The Gates of Janus

by Ian Brady

  35“Ian Brady ‘May Have Dementia’ His Advocate Jackie Powell Says,” The Huffington Post UK, February 1, 2014

  36One of Your Own, Carol Ann Lee, Mainstream Publishing, 2010, UK

  (Carol posted the following on the searchingforkeith forum on August 27, 2012: “I cannot say for certain whether or not Duncan Staff still has the papers, but it would not surprise me if he does. As for access… you must be joking! Definitely not. Although to be completely fair, a lot of writers are unwilling to share their primary sources and material. Hmm.”)

  37One of Your Own, Carol Ann Lee, Mainstream Publishing, 2010, UK

  38The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  39Witness, David Smith with Carol Ann Lee, Mainstream Publishing, 2011, UK

  40Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  41“Suffer the Children,” The Smiths

  42“Ian Brady claimed to have killed four more people in unseen letters,” Gordon Rayner, The Telegraph, June 28, 2013

  43From Beyond Belief, Emlyn Williams, Random House, 1968:

  “Copies of the pictures are in the possession (or were, he was thinking of destroying them) of a colorful character with one foot in the Manchester underworld, call him Bill. When he showed them to me, he insisted that he had not acquired them in the pornographic market (“Who’d want to pay for thirty dirty pics of the same couple”) but from an acquaintance of a friend of Ian Brady’s”

  From One of Your Own, Carol Ann Lee, Mainstream Publishing, 2010, UK:

  “He claimed to have been given the pornographic photos by ‘Bill,’ whose real name he’d forgotten and whose address he’d lost. However, in a very jolly letter written to William’s wife in 1969, William Mars-Jones’s wife stated that her husband and Emlyn were great pals and the four of them should have lunch. She signed her letter, ‘Yours sincerely, Sheila Mars-Jones (“Mrs. Bill”)'.”

  44“Moors Murder victim Keith Bennett’s mother dies,” BBC News Manchester, August 18, 2012

  45“Winnie Johnson’s fight for Moors Murder son Keith,” BBC News Manchester, August 18, 2012

  46Crime Investigated, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley: Murder on the Moors (a definitive guide to the deranged serial killing couple), Igloo Books, 3/14, UK.

  47“Moors murder mother was ‘incredible’,” BBC, February 10, 1999

  48“Last wish of Moors murder mother,” BBC, February 11, 1999

  49“Serial child killer Robert Black sentenced to 25 years in prison for fourth schoolgirl murder,” James White for Mail Online and Rob Cooper, December 8, 2011

  50“Corresponding with a serial killer,” March 5, 2012, jeanrafferty.com

  51“Myra Hindley: a new chapter,” Deborah Orr, The Guardian, June 19, 2012

  52“Police in new bid to charge serial child killer Robert Black with murder of 13-year-old schoolgirl Genette Tate who disappeared 36 years ago,” Tara Brady Daily Mail, June 2, 2014

  53“Hindley and Brady live on as victim’s mum dies; Joan never got over the murder,” Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail, June 1, 2000

  54“A Journey Into Darkness (The Hindley Letters),” Duncan Staff, The Guardian, February 29, 2000

  55Lambs To The Slaughter, Ted Oliver and Ramsay Smith, Sphere Publishing, 1993, UK

  56“Family of Moors Murder victim John Kilbride pay tribute to ‘the man he was never allowed to become’,” Kate Weir, Manchester Evening News, November 21, 2013

  57Lambs To The Slaughter, Ted Oliver and Ramsay Smith, Sphere Publishing, 1993, UK

  58g7uk.com, “The Rembrandt’s connection with the moors murders,” February 15, 2008

  59g7uk.com, ibid., comment by Iain Mills, November 11, 2011

  60“‘I had a very happy childhood free of fear… I have no excuses’—Ian Brady,” Peter and Leni Gillman, The Mail On Sunday, May 15, 2005

  61“Hindley: Suicide a sin,” Manchester Evening News, April 18, 2010

  62“Myra Hindley: My Story; The Guardian is making no payment for this article,” December 18, 1995

  63The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  64“Ian Brady’s tribunal is all about control—as always (The authorities can only deny Brady control by reopening the search for Keith Bennett, the Moors murderers’ missing victim),” Duncan Staff, The Guardian, June 24, 2013

  65“The secrets of my friend the Moors murderer: For 25 years he has been visiting Britain’s most notorious killer, now Ian Brady’s only confidant—and heir—reveals all,” Nikki Murfitt for Mail Online, Daily Mail, June 22, 2013

  66“Moors murderer Ian Brady’s mental health tribunal rescheduled for June,” Liverpool Echo, John Siddle, December 6, 2012

  67“In the matter of Ian Brady,” January 24, 2014, judiciary.gov.uk (all italicized)

  68“Hindley urged ‘no resuscitation’ in case of heart attack, inquest told,” The Scotsman, January 24, 2003

  69“Moors murderer Ian Brady DIED for several minutes and was brought back to life against his wishes,” Mirror, Simon Wright, October 7, 2012

  70“Brady ‘wants to catch serial killers’,” BBC, Peter Gould, October 18, 2001

  71The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  72The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  73“Prison doctors attacked,” The Telegraph, Ian S. Brady, Ashworth Hospital, Merseyside, December 9, 2001

  And excerpted: “Inside the mind of a monster,” Theodore Dalrymple, The Telegraph, December 2, 2001

  “He has had 30 years in which to read widely, and he laces his reflections liberally with quotations (which are generally apposite to what he is saying) from Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and others. He has read not to learn, but to prove that he was right all along and everyone else was wrong. To read Brady’s philosophical musings is like being cornered in a pub by a slightly menacing, inebriated autodidact who wants to regale you with his theory of world history or the real reasons for the Gulf War, and won’t let you go until you’ve heard it all. He is bitter that the world has failed to recognise his brilliance: grandiosity vies with resentment for dominance of tone. Except that Brady is both intelligent and sincere: judges, doctors (especially those such as I, who are depraved enough to work in a prison, where we meet morally superior types such as he), prison officers, clergymen, politicians, journalists, the public in general, are poltroons and hypocrites. Brady belongs to the elect: the fact is, many criminals know more about morality and ethics, via the process of opposition, than the conforming masses do from acceptance. It is the criminal’s astute understanding that the morality and ethics of the powerful is purely cosmetic that persuades him to turn such moral plasticity to his own uses. Therefore, his argument goes, it is not really wrong to kidnap and torture children to death. I have had this sort of conversation many times with murderers and lesser criminals. Sometimes Brady reads like the R.D. Laing of Broadmoor.”

  And.

  “Moreover, as Brady himself points out, people such as Panzram are like computers when it comes to the wrongs that have been done to them: they never forget, and they certainly never forgive. While claiming themselves to be the helpless victims of their environment, they never accord that status to another. I have noticed in the prison in which I work that the more conscienceless the prisoner with regard to his victims, the more prickly he is about wrongs he believes to have been done to him, however slight or trivial they might be. A man who won’t hesitate to stab a complete stranger if he feels like it, will call down anathema on the world if his tobacco ration arrives but ten minutes late. Brady believes himself to have been badly wronged. Explaining why he will not say he is sorry for what he did, he asks, with anger agitating his ink:

  “You contain me till death in a concrete box that measures eight by ten and expect public confessions of remorse as well?”

  As one prisoner once said to me, “I shouldn’t even be here, it’s only a poxy little murder charge.” Of such company is Brady. His book is lucid and shows no signs of madness. He believes himself to be a victim. He believes he is a man of the utmost intellect
ual and moral integrity. He shows no remorse and is utterly unrepentant. He has learnt nothing in the intervening years. He believes himself to be the centre of the universe, superior to all. I meet his kind every day.”

  74“‘The victims do not matter to Ian Brady and neither do their families’ (Alan Bennett, brother of the only Moors murder victim never found, explains his reaction to Ian Brady’s tribunal hearing),” The Guardian, Alan Bennett, June 28, 2013

  75“Ian Brady: what we have learned about the Moors murderer,” The Guardian, Helen Pidd, June 28, 2013

  76“Victims’ families aid TV Moors Murders drama,” The Telegraph, Hugh Davies, August 5, 2005

  77“Moors victim’s last moments on TV,” BBC, September 27, 1999

  78“Moors victim’s last moments on TV,” BBC, September 27, 1999

  79Suicide Among Child Sex Offenders, Tia A. Hoffer and Joy E. Shelton, Springer, 2013, U.S.

  80“Moors murderer Ian Brady compares himself to Jack the Ripper as he speaks in public for the first time in 47 years,” Daily Record, June 25, 2013

  81“Ian Brady’s feeding tube should be ‘filled with gasoline’ says stepfather of Moors Murder victim,” Mirror, Andy Rudd, June 26, 2013

  See also: “Enthusiasm for the mysterious emissaries of pulp”: an interview with David Britton (the Savoy interviews, part 2a), Simon Sellars, 2/22/10, Ballardian.com:

  SS: Is it too farfetched to draw a connection between Brady and the environment he grew up in?

  DB: Brady lived alongside me. He, and I — as a very young man growing up in the slums of North Manchester (Harpurhey and adjacent Gorton) — never met, but geographically we were separated by only a couple of miles. His world was my world, annexed between factories, offices and abattoirs. Both of us faced a life of futility with few options and seethed together in our impotency, disenfranchised by inclination from what was on offer around us. I lucked in, escaping into books; Ian lucked out, performing the ultimate act of alienation.

  In the first of the Ballard RE/Search books, Ballard commented that he found Brady’s juxtaposed tape-recording of “The Little Drummer Boy” with the cry of a tortured child significant, something new on the annals of crime, the bringing of electronic technology into the act of murder. He believed Brady had subsided into a deep depression, and was totally institutionalised. But nothing could be further from the reality. Over the years, I’ve struck up a correspondence with Mr Brady, and he remains articulate, well informed. He knows who Mr Ballard and Mr Burroughs are, and has come to some kind of terms with the way his life has played out.

  And from: "Brady In Sick Plan For Book," The Mirror, Jon Clements, 7/13/2006:

  IAN Brady plans to publish his memoirs from beyond the grave.

  The Moors Murderer has sent essays, letters and photos to a notorious horror author.

  Last night the mum of victim Keith Bennett, 12, whose body was never found, blasted his plan.

  Winnie Johnson, 72, said: "It's a disgrace - it is totally wrong for him to go on torturing me like this. If he has anything to say to help me find Keith, he should say it now."

  Brady and Myra Hindley were jailed for life in 1966 for killing children. He is in Ashworth hospital. Hindley died in 2003.

  The book is expected to cover their relationship, the murders and his life.

  He has sent documents to David Britton, of Manchester firm Savoy Books.

  Mr Britton and the firm found notoriety in 1989 when his sick novel Lord Horror was banned for obscenity before he won an appeal.

  The 61-year-old locksmith was not available for comment at home in Chorlton, Manchester.

  82searchingforkeith.com, Alan Bennett, posted November 17, 2013

  83“Victim’s family call for book boycott,” BBC, Peter Gould, October 18, 2001

  84“Brady objects to TV murders drama,” BBC, Peter Gould, September 1, 2005

  85“Moors Murders were existential exercise, Brady boasts in letter,” The Telegraph, Nigel Bunyan, October 28, 2005

  86“Revealed: the schoolgirl who escaped the clutches of the Moors Murderers,” The Telegraph, Ben Fenton and Nigel Bunyon, December 12, 2005

  87The Moors Murders Code, directed by Duncan Staff, 2004, BBC

  88The Heart of the Matter, Joan Bakewell, BBC Books, 1996, UK

  89“Brother of Moors Murder victim marks 50th anniversary of Keith Bennett’s disappearance,” Manchester Evening News, Dean Kirby, June 16, 2014

  90“Family of Moors Murder victim John Kilbride pay tribute to ‘the man he was never allowed to become’,” Manchester Evening News, Kate Weir, November 21, 2013

  91“Brother of Moors Murder victim John Kilbride dies,” Manchester Evening News, Jennifer Williams, October 27, 2011

  92searchingforkeith.com, Carol Ann Lee, posted November 1, 2012

  93“A Journey Into Darkness (The Hindley Letters),” Duncan Staff, The Guardian, February 29, 2000

  94The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  95Searching For Daddy, Christine Joanna Hart, Hodder and Stoughton, 2008, UK

  96“I feel that I’ve told you over and over again that (we) want to distribute the book but that we want to do it in a way that ensures we are safe from legal action. I actually don’t think that this is the slightest bit unreasonable - particularly given the considerable legal expenses we have incurred trying to get it right. The subject was the topic of numerous questions from British and American distributors and publishers during the course of Frankfurt and there was a very strong view that our efforts in relation to the title went well beyond the bounds of what any publisher should expect from their distributor. More than one told me that in our position they wouldn’t have entertained the idea for one moment. I don’t want to go on and on about this but your continual suggestion that we are somehow not supporting you in this venture is so far from our own view and everyone else we know that it really is beginning to grate.

  If everything goes according to plan- and we have been severely hindered in this respect - by the actions (albeit unintentional) of Colin Wilson, we will distribute the book. If we reach the conclusion that the risks are too high - and I hope that that’s not the case - then we will not. I can’t make myself any clearer. I appreciate that you are concerned about the coming together of the publicity and the availability of the title but I can’t be swayed by that consideration. When we hear from Ashworth and Hart then perhaps I can be more precise.

  We are perhaps being very cautious - certainly that’s your view - but we have a good reason to be cautious. The risks that we face if something does go wrong are far in excess in overall financial terms than anything you face. I know you think the risk is minimal and you may be right but waiting a few days to try and finally resolve them seems to us to be sensible and not overall detrimental to the book”

  97“Ian Brady reveals he ‘recites Shakespeare in prison’ as he speaks publicly for first time since 1966,” Mirror, Natalie Evans, June 25, 2013

  98colinwilsononline.com The Phenomenology of Excess, “Colin Wilson interviewed at Tetherdown on 11th September, 2007”

  99“US Publisher defends Brady book,” BBC, Peter Gould, October 18, 2001

  100“The secrets of my friend the Moors murderer: For 25 years he has been visiting Britain’s most notorious killer, now Ian Brady’s only confidant—and heir—reveals all,” Nikki Murfitt for Mailonline, Daily Mail, June 22, 2013

  101Catching Monsters, David Bright, John Blake Publishing, 2003, UK

  102The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady

  103“‘I have authorized no one to write my biography’ (an edited version of Hindley’s open letter to Labour’s former deputy leader),” The Telegraph, September 23, 1995

  104Child Pornography, An Investigation, Tim Tate, Methuen, 1990, UK

  105“The Gates of Janus, by Ho-Hum Serial Killer Ian Brady,” Alan Cabal, NY Press, December 11, 2001

  “All in all, a mediocre work from a mediocre man. Brady is probably of above average intelligence, but he’s a lazy thinker, as i
s evidenced by his crimes and the fact that he got caught. The introduction by Colin Wilson is typically self-serving and not particularly inspired, and the afterword by Peter Sotos is merely appalling. This book is a necessary addition to any collection related to the phenomenon of serial murder, but don’t expect any great insights or original thinking from the likes of Ian Brady.”

  106The Trial of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, with an introduction and edited by Jonathan Goodman, David & Charles Books, 1973, UK

  107One of Your Own, Carol Ann Lee, Mainstream Publishing, 2010, UK

  108The Trial of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Jonathan Goodman, David & Charles Books, 1973, UK

  109The Monsters of the Moors, John Deane Potter, Elek Books Limited, 1966, UK

  110For The Love of Lesley, Ann West, W.H. Allen, 1989, UK

  IAN BRADY ARTICLE FOR THE GUARDIAN KILLED

  CHRIS CAMPION ON THE GUARDIAN, BRADY, AND GATES OF JANUS

  In August 2001, three months prior to the book’s scheduled publication, not a single soul in the UK was aware The Gates of Janus even existed, let alone that it was soon to become freely available for public consumption. An odd state of affairs as, for thirty-five years, the British media had willingly whored themselves at the merest hint of Brady’s name, or that of his soon-to-be-deceased cohort, Myra Hindley.

  With the book still shrouded under a veil of secrecy, Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey gave this writer exclusive access to the manuscript and carte blanche to use its contents to pitch a television program or newspaper article to coincide with publication. And so—working alongside a seasoned and perceptive British documentary filmmaker and the CEO of an award-winning television production company, with impeccable credentials and connections high-up within the UK broadcast industry—a pitch was prepared for a one-off television show about Brady based around The Gates of Janus.

  The idea was to parse Brady’s text in order to ‘read’ the Moors Murderer—much as a criminal profiler reads a crime scene for motive, or Brady himself claimed to be doing for serial killers in his book—and perform a psychological unmasking of his monstrous persona; in effect, using Brady’s own book to turn the tables against him.