Myra Hindley: I am a victim of newspaper lies

STEVE BOGGAN

Myra Hindley launched a furious attack yesterday on Roy Hattersley, former deputy leader of the Labour Party, for claiming she was about to make "blood money" by publishing a book about the Moors Murders.

In an open letter to Mr Hattersley, also highly critical of the press and the Home Office, Hindley rejected reports that she was writing an autobiography and said: "God forbid [publishers] or anyone else would lower themselves to become involved in such a spurious book."

Hindley's letter was yesterday released exclusively to the Independent. In it she rounds on Mr Hattersley for believing reports that she was involved in a publishing project and she criticises the Home Office for allowing "lies" to be printed about her. She wrote: "You say `It is more than 30 years since she and Ian Brady lured their five young victims to mutilation and death.' It is lamentable that you, too, together with the tabloid press, find you need to portray the crimes as more heinous than they already are, with conjecture rather than the facts contained in the trial transcripts."

In a Daily Mail article published last month under the headline "Why we must ban Hindley's pornography", Mr Hattersley wrote: "I am an unrepentant libertarian ... I have never before believed that I would hear myself say it but I have no doubt that this book should be banned."

He was responding to reports that publishers were bidding up to pounds 500,000 for a book supposedly entitled The Other Side of the Coin, written by Hindley with Mark Leech, a former prisoner and author of The Prisoner's Handbook.

Hindley denies being interviewed by him, although it is understood that her former lawyer, Andrew McCooey, did see an informal written agreement giving Mr Leech or his agent rights over the book.

In her letter to Mr Hattersley, Hindley writes: "You refer to `blood money in the literal and most nauseating sense of that term' being earned by everyone involved in the writing, publishing and sales of `this book'. Please exclude me from that list and include me amongst those rightly calling for a ban on its publication.

"My name is (mis-) used yet again, but I disown and disassociate myself from every word it contains. I wholly agree that its publication would be a callous and calculated decision to open wounds from more than 30 years ago.

"You add that what happened is still part of a recurring national nightmare, `something that should never be forgotten but recalled only to remind the complacent of how bestial human nature can be'. You don't need to remind me of this; I know just how low humans can fall."

Letter, page 2