[West Ender]

The husband of a friend of mine was a police superintendant and had a colleague who had been involved in the Brady/Hindley case. I met this man about 15 years later and he told me he had had to be in Court, for the trial, where the tapes Brady had recorded of his torture of Lesley Ann Downey were played. That man, also a superintendant and very much a "hardened" policeman, told me it was the worst thing he ever experienced in his career. He said that if either of them was ever released from prison he hoped he would be "at the other end of the country" because, as he said, "The relatives of that little girl have sworn they will kill them if they're let out. It would be my duty to stop that happening - and I don't want to have to."

Brady was, is, purely evil and completely twisted. Hindley, in my view, was even worse but also very clever. She convinced so many people that she was a reformed character, including the loony Lord Longford and several prison governors (I am quite certain I saw her in Tesco at Irlam while she was in Styal prison. I know the governor used to take her out.) and gave the impression she was deeply religious and remorseful. Never the less it took her 17 years to admit that she and Brady had killed Pauline Reed and Keith Bennett, hardly the action of a penitent woman, and that only happened when she thought there might be the chance of release.

The programme was well balanced but it didn't, couldn't, convey the full sickening truth of what that pair did. I have read several books on the subject and, of course, followed the case when it happened. The dramatisation was quite accurate but, of necessity, abrieviated.