World: The Maximum Sentence

The bewigged judge ordered the two defendants to stand. "Ian Brady," he said, addressing the first prisoner, "you have been found guilty of three calculated, cruel and cold-blooded murders. I pass the only sentence which the law now allows: three concurrent sentences of life imprisonment." Then turning to the other defendant, Myra Hindley, 23, the judge decreed her two concurrent life sentences and one seven-year sentence.

Thus last week in a courtroom in Chester, 16 miles south of Liverpool, ended the 14-day trial of the lean stock clerk and his blonde girl friend. They had been charged with killing 17-year-old Edward Evans and two children whose bodies they buried in shallow graves on the moors near Manchester. For the prosecution, Britain's Attorney General Sir Elwyn Jones called 40 witnesses to the stand. The killings were all marked by what Sir Elwyn called "a perverted sexual element." The defendants, he charged, took special care to preserve mementos of the crimes.

Among the prosecution's 200 exhibits was a 17-minute tape recording, which was played in open court. Police say that they found the tape among Brady's belongings. According to Sir Elwyn, the voices on the tape are those of the two defendants and one of the victims —Lesley Anne Downey, 10. The whimpering and protests were alleged by the prosecution to be a recording of the last moments in Lesley's life. Also among Brady's belongings were nude photographs of the little girl. Police also found a picture of Myra on the very spot on the moor where police dug up the body of John Kilbride, 12.

Summing up, Sir Elwyn pointed to the defendants' detached, unemotional behavior. "Are you ever likely to forget how the two accused gave their evidence?" he asked. "Did you see the slightest flicker of emotion when even the most harrowing details were being discussed?" The all-male jury deliberated two hours and 22 minutes before returning with verdicts that demanded the maximum sentence. Britain's historical maximum penalty—death by hanging —had been abolished by Parliament during the time Brady and Myra Hindley were in prison awaiting trial.