Ian Brady's advocate arrested as details of buried victim emerges

Jackie Powell, mental health advocate to notorious 'Moors Murderer' Ian ...

03:13 19 August 2012

Jackie Powell, mental health advocate to notorious 'Moors Murderer' Ian Brady, has been arrested for reportedly failing to reveal where one of his victims was buried. 

 

The shock arrest came just after Greater Manchester Police stated that they have uncovered vital information regarding the location of 12-year-old Keith Bennett's burial.

 

Reports are suggesting that the whereabouts of the corpse was given by Brady to Powell - his long-term visitor to his psychiatric hospital. 

 

Upon examination of this claim, Powell was arrested in south Wales on 'suspicion of preventing the lawful burial of a body'. Powell has since been bailed.

 

Between 1963 and 1965, notorious killer duo Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered give children after kidnapping and torturing them. While the other bodies were recovered from Saddleworth Moor near Manchester, Keith Bennett's body was the only one never to be found.

 

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: "On 30 July 2012, Greater Manchester Police received information that led officers to believe that Ian Brady had recently given details of the location of Keith Bennett's body to one of his long-term visitors."

 

This information apparently came from the makers of a documentary about Brady who had interviewed Powell who went on to reveal that she had received letters from the serial killer. Documentary filmmaker Emma Cooper disclosed this to the police.

 

Martin Bottomley, from Greater Manchester Police's Major and Cold Case Crime Unit, said: "I want to be explicitly clear about this: Ian Brady has not revealed to police the location of Keith's body.

 

"What we are looking at is the possibility, and at this stage it is only a possibility, that he has written a letter to Keith's mum Winnie Johnson which was not to be opened until after his death.

 

"We do not know if this is true or simply a ruse but we clearly have a duty to investigate such information on behalf of Keith's family."

 

74-year-old Brady was jailed for life in 1966 at Chester Assizes for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, 10, John Kilbride, 12, and Edward Evans, 17. Since refusing food 12 years, the killer has since been tube-fed the BBC reports. 

 

Hindley died in prison in November 2002, aged 60. She was given a life sentence for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans.