One of Your Own (56 page)

In September, Myra’s legal team – Edward Fitzgerald QC and solicitor Jim Nichol – advised her to cease communication with Duncan Staff, worried that his documentary might be seen as an attempt to influence public opinion, which in turn might adversely affect her court case. She assured her supporters, ‘I just know that [Staff] will never betray me and will help me wherever I’ve asked him to.’
¹⁶
Following concerned letters from Staff to her solicitor, Myra wrote to Astor that she hoped they could find a compromise, since she wanted the documentary to go ahead but was very anxious not to attract the ‘wrong’ sort of exposure. She had been angry with Lord Longford on a recent visit with his wife because ‘he absolutely monopolises the conversation by talking about publicity . . . there is no way I’ll ever shut him up’.
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She was upset again when the Save the Children Fund returned two private donations she had made; David Astor and Terry Waite wrote to the director of the fund, explaining that his letter of refusal had ‘reduced her to tears’.
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But the director stood firm; the fund would not accept donations from Myra Hindley.

In January 1999, Myra wrote in a more optimistic mood to David Astor about a visit she had received from Geoff Knupfer, ‘with whom I’ve maintained contact, whom I trust implicitly and who has been very helpful and supportive by writing letters to the Parole Board and to my legal team for use at the courts, etc.’.
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That same month she informed Bernard Black that she had been granted Legal Aid for her appeal: ‘My legal team are cautiously optimistic . . . but personally I think we’ll have to go to the European Court of Human Rights, so have “set” seven to eight years aside until the whole process is finished.’
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She outlined her plans to upgrade her Honours degree from a lower to an upper second and perhaps an MA; she had provisionally settled on studying Charlotte Mew, a much-underrated poet whose work she had quoted in her remand letters to Ian. The following month, the
Daily Mirror
ran a front-page article on a story that was already five years old but which caused ructions nonetheless: ‘Jailed Moors Murderer Myra Hindley spent three hours looking after an eight-year-old girl with only her lesbian lover supervising the astonishing visit’.
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Joe Chapman recalls: ‘Prison staff are encouraged to bring their children in on occasion, under supervision, obviously. On that day, I’d taken Sophie into the healthcare centre, where she did some crayoning with Myra and spent some time doing forward rolls and so on in the gym, while Myra and Nina applauded. I don’t regret what happened, only the way it was reported, which was my fault. I was telling a journalist how Myra had changed and he said, “Ah, yes, but would you trust your
own
children with her?” Stupid me, I said, “Well, I have done.” And out it came.’
²²
An internal investigation was launched and a statement was issued, reassuring the public that measures were in place to prevent similar incidents. David Astor was infuriated by the negative publicity; his accountant informed Joe Chapman that he was withdrawing his financial support for the Replay Trust, Chapman’s charity. Several other donors followed his lead.

In February 1999, Myra’s most formidable opponent, Ann West, died of cancer. In one of her last interviews, she described how Lesley’s grave had been repeatedly damaged;
Let Myra Go
had been scratched across the marble headstone, and eventually Ann and her husband decided to have her daughter re-interred at a secret spot. Shortly before her death, Ann had visited the moor and presented retired policeman Robert Spiers with a plaque thanking him for bringing her daughter home. She told a journalist to pass a message on to Myra: ‘If there is such a thing as haunting and ghosts, I’ll be on her shoulder morning, noon and night. She’ll not get rid of me.’
²³
As part of her posthumous battle against Myra’s bid for parole, she gave permission to journalist and producer Clive Entwistle to include one of Ian Brady’s photographs of ten-year-old Lesley, bound and gagged, in his documentary about the Moors Murders. The tape recording was deemed too harrowing for broadcast.

Myra’s supporters continued to work ceaselessly on her behalf. Astor considered purchasing a property in the Chatham area to rent out to Myra and Tricia, who continued to be part of her life. He also made enquiries about the possibility of Myra’s release into a religious community, one of which was Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire, recommended by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Norwich, who had visited Myra. Astor’s emotional and fiscal support was extensive: since May 1998, when he declared himself ‘shocked by the smallness of your spending money’, he had instructed his lawyers to provide Myra with the sum of £200 a month, and for a six-month period increased it to £250.
²⁴
In addition to her allowance, he paid her legal and medical bills, and her monthly expenses, which included items such as books, videos, bouquets for her cell, Moonberry Musk body spray, presents for relatives, Jungian analysis and a Filofax in response to her request to be as ‘normal’ as possible, as well as fleecy bedsocks, a featherbed topper, quilted bedspread and bottles of whisky for her mother. His widow, Bridget, confirms: ‘He certainly did fund Myra’s legal campaign and so on, because he believed in it. Myra asked for financial help for her mother, but I’m not sure how often. We have a benevolent fund and I don’t know if he used that money or not, but neither of them cringed. They had a lot of dignity, Myra and her mother.’
²⁵
Bridget wasn’t involved in the parole campaign but visited Myra regularly: ‘She had her own room in Highpoint and was surrounded by her belongings and pictures of her family. We could have been visiting someone down the road, just having a cup of tea. She talked about her family a great deal. She loved her niece very much – that was completely genuine. We visited her mother, who was a very pleasant woman, angular, tall, calm and, as I said, extremely dignified. Myra was someone I would be pleased to welcome after her release, to meet up with for tea and so on. I liked her very much. One does tend to like people who’ve gone through things and come out the other side.’
²⁶

At the end of the year, Myra had a living will drawn up in addition to her actual will, in which she named Tricia, Astor and McCooey as executors. In December 1999, her close friend Father Bert White died in a car crash, a few months after visiting his native India to celebrate his 50th birthday. Father Michael recalls: ‘Myra was truly devastated by his death. I went to the funeral and took photographs of the grave and coffin and so on, so that it would become a reality for her.’
²⁷
Shortly afterwards, Myra collapsed in her cell. She was admitted to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge under the name Christine Charlton. Diagnosed with a cerebral aneurysm (a swollen artery at the base of the brain), she informed her solicitor that she didn’t want to be kept alive if she slipped into a coma. Surgery repaired the aneurysm and she returned to prison, ignoring doctors’ advice to quit smoking. She applied again for permission to visit her mother but conceded that it was better for them to remain apart rather than prejudice her mother’s anonymity. Tricia still visited Nellie regularly and kept Myra informed about her.

In March 2000, the BBC aired Duncan Staff’s documentary
Myra Hindley
as part of their Modern Times series. David Astor was delighted by it, but the programme met with a more cautious response from her legal team. Staff and Myra met a few months before the documentary was televised. He recalls: ‘Her appearance was extremely smart, she’d put effort into it and made sure she looked right for the meeting. Perfect trouser suit, perfect shirt, nice jewellery, manicured nails. Everything laid out properly for a tea. There was a sense of planning and control there and she looked very together. She was easy to talk to and she could be amusing. Did I like her? I always had in the back of my mind the knowledge that I was doing a job. That sounds cold, but it’s how I approached it. She was an incredibly socially skilled person, but I was there for a reason.’
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On 30 March, Myra lost her fight for freedom in the English courts; her lawyers announced their intention to challenge the decision in the European Court of Human Rights. Andrew McCooey reflects: ‘The parole provisions of the Criminal Justice Act are bound to two elements: serving a sufficient period and not being a danger to the public. The tariff from the judge was open to revision, but she served the tariff he set out originally for her and then Michael Howard added another stipulation of his own to the conditions for parole: that of whether or not the public would wear it. All tied up inextricably with the need for being seen to be reactive to law and order, for the purpose of winning votes. That third one is very obviously a political assessment and in her case it was applied . . . Nowadays, the Home Secretary has no part in that decision; it’s been removed and Article 6 of the Convention states that as regards release, all criminal cases should be determined by an independent tribunal.’
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In September, Myra’s application was lodged at the courts in Strasbourg. Three months later she renewed her request to be granted a ‘compassionate visit to her mother’, this time informing the authorities that a refusal ‘would make her extremely cross’.
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But the visit did not take place.

When Myra was hospitalised again the following March (an internal memo outlines security concerns: ‘limited risk of impulsive dash, as she is not mobile but there is a possibility of abduction’), some newspapers erroneously claimed that she was suffering from cancer and had weeks to live.
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Upon her return to Highpoint, she received a letter from author Brian Masters, enquiring if she would consider working with him on an exhaustive book about her life. Masters’ previous biographical subjects included Sartre and Camus, although his best-known work was
Killing for Company
, a study of serial killer Dennis Nilsen, written with Nilsen’s cooperation and widely regarded as a masterpiece of its kind. Myra intended to discuss his idea, which she liked, with her solicitor, but shortly afterwards it seems that Duncan Staff highlighted the fact to Myra that working with Masters might bracket her amongst serial killers in general. He proposed that he would write a book himself, which would offer a true understanding of the case and would provoke the public into seriously questioning the role of the Home Secretary in her continued imprisonment. On 20 August, Myra wrote to Astor, agreeing with Staff that it wouldn’t serve her well to be grouped with the likes of Nilsen and Jeffrey Dahmer, adding that she was confident a book by Staff would be ‘no doubt more sympathetic’ to her.
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Even so, she questioned whether any book would aid her cause: ‘The thing is, I really don’t want the inevitable publicity, etc., of such a book being published; enough is enough, and Duncan’s one is really part of his own agenda. Please let me know what you think, as I always value your advice.’
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Astor’s reply is not among his papers, but shortly afterwards Myra began corresponding with Staff over the whereabouts of Keith Bennett’s grave. A planned meeting between Myra and Alan Bennett with detectives in attendance had been shelved twice due to unforeseen circumstances and was never rescheduled due to her deteriorating health. Father Michael recalls: ‘Alan Bennett approached Myra differently to everyone else. He was willing to speak to her, to work with her soberly, in order to see if Keith could be found. She did her best. We had photos of the moors to sift through – I think they were sent via a solicitor – which we looked at together. I asked her various questions, hoping to draw memories out of her, such as where she had sat, what she could see and hear, that sort of thing. Anything, really, to jog her memory. And from what she told me I drew a map, the one that was published everywhere, Myra’s map. But if you look at the handwriting you’ll see that it’s mine, not hers. I drew it to her instructions because she wasn’t able to do so herself. There was no question of Myra returning to the moor again – she needed a walking frame to get about, so it would have been physically impossible. She did what she could.’
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In August 2001, Lord Longford died at the age of 95. Though the frequency of their contact had lessened since the late 1980s, he and Myra continued to correspond and meet occasionally, although she admitted to Astor on one occasion that she was ‘forcing’ herself to send Longford a visiting order.
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Peter Stanford recalls: ‘The problem was that every time he visited her, the tabloids would find out, mainly because he told them, and afterwards he would give them an update on her case, having just spoken to Myra about it. He couldn’t help himself. But she retained affection for him, though having said that, the way she treated him was a bit disappointing. He mortgaged his good name in her cause. He’d been visiting prisons since 1930, and obscure inmates at that, and continued to do a great deal, but all that’s been forgotten. I lost touch with Myra as well, partly because of that, and also because in the last Christmas card I received from her she said that she was making a collage on her cell wall of her friends’ children and could I send photos of mine. My wife said she would leave me if I did. So that was the end of that.’
³⁶

Four months later, on 7 December 2001, David Astor died. Described as ‘the gentleman editor’ of Fleet Street in the obituaries, his association with Myra was not mentioned, although almost every obituary of Lord Longford referred to her. The man whom Myra regarded as her adopted father died at the age of 89, working until the end on finding somewhere for her to live upon her release; the last place he secured for her was a convent in New York, whose management cancelled their offer in the wake of tabloid interest.