Rethink on cost of Moors murderer Ian Brady’s failed legal challenge

Justice Minister Lord McNally agreed to take up the issue with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt after peers complained about the costs being borne by a local health trust.

At Question Time, he said it did seem unfair that a single authority should take such a “disproportionate hit” for something which was essentially a national issue.

Brady lost his legal bid to be transferred from Ashworth top-security psychiatric hospital, Merseyside, to prison at a mental health tribunal in June.

Brady, now 75, and Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, tortured and murdered five children. He was jailed for three murders in 1966 and has been at Ashworth since 1985.

Labour’s Lord Campbell-Savours asked yesterday: “Is it fair that in the case of Moors murderer Ian Brady, Mersey Health Care, in other words hospitals on Merseyside, had to spend £181,000 on a mental health tribunal?”

He said a further £92,000 went to Brady’s lawyers, along with “thousands more” to other defence lawyers.

“Why should the taxpayer pay these exorbitant fees on a pointless appeal when law centres all over the country are being run down and citizens advice bureaux are being starved of resources?” Lord Campbell-Savours demanded.

Lord McNally said the entire process took almost three years and culminated in an eight-day tribunal hearing. “This is a legal process and the trust had no option other than to comply and neither did the legal aid agency.”