Margaret Thatcher intervened to halt plans that could have led to the release of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors murderers.
She said that the “hideous and cruel” nature of the couple’s crimes meant neither should ever be freed after Leon Brittan, the home secretary, set out a timetable for their possible release. Hindley could have been released as early as 1995 and Brady a decade later.
Thatcher’s objection has been revealed in a handwritten addition to a letter from Brittan. She wrote: “I think the sentences you are proposing are too short. I do not think that either of these prisoners should ever be released from custody. Their crime was the most hideous and cruel in modern times.”
Brady and his girlfriend tortured and murdered five children between 1963 and 1965, burying at least four on Saddleworth Moor, near Oldham.
Thatcher’s private secretary, Timothy Flesher, wrote to Brittan to discuss the Moors murderers in February 1985. “The prime minister said that she would be concerned if the fact that these cases were to go through the procedure outlined in the home secretary’s minute were to be interpreted as an indication that either Hindley or Brady would be released at some identifiable moment in the future,” he wrote.
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“The public revulsion, which she shared, at the crimes in which Hindley and Brady had been involved had not diminished with the passage of time.”
Brittan had told Thatcher that the couple should have been considered for parole after he decided that all life terms should be reviewed after 17 years.
“At present I have a tariff in mind of 30 years for Hindley and 40 years for Brady, implying that after 1992 and 2002 respectively the questions of release (in 1995 and 2005 at the earliest) will be determined on risk grounds rather than on grounds of retribution and deterrence,” he wrote. “I do not intend to announce this publicly.”
Hindley died in prison aged 60 in 2002. Brady died aged 79 in a psychiatric hospital in May this year.