One of Your Own (47 page)

On Sunday, 26 September 1976, Myra asked to see the
News of the World
, after a fellow inmate told her that
The Sun
was running a tenth anniversary feature about the Moors trial. She was horrified to find that the article partially quoted the transcript of the tape recording, and told an officer, ‘I’m so uptight, I’m going to freak out.’
⁴¹
She was assured that the newspaper would not be available to inmates on her wing. At the same time, 19-year-old Josie O’Dwyer, who had been in and out of custody since the age of 14, was primed to attack Myra. She recalls how she knew nothing of the case until two officers took her into a room, ‘sat me behind the door, opened out this two-page spread and said, “Read that” . . . and because what I read had made me shake and tremble with horror, they took me for a walk round the prison grounds. When I got back it was dinner time, so I went up to the recess to the loo, came out and was washing my hands when I heard someone coming up the stairs. It was Myra. I thought, “I’ll just stay here until she goes by.” But she didn’t go by, she came on across the bridge. Apparently, she had been talking to the officers and she had actually been kept in the office until they knew I was in the recess . . . I went for her.’
⁴²

According to an internal memo: ‘O’Dwyer states that Hindley hissed at her, whilst Hindley states that she “tut-tutted” at O’Dwyer when the latter called her a “child-murdering bastard”. From staff statements it would appear that O’Dwyer’s version is probably correct.’
⁴³
Josie launched herself on Myra, punching and kicking her to the ground. Janie Jones heard the commotion and rushed to the scene: ‘Myra did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Her blood was squirting all over the place, she was being kicked and punched senseless, but she simply swayed around limply as she took every blow . . . She didn’t lift a finger to help herself. So in I charged . . . Josie released Myra – but not before she’d broken her nose and kicked out the cartilage in her leg. There was blood everywhere . . . The alarm bells were sounding but no officers came. Josie was kicking Myra full in the face . . . Then she picked her up and seemed to be trying to throw her over the rail. Myra did not scream or cry out, but she clung limply to the rail.’
⁴⁴

Officers eventually went to Myra’s aid. She was taken to an outside hospital and booked in under the name ‘Susan Gibb’. Surgeons discovered her nose was broken, her lip and one ear had been split, her eyes blackened, front teeth loosened and the cartilage in one of her knees damaged. She had to eat liquid food through a straw for six weeks. Josie also ended up in hospital because the stitches from the tattoos she had recently had removed had burst open as she tackled Myra. She recalls, ‘The officers treated me like a celebrity. It was: “Here’s half an ounce of tobacco, Josie”; “Let me shake your hand”; “Well done, Josie, I’ve waited 12 years for someone to do that,” etc.’
⁴⁵
Myra wrote a private letter to the authorities, sensing what had happened: ‘It is my opinion, which I feel at liberty to express to you, confidentially, that Josie O’Dwyer was in some way used as a pawn, however willingly a pawn, in a most unhealthy and, to me, frightening game. If anything I have said here can be used as mitigating circumstances at the adjudication which Josie O’Dwyer faces, then I hope it can do so, even though I still feel a natural antipathy for what she did to me.’
⁴⁶
To other inmates, she was less charitable about Josie. Carole Callaghan claimed that Myra had asked her to ‘find that cow and break her arms and legs’ and an internal memo alleges that she and Lord Longford ‘both laughed’ when he informed Myra that Josie had been placed in the punishment block.
⁴⁷

Myra’s facial injuries were such that in December she wrote to inform her mother that she didn’t want Sharon to visit in case she was frightened by her appearance. She was also depressed by the news that her friend Robert Speaight had died unexpectedly, but she welcomed a visit by Elizabeth Longford. Initially opposed to her husband’s friendship with Myra, Lady Longford decided she should meet her and recorded in her diary: ‘Myra, very slim, was dressed in a long skirt and white blouse, her long brown hair loosely combed – very pale complexion and dark blue eyes – black lashes and regular eyebrows . . . The impression she now gives is of deep sadness. Her voice is low and rather husky . . . She showed us her bandaged and swollen leg and knee and the marks of her two black eyes were still visible . . .’
⁴⁸
After persuading Myra to let them renew the campaign for her, Lady Longford recalled that Myra ‘kissed me goodbye, putting one hand at the back of my fur hat. I responded, feeling deeply moved and unhappy at the whole ghastly tragedy.’
⁴⁹

For Myra, 1977 began auspiciously. On 23 January, she sent her mother a birthday card and enclosed £3 from the money she had won after coming first in the Koestler Prize for prison arts – she sang three Joan Baez songs while playing the guitar. But that same month, due to renovation work in Holloway, Myra was transferred without warning to Durham, where the routine was far stricter and the place itself uniformly dismal. Myra was put on H wing, within the men’s prison, where women had to eat their meals watched from a glass observation box. Every morning the inmates emptied their toilet pails into a sluice room whose stench hung over the breakfast table. Prisoners were not allowed to socialise behind closed doors, cameras were everywhere and even the toilets had half-doors.

Anne Maguire arrived in Durham after being wrongly convicted of running an IRA bomb-making factory. Her husband and two sons were imprisoned for their alleged part in the Guildford bombings, despite the complete lack of evidence against them. Anne’s strong Catholic beliefs, and her knowledge that she was innocent and would eventually be reunited with her family, sustained her, together with the friendships she made in prison. She vividly remembers Durham’s bleakness, its poor and often contaminated food, and the cold gym. She recalls: ‘When Myra arrived, we were all locked in. There were girls already there from Holloway who knew her and didn’t want anything to do with her. They were called into the office about that. They wouldn’t go to church either, if she was there. I said to the priest, “Well, Father, it’s like this: the devil himself won’t keep me out of Mass. I don’t have to sit beside her, I have my own seat that I had before she ever came into the building.” He asked me to have a word with the other girls because I got on with them all – they called me Mother. So I did and the following Sunday they went to church as usual.’
⁵⁰

Anne kept her distance from Myra, determined not to get involved in anything that would affect her own sentence. ‘I just passed the time of day with her. But then when I was sat in my cell, a knock came on the door and I heard Myra say, “It’s me, Anne.” Well, I just froze, I did. I’m telling the truth, I didn’t know what to do. I said, “Yes. What do you want, Myra?” And she said, “I know you don’t believe that I’m innocent of this.” I said back, “Look, Myra, please, I don’t want to know. Really, I just don’t want to know. I’ve enough to get on with. I don’t want you to talk to me about anything. But I’ll tell you this: at the time, when it all came out, if I could have got into Holloway I’d have smacked your face, so I would. What you’ve done is horrible.” And Myra said, “If you’d just read the court papers—” “No,” I said, “I couldn’t and I don’t see any purpose in it. I’m not a judge. The only judge who’ll judge us rightly is the Man above us.” She agreed with me, “I believe that too, Anne. That’s my belief.” So I said, “Well, you live with that, then. But I know I’m totally innocent.” She said straight back, “And what are people thinking about you today, Anne?” I said, “Yes, I’m sure there are mothers thinking I’m a horrible woman, but I
am
innocent.”’
⁵¹

Myra hated Durham, where exercise was taken in the concrete yard overlooked by male prisoners who chanted ‘Hang Mad Myra’ every time she appeared. When Longford visited her in February, bringing her repaired record player, she told him, ‘I’m all right, but I’ve gone back ten years and I’ve started my sentence all over again from square one. I’ve had to become a cleaner again. My pay has gone down 70p and I think it’s terrible to start again after ten years of it.’
⁵²
Sara Trevelyan also visited Myra in Durham: ‘The conditions were horrendous and had a profound effect on her. She was dosed up with Valium. Myra described the place as “a concrete submarine”. She got very depressed and her voice would become very low. Her handwriting, too, was infinitesimal, the microscopic handwriting of a deeply depressed and disturbed woman.’
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Myra had to give her small personal library to friends, keeping only those books that were essential for her OU course. The lack of fresh air and greenery turned her skin grey and her eyesight deteriorated. Her movements were shuffling; one prisoner described her as a zombie because she took so many tranquillisers, which also contributed to her weight gain. She smoked heavily, and the only thing that really cheered her was an affair with a married Scots woman. She liked the Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Algy Shearwater, and at his instigation began practising
The Spiritual Exercises
, a Jesuit book of prayers and reflections about the Bible.

Anne Maguire recalls: ‘Myra was depressed, but so were all of us. I will say that she did a lot of good concerning prisoners’ rights, helping people write petitions and telling us what we were allowed. She arranged for us the right to offer refreshments to our visitors, because before then we hadn’t been able to give them so much as a glass of water. When she first tried approaching us, some of the girls didn’t want to know, but she said, “You either listen or you don’t. But I’m going to have a tray with a teapot, biscuits, you name it, I will have it on that tray and I will take it out with me on visits. Because I know my rights.” The first time I took a tray out, Myra was near the hot water boiler. This officer in spectacles came up to me – she was nice, we used to be able to have a laugh with her – she said, “Right, Maguire, I have to check everything on your tray.” I said, “Aye, all right then.” She said, “Right, teapot,” and I took the lid off the teapot and all the steam blew out and misted up her glasses. Myra went into fits of laughter, absolute fits of laughter. The officer said, “I should have known I could leave it to you to do that, Maguire.” I said, “Well, you asked to see the teapot, didn’t you?!” But Myra sorted that out, and it was really a blessing for us. She did a lot in that respect.’
⁵⁴

Myra’s attention was deflected in May to putting a stop to
Our Kid
, a play about her crimes.
⁵⁵
She asked for an injunction to be taken out against it on her behalf, writing to a correspondent: ‘Whilst it would be a change for something constructive to be written about me, as opposed to the usual unedifying rubbish, I don’t want it to be at the expense of people to whom it would cause any kind of distress, including Mrs West, who seems to think I condone and even encourage this kind of thing, or to my own mother, who has suffered also in her own way.’
⁵⁶

On 6 July 1977, the BBC discussion programme
Brass Tacks
devoted an episode to Myra’s bid for parole. Representing her were Lord Longford, Janie Jones (recently released from prison), Maureen (in silhouette) and Sara Trevelyan. Among those speaking against her was Ann West, whose grief and fury lent eloquence to her delivery: ‘When does
my
parole begin? I am serving a life sentence because of that monster. I had to listen to those tapes of my daughter begging for mercy. If Myra Hindley comes out,
I’ll
be up for murder. I’ve said this to Lord Longford once and I’ll say it again: she will be
one dead woman
. I want
justice
.’
⁵⁷
Patrick Kilbride, John’s father, telephoned the studio to echo her words: ‘I’ll wait outside the jail for her and I’ll kill her.’
⁵⁸
Afterwards, the BBC switchboard was inundated with calls supporting the victims’ families; while those who had defended Myra were quickly ushered out of the back doors of the studio.
⁵⁹
An opinion poll taken in the wake of the show revealed that 84 per cent of those approached believed that Myra should never be freed.

Writing to Maureen afterwards, Myra spoke of her desperation at the diminishing prospect of parole and the effect of her notoriety on her mother Nellie: ‘I often feel it would be better for her if I were dead, for although it would be terrible for her at first, eventually she would find peace of mind . . . I think of Ann West, her natural grief curdled and made rancid by hatred and bitterness, perpetually robed in almost manic fanaticism, and my heart aches for her, about the state she’s allowed herself to get into. But then I think of her constant harping about mothers and children, and think of my own mother, whom she never gives a thought to; my mother who is as innocent as that child was (whose innocence I was partly responsible for taking away, but whose life I was
not
) and some of her hatred and bitterness rubs off on me . . .’
⁶⁰
When Longford visited Myra, he found her in low spirits and wrote to
The Times
: ‘No one who knows her seriously supposes that she would be a public menace if she were released. Her state of remorse is such that she will be haunted by it all her life.’
⁶¹

In January 1978, Ian Brady resurfaced in the public eye with a letter in the
Daily Mirror
, declaring that Longford didn’t represent his views on parole; he wrote that he no longer allowed Longford to visit him because of his ‘Free Myra’ campaign, adding from his cell in Wormwood Scrubs: ‘I have always accepted that the weight of the crimes both Myra and I were convicted of justifies permanent imprisonment, regardless of expressed personal remorse and verifiable change.’
⁶²