Moors Murders: Funeral Held For Winnie Johnson

Tributes have been paid to Winnie Johnson, the mother of Moors Murder victim Keith Bennett, at her funeral in Manchester.

Family and friends gathered at St Chrysostom's Church in Victoria Park, where Keith attended Sunday School and Mrs Johnson continued to be a regular parishioner.

Keith Bennett was just 12 years old when he was abducted and murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. He was the only one of their five young victims whose body was never found.

Mrs Johnson had repeatedly pleaded with the killers for help in locating her son's last resting place but the former hospital worker and mother-of-nine died from cancer in a hospice on August 18 without finding his makeshift grave on Saddleworth Moor so he could be given a Christian burial.

Friend Pat Ayres told Sky News: "She was feisty, rude, a lot of fun. I loved I her dearly.

"Of course, as everybody knows, she was scarred by what had happened. But as well as being scarred it gave her a sense of purpose.

"She never gave up, I expect to her dying breath she wouldn't have given up. Certainly, with every bit of her spirit and her will, she wouldn't rescind that power to those people who took him."

Keith was last seen by his mother in the early evening on June 16, 1964 after he left his Manchester home to visit his grandmother's house nearby.

Brady and Hindley's other victims were Pauline Reade, 16, who disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12, 1963; John Kilbride, 12, who was snatched in November the same year; Lesley Ann Downey, 10, who was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964, and Edward Evans, 17, who was axed to death in October 1965.

The killers were caught after the Evans murder and Lesley and John's bodies were recovered from the moors.

Both killers were taken back to Saddleworth Moor to help police find the remains of the outstanding victims but only Pauline's body was found - Brady claimed he could not remember where he had buried Keith.

A covert search operation on the moor in 2009, using a wealth of scientific expertise also failed to discover any trace of Keith.

Hindley died in jail in 2002 aged 60. Brady, 74, is currently being held in Ashworth Hospital, a high-security mental health unit on Merseyside.

Weeks before her death Mrs Johnson made a final appeal to Brady, but he refused to provide any further help in locating Keith's body.

Because of her ill health, she was never told that Brady's mental health advocate had been arrested following claims that the Moors murderer had handed her a letter containing information about the body's location.