Actor defends TV drama on campaign to free Hindley

Published on Monday 27 March 2006 01:53

OSCAR-winning actor Jim Broadbent has defended a controversial drama about the relationship between the prison campaigner Lord Longford and the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley.

He said it was "ridiculous" that Samantha Morton had attracted criticism for taking on the Hindley role.

The Channel 4 drama, Longford, sees Broadbent play the devout Roman Catholic peer who campaigned for child killer Hindley to be freed from prison.

Winnie Johnson, the mother of the Moors Murder victim Keith Bennett, has described the production as "disgusting" and said: "When they do things like this, it just prolongs the agony."

But Broadbent said the film would be a serious examination of Lord Longford and his beliefs. "There is always going to be a reaction when there's a mention of Myra Hindley.

"But this is a serious film about Longford and his relationship with Hindley and how that relationship reveals the man he was. It is not a sensational look at the Moors Murders."