Moors murderer Ian Brady breaks his 47-year silence to speak about the Krays and attack 'repressive' jail treatment Serial child killer Ian Brady described how he mixed with some of Britain's most notorious criminals during his time in high security prisons in the 1960s and 1970s. Speaking in public for the first time since his 1966 trial the moors murderer claimed to have associated with the Krays, the Great Train Robbers and Richardson crime family, spies, John McVicar as well as convicted IRA terrorists and perpetrators of the Iranian embassy siege. Wearing dark glasses, a light blue tie and with his grey hair carefully brushed back, the 75-year-old spoke in extraordinary detail about his battle with the prison authorities. Answering questions from his lawyer Nathalie Lieven QC at the mental health tribunal where he is seeking to be declared mentally fit enough to be returned to a normal jail, he criticised the "negative, repressive and deliberately provocative" staff at Ashworth hospital where he has been on hunger strike on and off for the past 14 years. Brady continues to wear a feeding tube taped to his nose through which he is administered food against his will. He contrasted his time enjoying "excellent conditions" at jails such as Wormwood Scrubs in the 1960s praising the "cosmopolitan atmosphere" where all the prisoners were "mentally active" with his current situation. Brady said he had stopped reading newspapers 12 years ago but said stories had been sold about him by an inside "mole" at Ashworth resulting in a seven year hunt which ended up in the House of Lords. He said he was the "sole high security prisoner" at Ashworth on Merseyside and claimed the authorities sought to "exploit" his status. He suggested the media saw him as "Jack the Ripper" and "The Hounds of the Baskervilles" and "Wuthering Heights" because of the "dramatic background" surrounding his five child murders. He described how he used to work as a barber giving fellow prison inmates beard trims and haircuts during the 1970s before he was transferred to a secure hospital in the mid 1980s. It also emerged that Brady studied German and psychology in prison and walks up and down reciting classical literature to exercise his vocal cords. I was in solitary confinement for a time. I would memorise whole pages of Shakespeare and Plato and other people and recite them all to myself while walking up and down exercising in the cell. If I interact with the TV, Tony Blair or something on, and make any comment, this is interpreted as psychosis," he said. Brady said his relationship with the Krays was chronicled in the book Hard Bastards, written by Kate Kray, wife of Ronnie Kray after he was sent to Broadmoor and where it was "openly stated that I mixed with these people in the 1960s." Describing life since his 1966 conviction he said: "You are not omnipotent you are just a package." If you put someone in a cage and simply pin labels on them as aggressive, anti-social, paranoid and then poke them with a stick you will get a reaction eventually and you will say `I told you so. You don't know what the end result will be," he said. Brady described how he would use his pen, which had been banned from taking outside his room at Ashworth because of concerns by the authorities that he would use it as a weapon, to tell the outside world "use MPs, petitions, whatever is required." He added: "That is paradoxical certainly after 50 years my pen becomes propaganda." He said: "After half a century you think there would be an amelioration but they (the media and the public) are obsessed with the case ... You don't want to go into the reasons which are somewhat theatrical. Why are you still talking about Jack the Ripper? It is a case of the background and the fascination - all the capes and the cobbled streets. The moors are the same thing - Wuthering Heights and the Hound of the Baskervilles. Brady went through what was claimed to be the main objections to his being returned to prison, where he plans to end his life. He said the static white noise he played on headphones whilst he was being force fed was "simply pragmatic" and compared it to the way students listened to music whilst studying. He also described how he was removed from one secure hospital to another by officers wearing balaclavas, crash helmets and riot gear who were chanting "do not resist" as he had his arms pinned behind his head. I have never kept count of how many prisons I have been in or how many times I have been transferred. He denied he was psychotic, which he said was the "lynchpin" for keeping him in a secure hospital. Claims by medical staff that he was paranoid were also wrong, he said. Brady claimed confidential medical notes were published in newspapers because of leaks and that his calling officers "earwigs" was common prison slang. "Compared with the authorities most prisoners are perfectly mentally healthy compared with the paranoia of the prison penal officials," he said. Paranoia was "unavoidable" within the prison context. Only the authorities call it paranoia. The prisoners regard it as sensible suspicion. You learn to read people for survival purposes," he added.