The Gates of Janus

by Ian Brady

  And the better line: Lesley Ann with your pretty white beads.41

  Cheaply, the one who wrote the afterword to The Gates of Janus tells Alan Bennett that Colin Wilson and Keightley were wrong, typical, fooled. Full of shit. Then, of course, my part is more about you than Brady and you don’t know how to read Brady. Safely, insolently, it’s Bennett and the other tools he’s too used to talking to that are full of shit. Shit that smells like he’s come to not enjoy his position as the one who ministers what other people say about his brother, the man who raped and murdered his brother, and those inconsiderately listening should follow his homespun grief and forum posts and the site he runs that smells worse than that: like something he turned into a drowning lifestyle. It’s he that should be ashamed. Trading the existential experience of cruelty for pity at best. Trading loss for moral superiority for a Manchester mission that sides with Brady at worst. And basking in the village right while they look to you as silly, tragic and there but for the grace of God. And Brady, God bless him, hasn’t probably told the families of the victims what he actually thinks about them while he, rhetorically, plays lip service to exactly their brand of ugly thinking. I say probably because I’m not seeking to talk for Brady. And there’s a little letter that was released a while ago where Brady seemed to take the side of thinking that suggested the families’ exaction above all sense should be taken most seriously. As if all decisions to speak otherwise are unfair. If not ugly, full of shit if not right, and easy as fuck like his, when it comes to putting up with the incongruities in what they say, want and need to be protected from. Or helped with. They know how to mimic each other far too comfortably. I sound more cynical than cheap; cheap being cynical and merely the politely unspoken when considerate. Brady plays that badly. Bennett doesn’t seem to cotton that he’s being put up with. Even his partner doesn’t have the heart to tell him. Used, humored. Then again, I don’t know what she’s asking him for, in the longitudinal. Push more, it seems.

  In a letter to journalist and author Brendan Pittaway, Brady discussed his thoughts on the then-recent book by Peter Topping and the interview Topping did with Bob Azurdia for promotion. Pittaway sent Brady a tape of the unedited interview and Brady critiqued the discussion via his personal knowledge of Topping’s relativism:

  Although Topping, in his book, expresses doubts as to the veracity of her (Myra) “confessions” and describes them as “good performances,” this did not stop him, his publishers and The Sun from claiming, for financial exploitation, that they had the “true story” of the Moors Murders, and printing details they knew would cause distress to relatives of the victims. Azurida missed this.

  And.

  Re Topping’s relationship with Mrs. West. She asked if she could visit me and I agreed. But the visit was stopped by Topping on the grounds that it would “impede investigations” and that Mrs. West was “a woman who thrived on publicity” and kept “a video library of all her TV appearances.” I informed Mrs. West of these comments.42

  See it as defensive. Ann West and Winnie Johnson wrote to the murderers of their children. Requested information from them. Ann publicly dedicated herself to the promotional campaign to make sure Myra spent the rest of her life in jail. Left a film of her last wishes for the media just before her death. Winnie left one too. Good idea, perhaps. Winnie asking Ian for an understanding of respect, to do the decent thing. Obviously, maybe, neither side had respect for the other. Decency doesn’t exist between the two, it can’t. Not when only one side is listening and the other side is demanding anything remotely like decency. Yet there were pleas. And side-stage remarks that Ian sadistically enjoyed these pleas. Good idea, perhaps.

  There were, as far as we know so far, no photographs taken of Keith Bennett. One was said to be taken after death but thrown away. Reliably assumed he was raped, with Myra conveniently and doubtfully away from where the murder and sexual violence occurred, his body exists in the minds created by the confessions given during the reopening of the case to locate the bodies that went undiscovered for trial. Brady called the murders an “existential experience” long before the tribunal, recently added that they were comparatively “petty” when considered against “politicians and soldiers.” And, well before, contended that the murdered children were specifically targeted because Pauline, at 16 years old, fought back too much. He now says he had a “side-line” in pornography and photos of him and Myra in various important states of sexual congress had been found and reviewed. Lucky. These photos haven’t been seen outside of supervised police files, never, to my knowledge, published in any porn magazine that accepted and paid for reader’s contributions. And no mail order collector has ever come forward to share what he might have purchased directly from a, say, fellow collector or contact magazine or mob-style train-stop broadsheet. Emlyn Williams says he saw the pictures through “an acquaintance of a friend” of Brady, though Carol Ann Lee suspects that it was prosecutor William Mars-Jones QC who shared them with Williams.43

  From BBC 8/18/2012:

  The mother of Moors Murder victim Keith Bennett has died without ever finding out where her son was buried. Winnie Johnson, 78, died on Friday night after a long campaign to get her son’s killer, Ian Brady, to reveal the location of his body.

  Twelve-year-old Keith was abducted on his way to visit his grandmother in Manchester on 16 June 1964.

  Mrs. Johnson’s death comes after police said they were looking at claims Brady had revealed details about his grave.

  Brady and his lover Myra Hindley murdered five children between 1963 and 1965.

  Police are investigating whether Brady, 74, gave details about Keith’s grave to his mental health advocate, Jackie Powell, from Carmarthenshire.

  Mrs. Johnson’s solicitor John Ainley told the BBC she did not know about the latest development as “she wasn’t capable of accepting it.”

  Mr. Ainley, who described Mrs. Johnson as a “really marvellous” lady, said she had been suffering from cancer for a number of years and passed away peacefully at a hospice with her family present.

  A statement by her son Alan Bennett said: “She was a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, and is survived by one younger brother.

  “Winnie fought tirelessly for decades to find Keith and give him a Christian burial.

  “Although this was not possible during her lifetime, we, her family, intend to continue this fight now for her and for Keith. We hope that the authorities and the public will support us in this.”

  Mr. Ainley, who had represented Mrs. Johnson’s legal interests in the past few years, reaffirmed her beliefs that Brady still held the key to Keith’s burial spot.

  “Over the years and in all our personal meetings, Winnie has insisted Brady is the only person who could put her mind to rest and give her the chance to give Keith a decent burial before she passed away,” he said.44

  From the BBC, same day:

  Mrs. Johnson campaigned for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to look again at the case, arguing that two more convictions might extend their prison tariffs, but in 2003 the CPS said there was “no realistic prospect” of gaining the convictions. She vowed to fight the decision “until the end of her days.”

  Police took Brady and Hindley back to Saddleworth Moor in 1987 to help find the remains of the missing victims—but only Pauline’s body was found.

  And when another large-scale search of the moors in 2009 proved fruitless, the Greater Manchester force told Mrs. Johnson it would be the last, unless significant new information came to light.

  At a memorial service for Keith, held at Manchester Cathedral in February 2010, Mrs. Johnson said she believed his body was on the moors and reiterated her vow to “fight forever” to find him.

  Mrs. Johnson then appealed directly to Brady, via a DVD, to reveal the whereabouts of Keith’s remains.

  On the DVD, recorded in April 2011, she said she was receiving treatment for cancer of the womb, adding: “I’ve got cancer and if you�
��ve got any decency or respect for yourself and for me, you would tell me where Keith is because that is the last thing I want to happen before I die.”

  And.

  In December, Mrs. Johnson said she intended to attend the hearing to see Brady give evidence via video-link from hospital.

  But by the time the hearing was due to take place in July she was too ill to attend.45

  Again. One sharp shot of Lesley Ann Downey made for the precise, general, understanding of the blunt entirety. The attendant unreleased photos have been carefully described and memorized. Decades. The public provenance of the now famous photograph of naked ten-year-old Lesley, lying flat on a bed, with a scarf wrapped around her mouth and that beautiful face looking off to the side while her rapist pornographer, murderer, takes the picture is the responsibility of her mother who signed the authorization for a documentary team to display for those investigating and rerecording.

  Now outside of the law and the public interest, Ann West essentially owned rights to the photographs of the child being abused. She also OK’d the use of the audiotape made during the cajoling of ten-year-old Lesley before to have the scarf put full into her mouth. Available as transcript only before that. The filmmakers eventually decided that the recording was too distressing for their audience and opted out of the inclusion. They had to crop the photo as well. The seconds that splashed this important photograph was then frozen as a screen grab by an enterprising Web poster to eventually find its way to the photo section of a book, published without an author’s name, largely for quick and cheap bin sales: Crime Investigated, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley: Murder on the Moors (a definitive guide to the deranged serial killing couple).46

  From the BBC, 2/10/99:

  The mother of one of the Moors murder victims has died after a long battle against liver cancer.

  Ann West’s daughter Lesley Ann Downey was killed by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, after abducting her on Boxing Day 1964.

  Mrs. West, 69, died at her home in Fallowfield, Manchester, on Tuesday.

  She was at the centre of the campaign to ensure Hindley remained behind bars, and fellow relatives of her victims have described her as an inspiration.

  Danny Kilbride, younger brother of victim John Kilbride, said: “I have known her really well over the years; we fought for the same thing.

  “When I last saw Ann she told me she hadn’t long left, and we all knew that, and she asked to carry on the fight.

  “This has only made me more determined than ever to carry it on, to ensure their memories live on and that Myra Hindley is never released.”

  Winnie Johnson, whose 12-year-old son Keith Bennett was also killed, described Mrs. West as an incredible woman.

  Meanwhile, Lyn Costello and Dee Warner from Mothers Against Murder and Aggression said they were “privileged” to have known her.

  “She was an incredible and brave woman,” they said.

  “We will remember Ann with love and pride and send our deepest sympathy to her husband Alan, her children and grandchildren.”

  Lesley Ann Downey was ten years old when she was kidnapped by Hindley and Brady from a fairground in Manchester.

  She was stripped, gagged, sexually assaulted and strangled before being buried in a shallow grave on Lancashire’s bleak Saddleworth Moor.

  Mrs. West saw photographs taken by her daughter’s killers showing Lesley Ann tied up and helpless in the hours leading up to her death.

  She also had to listen to Brady and Hindley’s tape recording of her daughter’s cries for mercy.

  Mrs. West was adamant that it was Hindley’s hands which squeezed out her daughter’s final breath and had threatened to kill her on many occasions.

  She also vowed to haunt Hindley from beyond the grave, saying: “I will still be a thorn in her side after I pass on, I will haunt that woman for the rest of her life.”

  Over the years Mrs. West had used psychic Doris Stokes to contact her daughter who she believed had visited her many times.

  For years she had taken Valium and high-dose sleeping pills to cope with nightmares.

  Her doctors said that the years of stress had contributed to the cancer which affected her ovaries, breast, bowel and liver.

  But the illness did not stop her campaigning and in 1997 she visited a High Court hearing on Hindley’s future in a wheelchair.

  At the time she told BBC News she was determined that Hindley should end her life behind bars.

  She said she would rest in peace if the court ensured that Hindley remains in prison.

  That wish was granted last year when the court agreed with successive home secretaries who had prevented the killer’s release.47

  From the BBC, the day after:

  The mother of Moors murder victim Lesley Ann Downey will reiterate her wish that Myra Hindley should never be freed, in an interview recorded before her death this week….

  Ann West fought tirelessly against Hindley’s release, and was determined that her struggle with liver cancer would not weaken her campaign.

  It was Mrs. West’s wish that the interview, to be broadcast by Sky News on Monday, be shown after her death. Vowing to haunt Hindley from beyond the grave, she said: “I will still be a thorn in her side after I pass on, I will haunt that woman for the rest of her life.

  “She’s told so many lies over 30 years that she’d go on lying and lying and lying, just to get her freedom.

  “That’s all she wants out of life, her freedom.”

  And.

  In the interview, Mrs. West, who died at her home in Fallowfield, Manchester, told Sky she drew comfort from the belief she would be reunited with her daughter in death.

  She said: “I speak to Lesley, I have done from the night she went missing, and I can’t wait to join her, but I didn’t want it to happen this way, I wanted Hindley to go before me, actually.”48

  The history of child pornography as printed publication, that is for general but limited sale, was created not by predatory pedophiles, but by family members and relations sharing their home photos with known adult pornographic magazine publishers. These publishers, starting with Color Climax in Denmark in 1969, quickly discovered a market for these materials and tastes and actively sought out more material from the audience that bought the first issues. Pedophiles, those who knew it, were more customers than producers. The contributors to the magazines and films were fathers and uncles who had access to children and most of the sickness would now be sub-labeled situational rather than fixated. Back-ends finding details that made sense. Mothers wanting money, didn’t care, were too loaded, too stupid, too poor. Stick a finger in when, addicted to confusion and blur, her boyfriend asked her to. Pauline, proving a struggle that Brady didn’t want to repeat, gives a good argument to his predilection in crime having more to do with murder or violence than the sexual, than any predisposition with even a young girl coming into her full adulthood before full adulthood ruined the perfect unavailable tease. Brady’s sexual issues may well sieve down from ambition. Ambition, like pornography, to make something extra from backroom wherewithal. Not ambition per se, not failed ambition, but the petty consequences that require spotting inconsequentials. Capitalizing on a coming market, sorted from a trend, recognized as obvious to the first ones similar.

  After Sidney Cooke, he didn’t choose Robert Black either. To discuss his understandings of murder and, significantly, parceling evidence. Crimes with still missing corpses, suspicious tastes and body counts, predisposition to a type, a sex, specific acts therein. What young meant, or too old, too tiny.

  Black, flanked by prison officers in the dock, and only a few feet away from Jennifer’s parents, was handcuffed before he was led away.

  The judge said of Jennifer’s murder: “This was an act of sexual predation.” He added: “Victim impact statements have been provided by Jennifer’s father and her brother Phillip.

  “Her father speaks poignantly about Jennifer, of the family’s awareness of Jennifer’s absence from a
ll family occasions, and of the harrowing revelations in the course of the trial.”

  Black’s reign of terror finally ended in 1990 when he was caught red-handed with a six-year-old girl hooded, bound, gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow. He had sexually assaulted her moments earlier. During his trial for Jennifer’s murder, Black did not betray a flicker of emotion, presenting an unwavering picture of cold indifference.

  Police investigated as many as 40 further cases in the 1990s to uncover whether there were links to Black. Twelve possible killings are understood to have been linked to him.

  Those cases include: April Fabb, aged 13, killed in Norfolk in 1969, Christine Markham, six, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, 1973, Mary Boyle, seven, from Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, 1977. Her body has never been found. Susanne Lawrence, 14, Essex, 1979, Pamela Hastie, 16, Johnstone, Scotland, 1981, Patsy Morris, 14, Feltham, west London, 1990.

  In addition detectives in France are examining links between Black and the killings of four schoolgirls who were abducted near Paris in 1987, and a seven-year-old in Amsterdam in 1986.