the murderer consistently refused to tell police where he had buried the boy.

Brady died at high-security Ashworth Hospital in Sefton, Merseyside, on Monday night aged 79.

The senior coroner for Sefton, Christopher Sumner, said he would not authorise the release of Brady’s body until he had been assured that the ashes would not be scattered on Saddleworth Moor.

Mr Sumner also sought assurances that there was a funeral director and crematorium willing to handle Brady’s body.

The coroner told an inquest hearing that he had received a request to release the body of the killer, who adopted the surname Stewart-Brady while in prison.

“I would like an assurance before I do so that first of all the person who asked to take over responsibility for that funeral has a funeral director willing to deal with the funeral and that he has a crematorium willing and able to cremate Mr Stewart-Brady’s body,” he said.

“Emotions are high, they are bound to be, not so much in this area but in the Manchester area.

“I also wanted to have assurance that when Mr Stewart-Brady is cremated his ashes will not be scattered on Saddleworth Moor. I think that’s a right and proper moral judgement to make.

“I think it would be offensive if Mr Stewart-Brady’s ashes were scattered on Saddleworth Moor.”

The official cause of death was given as corpul monale (heart failure) and obstructive pulmonary disease. The inquest heard that the killer had been receiving palliative care for the past two weeks and had had his feeding tube removed on 11 May.

Brady carried out the murders with his lover, Myra Hindley, who died in 2002. The pair abducted their victims from streets in the north of England and Brady sexually assaulted them before killing them.

He was jailed for the murders of John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17. He also killed Pauline Reade, 16, and 12-year-old Keith Bennett.

Officers reportedly made a final effort to implore Brady, by then on his death bed, to tell them where he had buried Keith’s body, but he refused.

The murderer had previously said he did not know the location because of changes to the landscape on the moor, but officers who were involved in the search believe this is untrue.

Reports suggest that, while in prison, Brady wrote a letter to Keith’s mother, Winnie Johnson, with strict instructions that it should not be given to her until after he died. The letter has never been located, and Johnson died in 2012 without knowing what happened to her son.

Brady’s solicitor, Robin Makin, said he had seen his client about two hours before his death.

“It was, I suppose, quite a moving sort of situation,” he said. “I got a call that he wanted to see me, he was obviously well aware that his death was imminent.”

They discussed Brady’s final wishes and arrangements for his cremation and funeral.