Don't waste a penny more on Ian Brady By Douglas Murray It was inevitable that there would be huge interest in Brady's first public appearance (albeit by video link) since being jailed for life in 1966 For five decades the name of Ian Brady has been synonymous with evil, a byword for almost unbelievable depravity and malevolence. Ever since he and Myra Hindley were arrested for, and then convicted of, torturing and murdering five children, they have been the focus of horrified fascination. It was inevitable therefore that there would be huge interest in Brady's first public appearance (albeit by video link) since being jailed for life in 1966. But the appearance of Brady before a mental health tribunal yesterday did not just reawaken memories of his appalling crimes. It also reopened the question of the wisdom of the state's insistence on keeping this unrepentant child killer alive. For the last 28 years, Brady has been held at the high-security Ashworth psychiatric hospital on Merseyside. Having allegedly refused to eat, he has been force-fed for years to keep him alive. Naturally, he has claimed that the force-feeding is an infringment of his human rights but, as a mental patient - medical staff say he is a paranoid schizophrenic - he is deemed incapable of making decisions over his own well being. Brady wants to be moved from a psychiatric hospital to an ordinary prison to be able to starve himself to death. This week, however, it emerged that the Moors Murderer has been feeding himself while on "hunger strike." He eats toast every morning. This is yet another demonstration that nothing Brady says can be trusted. His attempts at manipulation of those around him seem to be endless. As, indeed, is the debate over what should be done with him. Should he be allowed to die, in accordance with his wishes? After all, some people with incurable illnesses visit Dignitas to end their own lives, and although I disapprove of this I don't think there can be much argument that Brady is incurably sick. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, were both were sentenced to life imprisonment and have become synonymous with evil. Although Hindley fought to be released, Brady is fighting to be allowed to die Alternatively, should he be kept alive precisely because this is what he fears the most? Or should he be kept alive not to punish him, but because it is the humane thing to do, because we, unlike Brady, are not monsters? Once, there would have been no need for such a debate. The death penalty for murder was abolished 50 years ago, during the very period that Brady and Hindley were being held on remand for their crimes. Had they been caught after their first murders, they could also have been hanged for them. As it was, and despite the families of the victims calling for the ultimate punishment to be reinstated for this case, Brady and Hindley were spared the hangman's rope. Instead they were sent to prison for life. And in their case, for once, life really has meant life. Over the years, Hindley carried out a high-profile campaign - partly through her well-meaning but naïve advocate Lord Longford - claiming that she had changed her ways and deserved a new start. Rightly, she was denied it and died in prison in 2002. Brady, on the other hand, never even made any pretence of any repentance whatsoever. He always knew that he would die in prison, and has never asked to be freed. But should he be allowed to choose when he dies, as his victims were not? Those who have met Brady in prison recount tales of a hugely arrogant and manipulative individual. He apparently welcomes those who interview him like a king receiving his subjects. He is said to test them to see if they are capable of diverting or otherwise interesting him. These traits were very much in evidence during his gloating performance at the tribunal yesterday. He clearly relished the attention which allowed him to indulge his pathological exhibitionism, and the proceedings strayed close to the farcical, making a mockery of what should have been a deadly serious hearing. At one point, he spoke of his contempt for "ordinary" people. That "ordinary" is revealing as well as chilling. For Brady, the world divides between the ordinary people and the extraordinary ones. There is no doubt to which category he imagines himself to belong. And there is no doubting the contempt in which he has always held his victims. In all the years he has been in prison, Brady has never made any effort to do even the smallest thing to atone for his wickedness. Police search Saddleworth Moor for the bodies of missing children Brady murdered, but should he be allowed to choose when he dies, as his victims were not? The author and criminologist Colin Wilson, who corresponded with Brady for years, once asked him if he felt sorry for his victims. "That way lies insanity," Brady said. I have to keep mental blocks tightly shut to keep control. Wilson was convinced that Brady is incapable of performing the one act of goodness that some still expect of him, and one good reason for keeping this monster alive: namely revealing where is the body of 12-year-old Keith Bennett. Brady and Hindley abducted and murdered Keith in 1964, burying his body in a shallow grave somewhere on Saddleworth Moor. He was the third of the couple's five known victims, but unlike the others his body has never been recovered. Winnie Johnson, the mother of Moors murder victim, Keith Bennett died not having located or buried her son For five decades, Brady and Hindley toyed with the Bennett family over the location of the body. Keith Bennett's mother, Winnie Johnson, even took the step of writing to her son's murderers, begging them to tell her where her son's body was lying. Her only wish was to give him a proper Christian burial. I don't know whether Brady really does know the location of the grave, but I do know that in all these years he never even replied to Keith Bennett's mother, despite her writing hundreds of letters to him imploring him to give her some information that might have healed a part of her torment before her death last year at the age of 78. One of the final twists of this tragedy was that as Winnie was dying, news emerged of a possible revelation by Brady about the location of her son's body. This - like so many parts of the sadistic game he has played - now appears to have been another false lead. But it did make clear that Brady will never feel remorse or reveal Keith's whereabouts. He either does not have the information, or he has no intention of sharing it. Consequently, there is no reason to preserve Ian Brady's life. Even those of us generally opposed to the death penalty - as I am - must wonder what good has been done all these years in keeping him alive. The State has discharged its duty of care in keeping him alive a hundred times over. Moral philosophers can carry on the arguments over the rights and wrongs of allowing him to die. I would have no hesitation in granting him his wish of allowing him to starve himself to death, assuming he can resist his daily ration of toast, for pragmatic reasons alone - why should we spend another single penny on Brady? It is not a question of whether we are giving him what he wants - it is a question of giving him what we want. There will be no tears shed for him when he dies. His public appearance this week was his first for decades. We must hope that it is also his last.