Memorial for 'lost' victim of Moors Murderers – 46 years after he died

Keith Bennett was 12 in 1964 when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley abducted him and murdered him on Saddleworth Moor, in Greater Manchester.

The schoolboy was the only Moors victim never to be found, and without a body there has never been an inquest.

Now Keith has been granted a memorial service on March 5 at Manchester Cathedral so his family can at last celebrate his life.

The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Rev Nigel McCulloch, will oversee the 11am service for the victim's relatives, family, friends and the public.

Keith's mother Winnie Johnson, 76, said: "All these years since Brady and Hindley took my Keith away I have never been able to properly celebrate his life.

"The only funeral I have read about is Hindley's when she died – Keith has been left forgotten.

"Even the police last year gave up the search for his body, meaning we're having to carry on looking for his body ourselves.

"This service is what I have hoped for, although I still pray for the day we can find him and give him a decent, Christian burial.

"It is so hard to grieve without him found yet for 46 years I have dreamed of a funeral that celebrates his life, however short it was.

"Now thanks to the bishop, and my priest Rev Gomersall, this is finally going to happen.

"Hindley has already gone but Brady is alive in his cell and I hope he hears about this."

She added: "Whatever he did to Keith will not stop us celebrating what a wonderful boy he was."

Keith was abducted on June 16, 1964, and killed by Brady and lover Myra Hindley on Saddleworth Moor.

The pair – who also murdered Lesley Ann Downey, ten, John Kilbride, 12, Pauline Reade, 16, and Edward Evans, 17– were jailed for life two years later. After the first three bodies had been found, Brady was taken back to Saddleworth in 1987 to help police find Pauline's remains. Hindley died in November 2002, aged 60.

Mrs Johnson has launched the Keith Bennett Trust to raise funds for a search of the moors after Greater Manchester Police declared in July they had stopped their 45-year hunt.

For details of the trust and how people can help, visit

www.searchingforkeith.com.