Hindley funeral a secretive affair as authorities take precautions

Published on Thursday 21 November 2002 00:00

THERE was no moon, nor stars visible in the night sky over the tiny crematorium outside Cambridge where Myra Hindley’s body made its final journey. Instead, a heavy drizzle and a smattering of press flashguns greeted her hearse as it made its way to the chapel, amid heavy security and under police escort last night.

One woman, who travelled from Soham - a town which witnessed two child killings this summer - had left a placard at the crematorium’s entrance, with the stark message: "Burn In Hell."

The last view the world had of Britain’s most reviled woman was her beech coffin, topped by white lilies, orange gerberas and anointed with Holy Water, as it was carried by four pall-bearers into the chapel of rest, just after 7:30pm last night. A couple of hours later, after a service attended by a handful of mourners, none of whom were Hindley’s family, all that was left of the woman known as the Moors Murderer was dust.

Hindley’s funeral did not just mark her final passing. It marked the end of a chapter. Yesterday, it appeared a vain attempt was being made to furiously erase all traces of her 60 year existence. Her death will not be marked by a grave nor will there be any other memorial at the secret place where her ashes are scattered.

Even the little that remained of Hindley when the service was over was heavily guarded and disposed of in secret. No-one was taking any chances of a grave being desecrated or ghoulish tourists gathering.

The room at West Suffolk Hospital, where she died on Friday, and from where her coffin was driven last night, was being stripped of anything used during her treatment. Everything, from the bed linen to her clothes, was incinerated and the place redecorated, because of the "sensitivity" of other patients.

The funeral itself was conducted under unprecedented security, at night, amid fears that a mob would gather. Around 30 police officers were present.

Local undertakers refused the job, for fear it would be bad for business and the authorities were forced to use a company 200 miles away.

Father Michael Teader, a Catholic priest from Highpoint prison, Suffolk, who was by her bedside as she died on Friday, walked before her coffin. One of Hindley’s few supporters, the chaplain led the 30-minute service. "If I had found that there wasn’t any sorrow or remorse I would have found it very difficult to administer to her," he said.

Of the 12 people in attendance inside the chapel which holds 56, were thought to be her solicitor Andrew McCooey and her QC, Edward Fitzgerald. Her mother, Nellie Moulton, 82, who is in a nursing home in Manchester, was too frail to attend .

Hindley had requested that Adagio for Strings by Albinoni be played.

Along with her lover Ian Brady, now 64, she was jailed for life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, 17. Brady was also convicted of murdering 12-year-old John Kilbride while Hindley was found to have been an accessory to that killing. In 1987 the pair confessed to killing 12-year-old Keith Bennett - whose body has never been found - and Pauline Reade, 16. If Hindley did know where Keith’s body was, it was a secret she took to her grave.