Moors Murderer Ian Brady A 'Danger To Himself'

A high-security psychiatric hospital has insisted that Moors murderer Ian Brady should continue to be treated there for his own safety.

A lawyer for Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside told a mental health tribunal that there is a "real risk" the serial child-killer would seek to take his own life if transferred to prison.

The 75-year-old has made it clear that he wants to go back to jail so that he can continue a hunger strike without being force-fed.

The hearing is considering whether he is mentally fit enough to make the switch.

Eleanor Grey QC, representing the hospital, said: "It is necessary for his own health and safety if not for the protection of others (that he stays in the psychiatric hospital)."

She added: "There is an element of nostalgia in his attitude to prison as well as the grass always being greener somewhere else."

Ms Grey said Brady held fixed and paranoid beliefs, including the view that he is the subject "not just of eavesdropping but bugging".

The tribunal is being held at Ashworth and relayed via video link to members of the public and media in courtrooms in Manchester.

Brady has appeared to be taking a very close interest in the proceedings, reading documents and occasionally making notes.

He has been urged on a few occasions by a member of his legal team to "shush" when trying to make a point.

Dressed in black and wearing dark glasses, he has a feeding tube running into his nose.

Although he claims to be on hunger strike, the tribunal has heard that staff "turn a blind eye" when he makes toast or packet soup for himself "to spare him embarrassment".

The murderer's legal team claims that he has personality disorders but is not mentally ill enough to continue receiving treatment in a hospital.

His lawyer, Nathalie Lieven QC, told the tribunal that although he seemed to display lack of empathy and "a grandiose sense of self-importance" there was "little sense of psychosis". She said he is resistant to treatment for mental illness.

"Why is Ashworth being so extraordinarily protective of this one patient and so unwilling to accept the normal position that if a patient suffers a relapse (of schizophrenia) he will simply be sent back?" she asked.

Brady was taken out of prison in 1985 after being declared criminally insane.

Ashworth Hospital argues that he still displays anti-social, narcissistic behaviour, holds "bizarre delusional beliefs" and suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Brady and his partner, Myra Hindley, were convicted and jailed for life in the 1960s. They lured children and teenagers to their deaths, with their victims sexually tortured before being buried on Saddleworth Moor, east of Manchester.

Hindley died in hospital, still a prisoner, in November 2002 at the age of 60.