Law lords reject Hindley's plea for early release
By Terence Shaw, Legal Correspondent

Press releases - Home Office

MYRA HINDLEY, the Moors murderer, had any hope of early release on licence dashed yesterday when the House of Lords upheld decisions of successive Home Secretaries that she must spend the rest of her life in jail.

Five law lords unanimously rejected her claims that imposing "whole life" tariffs on life sentence prisoners to meet the requirements of retribution and deterrence, and the decisions to impose a whole life tariff on her, were unlawful.

 In a test case judgment affecting not only Hindley but more than 20 other notorious killers serving mandatory life sentences for murder and given whole life tariffs, the law lords ruled that such tariffs for heinous offences were not unlawful if they were kept under review.

 Her lawyers say they will take her case to the European Court of Human Rights. Hindley, who is 57 and in her 35th year of imprisonment, was jailed for life at Chester Crown Court in May 1966 for the murder with Ian Brady of two children and being an accessory to Brady's murder of a third.

 In 1985 she was given a "provisional" tariff that she should serve a minimum of 30 years for retribution and deterrence before being considered for parole. But after admitting to police in 1987 that she had murdered all three children and had been a party to murdering two others, this was increased in 1997 to a whole life tariff by Michael Howard, the last Conservative Home Secretary. 

His decision was upheld later that year by Jack Straw, the present Home Secretary. Dismissing her appeal yesterday against the rejection of her legal challenges by the High Court and Court of Appeal, Lord Steyn said there was "nothing logically inconsistent" with the concept of a whole life tariff in cases of crimes "so wicked that even if the prisoner is detained until he or she dies it will not exhaust the requirements of retribution and deterrence".

 A whole life tariff was not inconsistent with the concept of the mandatory life sentence for murder and when the Home Secretary envisaged the possibility of release in the event of exceptional progress in prison, it was impossible to say he had unlawfully fettered his discretion, said Lord Steyn.

 Dealing with Hindley's lawyers' claims that the imposition of a whole life tariff on her was unlawful, Lord Steyn rejected the argument that it amounted to "an increase in the 1985 tariff". That tariff was "provisional" and had not been directly or indirectly communicated to Hindley, said Lord Steyn.

 The view of the then Home Secretary in 1985 was based on an incomplete knowledge of the role Hindley had played in the three murders on which she faced trial and in ignorance of her involvement in two other murders. Until 1987, when she made confessions to the police of her greater involvement, she had "concealed her role".

 Hindley, through her advisers, had asked the Home Secretary to consider her account of involvement in the murders under the influence and intimidation of Brady and in this context the Home Secretary was entitled to look at all available evidence.

 He was not entitled to increase her tariff as retribution and deterrence for murders of which she had not been convicted, said Lord Steyn. But in deciding what was proper retribution and deterrence for the murders of which she had been convicted, he was entitled to take into account that she had committed them knowing the fate of Brady's earlier victims.

 The judge rejected claims that, given her age at the time of the killings, her domination by Brady and the time she had spent in prison, there was no justification for keeping the whole-life tariff which was disproportionate.

 Lord Steyn said: "Even in the sordid history of crimes against children, the murders committed by Hindley, jointly with Ian Brady, were uniquely evil." Lord Browne-Wilkinson and Lords Nicholls, Hutton and Hobhouse agreed that the appeal should be dismissed.