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Myra Hindley dies

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:13 / 15.11.02

She never made it out- BBC Report. Was she unfairly treated, was it mass hysteria on the part of newspapers, or was it that it was not so much that she was being treated harsher than other murderers but that they are getting off easier?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:36 / 15.11.02

I think the argument has more to do with whether the Home Secretary should have the right to increase/change sentences, when last time I looked, being HS didn't actually require you to have any knowledge of law. I don't think she was singled out for being a woman- I think the view of the public was allowed to enter legal discourse.

And even though I'm not such a big fan of legal discourse, I have always assumed that one of the reasons it existed was to STOP victims and the relatives thereof (and the rest of the general public) having a say in the punishment of the offenders- that sounds horrible. Let me clarify.

If it was up to me what should happen to the guy who mugged me for a tenner, then I'd kill him.

But the death penalty seems a little harsh for a tenner.

Christ, if someone killed MY kids (if I had any) I'd want 'em locked up for life, then their corpse locked up for EVER. And I'm sure other people'd want harsher stuff.

Like it or not, the legal system is NOT there to protect us from criminals. It's there to protect us from a mob mentality.

Anyway, back to the point. Evil bitch? Yeah. But CHANGING SOMEONE'S SENTENCE AFTER YOU'VE SENTENCED THEM TO IT seems a little unfair to me. Seems also like you're disavowing faith in the legal system of the '60s. By which logic you could also say the cops then were wrong too. Which nobody's saying.

Hey. I'm not gonna cry for Myra. But I think the larger legal issues over her retroactive sentencing need to be addressed.

17:26 / 15.11.02

Going to be interesting to see the press reaction, if nothing else.

17:55 / 15.11.02

The Chairman covered it pretty well there. I remember when she went to prison and the press furore at the time of the original trial, all the horrible and memorable coverage of stuff which scared and troubled me as a youngster then myself.

I later became friendly with a remarkable and very enlightened woman who taught me lots about life, a Quaker and radical thinker. My friend had been in prison too where she had met and made a friend of Myra, whom she felt to have become a good woman, tormented by her past and consoled only by a strong religious faith in those later times.

I think prisons are for rehabilitating people who have harmed others but I think there should also be punishment and a measure of retribution, for the health of wider society.

Myra Hindley had been in prison for longer than many, many others guilty of heinous, unspeakable crimes, so I think she had been justly punished. I do not think she deserved greater punishment than any other criminal for a comparable offence.

I held my friend who knew her in the very highest regard and so, against my native instinct given the horrific crimes she assisted in, I have to think she had been "rehabilitated".

Which leaves me with the conclusion that considerations of political machismo, discrimination because she was female, her notoriety in the tabloids and the grim and totemic photo which was made savage shorthand through repetition kept her in gaol until her death and not any concern with justice or principled penology.

But I'm not Elizabeth Fry. I am not weeping any tears for her tonight. She will be answering now to her god and no longer to Fleet Street plaster saints. (I think I've been scouring the ChristianBBS too much - have become infected...)

18:40 / 15.11.02

I feel a bit sad for the family of Keith Bennett (I think) whose body has never been found, I do feel a tiny bit sad for Hindley too, as I think she may have been bullied by Brady into being an accomplice.

But I expect the current Home Secretary is dancing with relief....

04:47 / 16.11.02

It's weird.
When older people talk about her, however reasonable they might otherwise be, the hate verges on the lunatic. I get the impression the reason she couldn't be released was because she was the hate figure for the older generation. For those us able to look objectively at her case, she had served her original sentence peacefully and posed no threat to society. The only reason to keep her in prison was to make old people feel happy.

One question, back when she was first sentence for a suggested 20 years, was the public outcry massive?
Was it that people figured 20 years was a long time and felt able to forget about her?

07:35 / 16.11.02

Apparently psychologist Oliver James said on Radio 5 this morning that the people emailing the station demanding that Hindley's body be strung up were barbarians (which I agree with) who were repressed child killers themselves, in the same way that many homophobes are closet queers. Interesting thought!

My sister has put forward the theory that Hindley is in fact alive and well, and is being prepared for a quiet release from prison.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:00 / 16.11.02

It is kind of hard to imagine how they could have released her- she'd have needed round the clock police protection. In which case, she may as well still have been in prison. (That's a practical point rather than an ethical one, of course).

11:35 / 16.11.02

Not much to add, really. I think she, more than any other murderer of the 1960s, became a "hate figure" because she was a woman, and the concept of the 'female nurturer' is so ingrained within our culture that the idea of a woman being directly involved in killing children seemed particularly 'monstrous' and 'unnatural'.

The mob mentality - while widely reckoned to be much more of a 'natural' way of expressing violence - is just as ugly. If the justice system were to acquiesce to every media-fuelled 'string up the monster' movement, we'd be selectively executing not only every female but every child who kills another child. The Jamie Bulger boys would be toast.

Male killers, on the other hand, are ten-a-penny, and rarely make page 27, let alone the headlines.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:48 / 16.11.02

SFD's comment about what Oliver James said is very interesting, I've often thought that a lot of public 'rage' against such people, and the modern day pair that are awaiting trial about the two girls killed earlier this year, is redirected rage when they made to feel as if they could kill their own kids.

And I suppose I should have called this thread 'Oh me Oh Myra...'

Latest news is the body is being guarded overnight and there will be a rush cremation tonight.

I wonder if Brady will say anything.

00:43 / 17.11.02

the people emailing the station demanding that Hindley's body be strung up were barbarians (which I agree with) who were repressed child killers themselves

It is indeed an interesting viewpoint. I find it difficult to believe they were repressed killers, but I think an awful lot of guilt is being transferred here ("If you do that once more I'll fucking kill you," thwack). It's similar I think to the anti-paedophile histrionics of a couple of years ago (demonstrations and newspaper outrage at a perceived threat of predatory child molesters) when in fact it was and is usually friends and family carrying out this vile practise.

11:56 / 17.11.02

From t'Abstract: "Are killers treated easier these days or was she singled out for being a woman?"

I think Hindley was probably partially singled out for being a woman, but also that she happened to be involved in one of those crimes which are seen to 'shape a generation.'

The Moors Murders marked, one of the papers I was reading yesterday suggested, 'the end of the innocence of the 1960s.'

And I think there probably is an element of truth in saying the Moors Murders changed the viewpoint of society, ushered in the new bogeyman (interesting how there seems to be but one gender for bogeymen, eh?) of the child killer, and kind of took the shine off the post-war prosperity feeling Britain was undergoing.

So Hindley's crimes were not only more terrible because she was a woman, but because of the shadow they cast over the decade they wewre committed in.

And she remains a hell of a hate figure - nipping into the shop on Saturday to buy a paper, I hadn't heard the news. Looking at the tabloids gave me a fairly good idea something might have happened - they were all 'Rot in Hell, Bitch', 'Gone - but Not Forgiven' and other balanced headlines.

And I think the picture staring out of the papers - you know which picture I mean - helped add to the effect. There is a conditioned response to that picture, a feeling of revulsion which we are told to experienec. She became an icon - instantly recognisable from that one shot, whether a photo in a paper or a controversial artwork.

She became an archetype, a folk legend, a myth; 'don't mess round or Myra will get you.'

And it's hard for some people to let myths go. As SFD's post suggests, the theories are already beginning to swirl around Myra. She may be dead now, but she'll be with us for quite some time.

(BTW, off topic, (sort of) : I feel rather sorry for Maxine Carr. I know the case has to go to court and all that, and she is yet to be found guilty, so I don't want to prejudge the trial (unlike the News of the World.) But I'd just like to point out that, whatever happens, attempting to pervert the course of justice and murder are, surely, two slightly different crimes. And Carr hasn't been charged with murder, despite what the coverage might make you think)

15:12 / 17.11.02

Myra Hindley's sentence was not retro-actively changed (to split a fairly fine hair) but the original recommendation of the trial judge was not followed. The sentence for murder is a mandatory life sentence and the trial judge issues a recommendation for a minimum term when passing the life sentence. The final decision as to when a lifer is released rests with the Home Secretary whose decisions are susceptible to judicial review. In Hindley's case the decisions of the HS WERE in fact challenged and upheld by the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords, largely, in my view, because of the difficulty of proving that the HS' decision was made solely with a view to keeping Sun readers happy. That was surely the biggest factor, but how do you prove it?

Public opinion kept her inside through the instrument of a politician; not a state of affairs I am happy with, regardless of the issues specific to this case.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

20:09 / 17.11.02

Well, I think for proof that they are not worried about what the readers of the News of the World think they should give the sentencing powers over to a seperate body as has been recommended by the European Court, and preferably one which isn't handpicked by MPs either so Dobbo can't pick a number of people who he knows will view things the same way he does...