Ian Brady has been secretly cremated and his ashes dumped at sea in a dissolvable salt urn – leaving no trace of the monster.
Against his final wishes, the Moors murderer’s body was disposed of without ceremony in the dead of night.
Officials used a ‘standby’ crematorium oven not used by the public, which underwent a professional ‘deep clean’ immediately afterwards, court documents reveal.
Just a handful of officials and police, plus Brady’s solicitor, were present at the after-hours cremation in Southport, Merseyside, last week.
The ashes of Moors murderer Ian Brady (left in 1966 and right in an artist’s impression before his death) have been scattered at sea in a fittingly undignified overnight funeral
Brady’s remains were taken from the Royal Liverpool Hospital to Liverpool Marina before they were dumped in the Irish Sea
Brady’s ashes were taken to Liverpool Marina and dispatched at sea at a top-secret location at 2.30am on October 26
No music, flowers or photographs were allowed.
Afterwards the child killer’s ashes were placed in a £125 bio-degradable urn, made of pink Himalayan rock salt and weighted to ensure it would drop straight to the bottom of the Irish Sea.
Under the cover of darkness, the remains were driven in an unmarked police car to Liverpool Marina before being taken out to sea in a police boat and tossed overboard.
Last night relatives of Brady’s victims said his remains should have been ‘flushed down the toilet’ but claimed they were relieved the ‘saga’ surrounding his funeral had finally ended.
Brady murdered five including Lesley-Ann Downey (in painting) whose brother Terry says the killer should have been flushed down the toilet
Terry West, 66, the older brother of ten-year-old victim Lesley Ann Downey, said: ‘When I heard the news I just thought, “That’s it now, wherever he is he’s there for eternity.”
‘We might get a bit of closure, but you never really get over it … If I had my way, I would have flushed his ashes down the toilet. I’m just glad this was the one time he didn’t win, they didn’t respect his wishes.
‘After all, my sister and the other kids didn’t get any say in how they were buried, so why should he?’
Terry Kilbride, 63, whose brother, John, 12, was murdered by Brady and Myra Hindley, said: ‘I honestly think he should not have had any wishes, I don’t think he had any rights at all to expect anything when he died. This was the only way to really put the families at ease and the public as well.’
Brady (left) tortured and killed five children with his lover Myra Hindley (right) in the 1960s
Mr Kilbride said the families of victims had been told in advance what would happen to Brady’s remains and he had a meeting on Thursday with his local councillor, John Taylor, and a Tameside Council solicitor, Sandra Stewart.
He said: ‘It just explained what had happened to Brady, him being cremated down in Southport, driven all the way through Liverpool afterwards, went out to sea with the police and dumped the urn in the sea.
‘The urn was made of salt and it disintegrated after about 10 or 15 minutes of being in the water, so it will have sunk to the bottom.
‘I was originally under the impression he was just going to be burnt and put in the grounds of a prison but being put in the sea is the next best thing.
‘I told my family, so they knew and I told the Bennetts and the Downeys.’
Mr Kilbride praised Tameside Council which, he said, fought a legal battle to frustrate Brady’s last wishes and to ensure that his ashes were not scattered on Saddleworth Moor.
He added: ‘I honestly think he should not have had any wishes, I don’t think he had any rights at all to expect anything when he died.
‘This was the only way to really put the families at ease and the public as well.’
Mr Kilbride described Brady as ‘clever and manipulative’, saying he ‘tormented’ families from his prison cell.
He added: ‘He always seemed to come up on TV or in the papers, it was always around an anniversary or Christmas. He actually died on John’s birthday, May 15. You can imagine how that feels.’
Writing on Facebook, Alan Bennett, 57, whose 12-year-old brother Keith has never been found, added: ‘At last… just pleased a decision has finally been made to get rid of him. Not the place I would have chosen but can’t do anything about that now.’
Brady was 79 when he died in May of chronic lung disease and heart failure at high-security Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside, where he had been held for 32 years.
Ian Brady in court in 2013 in one of several failed, and expensive, bids to get moved to a different prison
His body remained in storage for five months while lawyers for Tameside and Oldham Councils – which cover Saddleworth Moor, where he and Hindley buried four of their victims – sought assurances that his ashes would not be scattered there.
High Court judge Sir Geoffrey Vos ruled last month that the cremation must take place in secret.
He also refused Brady’s last wish for the fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique – which celebrates a ‘Satanic orgy’ – to be played at the ceremony.
Sefton Council, whose area covers Ashworth Hospital, was ordered to carry out the cremation. Tameside Council was given the task of organising the disposal.
Brady’s body was collected from the mortuary of the Royal Liverpool Hospital at around 9pm last Wednesday. It was taken in a police vehicle to Southport Crematorium, where the cremation began at 10pm.
Eleven people were present. At 12.45am, Brady’s ashes were driven to Liverpool Marina. There, the crew of a boat from the North West Police underwater search and marine unit took the urn out to sea and threw it into the water at around 2.30am.
With no surviving relatives, the cost of Brady’s cremation and disposal of his ashes is likely to be footed by the taxpayer.
Brady and Hindley were jailed for life for three killings in 1966. They went on to admit another two murders.
Hindley died in jail aged 60 in 2002. Up to 20 local funeral directors refused to deal with her body, so it eventually went to a firm based 200 miles away.
Myra Hindley is seen photographed by Ian Brady at an unknown location in an undated handout image supplied by the Greater Manchester Police
Brady’s crimes shocked the nation as he tortured and murdered five children in the 1960s along with Hindley, who died in prison in 2002.
Pauline Reade disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12 1963 and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year.
Keith Bennett was taken on June 16 1964 after he left home to visit his grandmother, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964, and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965.
Brady and Hindley later confessed to the murders of Pauline and Keith, whose body has never been found.
Pauline’s body was only discovered in 1987 following a search of Saddleworth Moor and her family believed they had finally laid her to rest after a funeral ceremony.
There were fears the remains of Scottish-born Brady would be scattered on Saddleworth Moor – where they buried four of their five victims.
Brady posed for ghoulish photographs taken by Hindley on Saddleworth Moor before they were arrested
Brady’s executor Robin Makin gave assurances there was ‘no likelihood’ of this happening, but the Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, ruled in October the issue of disposal should be taken out of Mr Makin’s hands.
The Moors murderer died at Ashworth High Security Hospital in Maghull, Merseyside, having been there since 1985.
Brady handed victim Keith Bennett’s family one final insult from his deathbed – by refusing to reveal where he buried the 12-year-old.
The boy’s mother, Winnie Johnson, died in 2012 after fighting tirelessly to find her son and provide a Christian burial.
It emerged shortly after Brady’s death that police attempted to convince him to reveal the mystery location of the grave in his final hours.
Family lawyer John Ainley told Good Morning Britain: ‘The police spoke to me in the course of the evening, and they were trying to have access to his papers.
‘That’s difficult without consent from his solicitors and a court order. [The police] were trying, I think, to implore Brady at this very late stage to pass on any information or documents to them so they could carry out a meaningful search of the moors.’
But Brady’s lawyer, Robin Makin, said that if the killer did know where Keith’s body was, he would have told police when they took him to the moor in 1986.
‘He did go to the Moors a long time ago and I suspect that if there had been information for him that he could have provided, he would have provided it then,’ he told Radio 4’s Today programme.
He added: ‘I would very much hope that the remains can be found, but unfortunately I haven’t got any information that’s going to assist.’
The sick killer was still claiming before his death that the horrific murders were entirely justified.
Brady’s body was taken to Southport Crematorium under heavy police escort before the cremation began at 10pm on October 25
Twisted serial killer Ian Brady is pictured with his pet dog in an undated photograph. He was still claiming before his death that the horrific murders were entirely justified
Brady, pictured, died in May after spending more than 50 years in prison for his sick crimes
Edward Evans (left), 17, was the sick duo’s final victim. John Kilbride (right), 12, was strangled and buried in a shallow grave
The method of 12-year-old Keith Bennett’s killing has never been made clear and his body has never been found
Lesley Ann Downey (left), 10, was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Pauline Reade (right), 16, was the couple’s first victim
In disturbing letters, he even argued that governments and elites were allowed to kill people in warfare – and that he should be allowed to do the same.
‘The question of global serial killers and thieves – politicians, bankers, military etc – forever unpunished and thriving is a separate question of legal/moral relativity, of course, constant throughout history,’ he wrote.
Hindley died in prison in 2002. Now Brady – who said repeatedly he wanted to commit suicide – has followed her to the grave.
An inquest into Brady’s death heard he died of natural causes.
Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers said the cause of death was cor pulmonale, a form of heart failure, secondary to bronchopneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or lung disease.
The court heard Brady, who was a heavy smoker up until the smoking ban, had ‘very severely diseased’ lungs.
In a statement, Tameside and Oldham councils said: ‘We are pleased that this matter is now concluded and we are grateful for the support and professionalism shown to ensure Ian Stewart-Brady’s body and remains were disposed of expediently at sea in a manner compatible with the public interest and those of the victim’s relatives.’
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core by snatching children off the street, before sexually abusing and torturing them to death
The sadistic crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core.
Across Britain there was an outpouring of loathing for the pair who snatched children off the street, sexually abused them and tortured them to death.
The evidence seen and heard at their Chester Assizes trial chilled the hearts of those who sat through it.
Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, who vanished on July 12 1963, on her way to a disco near her home in Gorton, Manchester.
She was lured to the moors by Hindley who said she had lost her gloves there and needed help finding them.
The sadistic crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core. Pictured is the funeral of Pauline Reade in 1987
It was two decades later when Pauline’s grieving parents discovered exactly what had happened to her.
Her body was discovered in 1987 after the murderers confessed to the killing.
They were taken to bleak Saddleworth Moor where they located the shallow grave dug over 20 years before.
Pauline was still wearing her pink and gold party dress and blue coat.
Brady had beaten her about the head and cut her throat with such force that her spinal cord was severed.
Pathologists said it was impossible to say whether Brady had sexually assaulted her.
Four months after Pauline vanished, the day after President John F Kennedy’s assassination in the US, 12-year-old John Kilbride became Brady’s second victim.
Police digging on Saddleworth Moor after Myra Hindley agreed to help try and identify the location of burials in 1986
In the shadow of the presidential assassination little attention was paid to the disappearance of the Manchester boy.
John was lured on to the moor where he was sexually assaulted and murdered.
Brady took a photograph of Hindley standing on the edge of his grave holding her pet dog. The photograph would later lead police to the young boy’s resting place.
The body of the third victim, Keith Bennett, 12, has never been found.
Keith died after leaving his home in Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester on June 16 1964.
Police mounted an intensive search of the moor in 1986 amid reports that the pair had confessed to his murder.
But even though Brady and Hindley were both permitted to travel to the moor to try to remember where the boy’s remains were, they were not found.
Detective Superintendent Peter Topping at the scene on Saddleworth Moor, where he had been searching for the body’s of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade in 1986
It was Brady and Hindley’s next killing that sealed their reputation for pure wickedness – the murder of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey on Boxing Day in 1964.
She became their youngest victim when she was lured from a fairground to the house Hindley shared with her grandmother in Hattersley.
Brady stripped, sexually abused and tortured her, forcing her to pose for pornographic photographs.
Her last moments were recorded on a harrowing 16-minute, 21-second audio tape.
The terrified girl begged for mercy, called out for her mother and appealed to God for help before her voice was stifled forever.
The tape was recorded at the house in Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley, as Lesley Ann pleaded with them ‘Please God, help me’ and ‘Don’t undress me, will you?’
Her cries reduced the judge, jury, courtroom spectators and even hardened police officers to tears.
John Stalker, former deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester, who was then a detective sergeant, expressed the feelings of many in the courtroom when he said: ‘Nothing in criminal behaviour before or since has penetrated my heart with quite the same paralysing intensity.’
Detectives could not say exactly how Lesley Ann died. Her body was dug up naked except for shoes and socks.
Had the pair not made a crucial blunder in involving Hindley’s brother-in-law David Smith in their next enterprise, the murder of Edward Evans, 17, might not have been their last.
Edward was lured from a gay bar to a home then shared by Hindley and Brady on the Hattersley estate at Hyde.
Detectives could not say exactly how Lesley Ann died. Her body was dug up naked except for shoes and socks
Smith was summoned to the house by a phone call on a false pretext.
He was then forced to watch as Brady attacked Evans with an axe, smothered him with a cushion and completed his grim task with an electrical cable.
Shocked, Smith helped the pair carry the trussed-up body into a bedroom. He then fled terrified and called the police.
Police dog handlers on Saddleworth Moor
The next morning police searched the house, and began unravelling the gruesome evidence of Brady and Hindley’s appalling crimes.
Brady was 28 in May 1966 when he and Hindley were convicted of murdering Lesley Ann and Edward.
He was also convicted of the murder of John Kilbride and received three life sentences to run concurrently.
In 1987 Brady finally confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett but he was never tried for the crimes.