Yahoo News Moors Murderer Ian Brady In Public Hearing
Moors murderer Ian Brady shows no "evidence of mental illness that warrants treatment" according to a psychiatrist in the killer's first public appearance for decades.
Brady, 75, who has been at a tribunal to assess his mental health, wants to be transferred to a prison from a high-security psychiatric hospital where he has been kept for the past 26 years.
The serial killer has made it known that he wants to starve himself to death.
He has been on successive hunger strikes for the past 14 years but is classed as a patient so staff at Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside have a duty to keep him alive by force-feeding him.
Brady has successfully campaigned for a public mental health tribunal, believing that if he is declared sane he would be transferred to a prison where he could die behind bars.
The hearing at Ashworth was relayed by video to Manchester Civil Justice Centre where journalists and victims' relatives watched on TV screens.
Dr Adrian Grounds, a forensic psychiatrist called to give evidence by Brady's legal team, said: "There are occasional episodes of behaviour suggesting that he might be hallucinating but ... they are not in association with other evidence of schizophrenia.
"I do not see there is evidence of mental illness that reaches any kind of threshold of seriousness or severity - or something that warrants treatment."
Dr Grounds said that the child killer was very similar mentally to how he was in the 1960s when he was sent to prison for life.
The psychiatrist said that Brady's view of Ashworth Hospital was "unremittingly critical and hostile and contemptuous".
"Essentially his position is that there is no hope of release. He is realistic about that and although he would like a better quality of life he knows that won't happen and he wants to be more free to end his life in his own way and be able to control that."
Brady is expected to give evidence himself later in the hearing.
The tribunal is being held at Ashworth but relayed via closed-circuit TV to Manchester's Civil Justice Centre where the public and press will be able to follow proceedings.
The hearing, which is expected to last about a week, was postponed last July because Brady suffered a seizure.
In the 1960s, Brady and his girlfriend Myra Hindley lured children to their deaths. Some of their victims were sexually tortured before being buried on Saddleworth Moor above Manchester.
Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, aged 12, Keith Bennett, also 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10 and 17-year-old Edward Evans were all victims of the pair.
Keith Bennett's remains were never found, despite extensive searches and police taking the killers back to the Moor in 1987.
The judge has said that questions relating to the whereabouts of the body will not be considered by the tribunal.
Hindley died in jail in November 2002, aged 60.
