yvonne roberts, who visited the Moors Murderer in jail, reviews last night’s drama, Longford |
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Myra Hindley, the child killer, invited me to visit her in prison in the 1980s. Two things struck me about her. The first was her charisma. The second was that, as she talked, she betrayed a stunning lack of empathy; in my opinion, a psychopathic lack of empathy.
Hindley had procured ten-year-old Leslie Ann Downey for Ian Brady to rape, record her anguish and kill. I asked Hindley how she could do that. She replied: "Downey shouldn't have been out so late at night." She wanted me to campaign for her release. I declined.
Hindley had met Ian Brady when she was 18 and he was several years her senior. By the early Sixties, the 'Moors Murderers' were both in the dock for the horrific murders of two children and a 17-year-old boy. (Hindley confessed to taking part in two more murders much later.) The iconic photograph circulated
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| Perhaps she was neither monster nor puppet but simply a woman perfectly capable of killing for pleasure |
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at the time - panda eyes and peroxide hair - personified the idea of demonic female evil.
Channel 4's drama Longford sought to portray the relationship between Lord Longford and Hindley, who he campaigned tirelessly to have released until his death in 2001 (she died of a heart attack a year later).
Hindley was played by Samantha Morton almost as a waif, washed out and defeated, wrapped in a big woolly jumper. There was no sense of the crimes she had committed. Even later, when Hindley appeared more manipulative, she still had the face of a lost soul. How could this woman raise her hand in anger, let alone strike a naked and terrified child, as she undoubtedly did?
Longford wrongly mythologised Hindley afresh. In truth, perhaps she was neither monster nor Brady's puppet but simply a woman perfectly capable of killing for pleasure - a thought that society, including the late Lord Longford, has not been willing to accept. 
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 27, 2006
 Howard Rosenberg on the final Prime Suspect
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