Ian Brady The Gates of Janus Moors Murders
June 18, 2007
This is not a review of The Gates of Janus. It’s more of an excuse for me to think out loud about Ian Brady. I first read this book when it was first published in 2001. I didn’t like it and in fact was quite disappointed by it but picked it up again a few days ago and am now about half way through. To my surprise I now find that I am enjoying it , so much so in fact the I think it is in parts quite hilarious. It’s actually quite a good book and for the most part Brady is spot on with most of his opinions. But it’s more a book about him venting his hatred of his captors and society than anything else. And he is relentless. Every sentence is like a hammer blow. If words were bullets his enemies would be dead in their thousands by the end of this book. It’s an interesting book and if you haven’t read it go out and get a copy. You wont be bored , that’s for sure.
But the really interesting thing is Brady’s attitude to it’s publication. When I read interviews with Brady or come across extracts of letters he may have written it strikes me at times that the man does not understand what’s really going on in the world outside. He is of course a very well informed man and seems ,as is reported ,to be of above average intelligence but there are times when it’s obious that he just does not see or understand what’s really happening. This is of course quite understandable given that he’s been locked up for forty years but there are times when I almost feel embarrassed for the man. He will for instance from time to time mention that criminologists in the USA have been in touch with him about his book , that various academics have written him etc. etc. He seems to think in other words that his book is being taken seriously , that it has generated debate in the academic community and all that goes with that.
It’s true that his book has been read and discussed by some of the most eminent people in the legal profession as well as the quality press but what he does not seem to understand is that this is no more than the inevitable reaction given who he is and the nature of the book and that for the most part all of these people have just dismissed it as the rant of a madman and forgotten about the book almost immediately. The BBC reporters and such like who write or visit him , not to mention playwrights and actors merely reinforce this idea that he is a man that the world takes seriously.
The criminologists of course are little more than hacks. And those who write about him are for the most part just an extension of the gutter press or people who have temporarily run out of copy. As I say the book is quite good but it has one serious flaw and that is of course that it’s about serial killers. There is of course no such thing as a serial killer. There are people who kill and kill more than one person and we call them , for want of a better word , serial killers but that’s about it. There is for instance no such thing as a serial killer who has not actually gotten around to killing people yet. We use the words to describe someone after the event and there is nothing wrong with that but to jump from that to the conclusion that there is a separate species of killer is just rubbish. Or to put it another way , Ian Brady is a serial killer but he is also no different than us. You or I might just as easily have gone down the same road as him and anyone who doubts that for even a second is seriously deluded. The fact that Brady writes of himself as a serial killer is no more and no less than a variation of the theme of believing ones own publicity. This is not to say he’s a fool but simply human. We all fool ourselves and some of us do it every day of the week.
Brady also likes to present himself as some kind of master criminal and hints in this book of his other victims , implying that he has gotten rid of some of his fellow criminals who happened to get on the wrong side of him. However apart from the fact that there is no evidence of any of this having ever happened , and plenty of people have looked for it , there is also the fact that after he killed I think Pauline Reade he said that from then one they must get younger children as she had been a bit of a handful. While this does not prove anything it seems an odd thing to say for someone who claims to have a pedigree in killing.
The Gates of Janus is , for all that a very unusual book and it’s refreshing to hear Brady’s point of view being expressed for a change and it would not be such a bad idea if everyone was to read it with an open mind. It deserves a wider readership and might I say a better publisher.
Moors Murderer Ian Brady suing Author Duncan Staff
June 8, 2007
Moors Murderer Ian Brady who has been on hunger strike since 1999 is to sue author Duncan Staff for using private photographs of him in his book , “The Lost Boy”. He is also suing his former psychiatrist Professor Malcolm McCulloch for breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. Brady’s claims that the photographs of which there are five are private property as they were not part of any evidence in his court case. Brady wants to put an injunction on Professor McCulloch , Duncan Staff and Ashworth Hospital and is seeking legal aid.
It will be interesting to see how all this works out. I think Brady has quite a good case but that’s not to say he will get justice this time around. You can read the full story such as it is on the Daily Express Site.
Read my review of The Lost Boy.
Ian Brady: Moors Murders and False Memories
June 7, 2007
Yesterday or the day before I posted a short piece about Ian Brady and the people who write to him in which I gave a link to someone who had had a letter from him. In the letter Brady speaks of his time in America and how he had met ‘contacts’ there. I am aware of Brady having made statements like this before but in view of the fact that he has never been to the USA it reminded me of how we all have ‘false memories’. And such things as false memories are very real and quite common. Some would of course say that Brady is mad and that that explains his false memories however given his situation , ie locked up and isolated for 40 years , such memories might become very real indeed and might just keep him from really going mad.
We are all familiar with the case of therapists helping abuse victims to recover painful memories and their sometimes terrible consequences for perfectly innocent people when it all goes wrong. I have just now been reading of a woman in the USA who was led to believe she had been raped when she was in fact a virgin. It’s possible of course that I am suffering from such a false memory in relation to Brady and that he has perhaps been as he claims to the USA. If anyone out there in the ‘real world’ can shed light on the subject why not drop a message here.
PS. Depending from where you acessed this page from the links contained in this post may or may not work. This is due to a change in my URL (address). The problem will be sorted out within the next week so if they did not work for you call back later.
Have you written to Moors Murder Ian Brady? Have you ever thought of writing him a letter? The question is rhetorical. But many people do just that. Over the years I often was tempted to write to him myself but I figured that he has enough people pestering him as it is. Of course those who do write to him do so for what is to them a good reason but it must get tedious for him none the less. Of those that I know of and those who over the years have visited him in prison and hospital it would seem they all are looking for something.
Be it reporters or playwrights they are all after something. And not only that but they all make a point so saying what an evil man he is which begs the question of why they want to have his company or his correspondence in the first place. There are some who write to serial killers as a hobby or maybe to sell the letters on eBay or something like that. I am not knocking those who do write to him but I find it all a bit odd. I don’t mean those who write to him privately , there are some I’m sure who do so and keep it private as one would normally do with any such correspondence , I mean those who then go on to publish or otherwise advertise or even sell the letters.
Below are a few quote’s from him . I wrote a couple of posts about Brady and as a result received some comments and decided to reply by way of a post or entry in my blog but as this turned out to a bit too long for a blog post I have uploaded it to my Pages. If you don’t want to navigate to the page just click HERE.
“[I]t is mostly in the quiescent company of the atheist, the sceptic, the cynic, the nihilist, the existentialist, those self-absorbed who are content to propose and preach nothing, that we may sometimes escape the obsessive demands of synthetic morality and the jarring irritations of theological presumption. They cast aside the ridiculous banality of metaphysical minutiae striving beyond man’s feeble comprehension, and instead opt for that comfortable, sensual silence known chiefly to old friends, lovers and opium addicts, which is so often much more stimulating and inspiring.”( from Oswald Defense Lawyer). ( originally from Gates of Janus).
That’s it , it’s the messiest yet.
I have accepted the weight of the crimes both Myra and I were convicted of justifies permanent imprisonment regardless of expressed personal remorse and verifiable change.
I reached the stage where , whatever came to mind , get out and do it. I led the life that other people could only think about.
Here is a typical short letter of Brady’s. I’m showing this link as it has been on the Internet for a while now. Also there is no real issue of privacy here. If you wish to read my other posts on Ian Brady , Myra Hindley or the Moors Murders just click on any of these names on the right hand sidebard of my blog. If you wish to see a review of Duncan Staff’s new book on the moors murders just click on his name on the right hand taskbar also.
Ian Brady and Ashworth Hospital
May 25, 2007
Ian Brady was first admitted to Ashworth Hospital in 1985. When first sent there he had expressed ‘deep remorse’ for his crimes but this was to change. After a knife had been discovered taped under a sink in a washroom Brady was forcibly moved to a cell on Lawrence Ward of the hospital. Prior to this he had been refused the right to donate one of his kidneys. According to Colin Wilson “”it was because of this attempt to express remorse was thrown back in his face that he began to contemplate suicide”. In Oct. 1999 he went on hunger strike and is still being tube fed to this day.
“On 30 September 1999, Ian Brady was transferred to another ward. He took objection both to the transfer and to the manner in which it was effected. In addition to making complaints to the police and through the National Health Service complaints procedure he went on hunger strike. At the same time he began a media campaign, writing repeatedly to the BBC and others and issuing information through his solicitor complaining about the way that he had been treated, giving details of his hunger strike and the manner in which he was affected.
Because of the substantial media interest which Ian Brady generated, the director of communications of Ashworth found it necessary to make 12 press releases between 30 September 1999 and 11 January 2000 answering inquiries for information. The release of the 2 October 1999 began by stating: “Ian Brady, a patient at Ashworth Hospital, has exercised his right to refuse permission for the hospital to disclose any clinical details about him”. On 29 October, it was announced that he had refused food for a total of 30 days and that a program of “refeeding” had been introduced, which involved force feeding by means of a nasogastric tube.
On 2 February 2000, Ian Brady obtained permission to apply for judicial review, in order to challenge the continuing decision to force feed him. The hearing was held in private but, due to the public interest in the case, Maurice Kay J delivered his judgment in open court: see R (Brady) v Ashworth Hospital Authority[2000] Lloyd’s Med R 355; (2001) 58 BMLR 173. Maurice Kay J ruled that force feeding was lawful since it was reasonably administered as part of the medical treatment given for the mental disorder from which Ian Brady was suffering. By virtue of section 63 of the 1983 Act consent was not needed for such treatment. The judgment set out in detail particulars of Ian Brady’s clinical history which related to his decision.” ( taken from the website of the House of Lords).
In Sept. 1999 a telephone call from Dirty Harry’s bar in Amsterdam triggered an inquiry into the running of Ashworth Hospital. The call had come from Stephen Daggett a convicted paedophile who had absconded from Ashworth while on day release. He claimed that pornography was freely available as were drugs. As a result The Fallon Inquiry was set up and in it’s final report the hospital was roundly condemned.
While there is little reason to believe that Brady is mad his mental health has diminished since going on hunger strike. He recently (2006) wrote to Winnie Johnson the mother of Keith Bennett a rambling letter complaining of his treatment at the hospital.
A review of the latest book on the moors murders may be found here.
THE LOST BOY by Duncan Staff Bantham Press.
There have been many books written about the moors murders and this one is no different from the rest. Apart that is from the fact that there is some new material from Myra Hindley’s diaries , letters and brief extracts from her unpublished autobiography. Mr Staff would , like so many journalists before him wish to have us believe that he wrote this book for some suitably grand motive. In his case to help in some way to find the body of Keith Bennet , the only victim of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley who’s remains has not been recovered from Saddleworth Moor. But this of course is a lie. This like all the others was written for money and Duncan Staff stands to make a lot of money out of this book. The fact that he feels the need to justify himself in this way tells us a lot about him and those like him.
Quite early on in the book on page 3 and referring to Hindley he say’s ” I would have to get very close to her to extract the story. Not only would this be distressing but…..” This is another way of depersonalising Hindley in much the same way as most writers refer to her and Brady as monsters and evil. He has hardly started the book but want’s us to know that these people are not like you or me. The problem is that Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are just like you and I and indeed that is why they have the hold over us that they have. And while Staff spends the rest of the book trying to understand Hindley he is doomed to fail from the very start.
Much of the book is a retelling of Hindley’s life story as told by her and at various points he insists on quoting for us the opinion of Professor Malcolm MacCulloch Bradys psychiatrist. This is done no doubt in part to impress us but it soon becomes quite clear that Staff actually rates this man highly. The professor is trotted out at what are obviously felt to be pivotal points of Hindley’s narative but if the purpose is to give weight to certain events then it soon has the opposite affect. I doubt if any psychiatrist has ever been so wrong about so many things as MacCulloch. Indeed he’s so far off the mark and generally inept at explaining human behaviour that at times the whole thing has an air of Vaudaville about it. We can almost see the professor in our minds eye but we come to see him as something out of a Carry On film. To give just one example of how wrong this man can be…..
In the course of telling her life story Myra mentions death quite a lot. The professor considers this ‘significant’ and ‘unusual’. He makes a point of stating how ‘unusual’ it is for anyone to have so many memories of death in their childhood. But we have already learnt from Myra that her grandmother with whom she lived would from time to time prepare the corpse of a deceased neighbour for burial and on a least one occasion kept one in the house overnight. In the fifties this was not unusual. Life was hard and extended families meant that old and young lived side by side in the same house and often the same room. Death was a normal part of day to day life. People , including children died from diseases and illnesses that are virtually unknown today. A child growing up at that time would see more death by the age of twelve than most people today would experience in a life time. If we further consider that Myra wrote this account of her life as a direct result of the death(murder) of several young children and that her normal life ceased when she was in her twenties then it would be very strange indeed if death was missing from her story. And yet the professor feels that this is all a bit odd. This is as I have said just one example of the professors insight and we have a great deal more of it inflicted on us throughout the rest of the book.
Another problem we find when reading this book is that most of the information comes from Myra Hindley herself. And while much of it has a ring of truth about it she does not attempt at any point to explain in any credible way why she helped Brady to murder and murder again. And of course she had been lying for years about her part in the murders to anyone who would listen. There is of course nothing in the book about Brady’s life story or no extracts from his letters as he does not make these available particularly to journalists. This is the one real problem that all authors who choose to write on the moors murders have in common.
The book is fairly readable overall and you will probably get through it at one sitting. But it cannot be regarded as a particularly good book and is full of the usual prejudices about Brady and Hindley. I will be writing more about the moors murders soon and will have no doubt more to say in relation to Staff’s book but for review purposes there is not a lot more to say of it here. A readable but ultimatly disappointing book.
If you are not familiar with the story of the moors murder then you may wish to read my previous post on Ian Brady Moors Murders.
See also this post.
Video Footage: For video report on new evidence presented by Duncan Staff go to this page and click on video link at top right of page.
If you wish to read some abridged extracts from Duncan Staff’s book go to this page.
