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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to not understand why Ian Brady is such big news?

48 replies

SodaStreamy · 26/06/2013 13:24

Why is he in the news constantly?

Surely the best thing to do is ignore the man, he will have access to the tv where he is , so will love he's being talked about on the news.

Why are the broadcasters trying to turn him into some sort of 'infamous villian'

Is it so we remember the first amous british childkillers with awe?

I just don't get it? If the guy wants to go on hunger strike let him and stop giving him more attention

OP posts:

ChestyNut · 26/06/2013 16:39

He seems very manipulative from the media reports.

He should continue to be fed and live out his sentence until his natural death, hopefully in great misery

JennySense · 26/06/2013 16:44

For me the real issue is that Keith Bennett is still missing.
The family believe they know the area he is in but cannot persuade GMP to resume the search despite receiving new information from David Smith shortly before he died.
Keith's family desperately need support to help him be found. If any of you are interested in hearing more, including their views on the tribunal or signing their petition please visit Keith's brother's website www.searchingforkeith.com

specialsubject · 26/06/2013 16:52

as mentioned - there is still one body missing and that is Brady's power.

this case is before my time but it is etched on the consciousness of all who remember it, which is why it is news.

TSSDNCOP · 26/06/2013 17:01

This man has made "news" for my entire life.

His crimes were truly horrific, my mother would tell you of the effect it had on the nation at the time. As a truly peaceful woman, she once told me she'd like to have seen him hang.

But that didn't happen. He is a psychopath and should remain in a high security mental institution until the last breath leaves his odious body, and his soul goes straight to hell. He must never be given the luxury of expediting that end. He must not have any power.

It infuriates me that his trial is reported, but I accept that must be so to facilitate the free society in which we live.

But I fervently believe that the information should be straight-fact reported as a non anywhere near headline article.

Remember this is a man that tortured five kids. Stole them, hurt them, raped them, killed them.

And taped their cries.

FrankellyMyDearIDontGiveADamn · 26/06/2013 17:05

It is all a power trip for him. He revels in the attention. Don't forget the debacle over the supposed letter last year: to me that was an attempt to inflict more misery on Keith Bennett's family.

He should be starved of the oxygen of publicity.

JakeBullet · 26/06/2013 17:06

Personally speaking I think he needs to remain exactly where he is. Love the fact that he is saying he manipulated and acted his mental illness. If so then he is in a misery of his own making. Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

I set far more store by the mental health team's opinion though which suggests he is a Paranoid Schizophrenic with a serious personality disorder

Viviennemary · 26/06/2013 17:17

Who cares anything about what he wants, or what he is entitled to. He has totally no right whatsoever to make a decision on which is the best place for him to serve his sentence. The idea is beyond ridiculous. And I hadn't really thought about how he is loving being a VIP and all the press attention but I think that is probably true.

BIWI · 26/06/2013 17:21

He is an infamous villain, OP, don't know why you wouldn't think he is?

And he's in the news because this raises an ethical issue which does need to be debated.

I suspect those of you who can't be bothered with it are actually too young to remember when it all happened, and how horrific the crimes were.

Cravey · 26/06/2013 17:29

The point is he is a prisoner serving a scented e so he should not be allowed to die as he wishes. It's about stopping him doing what he wants to do. It's news because people read/ watch it.

thegreylady · 26/06/2013 17:31

I remember.I can never hear The Little Drummer Boy without remembering the tape of them torturing Lesley Anne Downey while that carol played and a little girl begged for her Mum.
Brady should have been hanged at the time but now he has no right to choose anything at all.As far as I am concerned he sacrificed his humanity to service his evil perversions.

Original poster

SodaStreamy · 26/06/2013 18:08

An ethical issue BIWI?

I imagine there are lots of prisoners on hunger strike or whatever to end there on lives but they are not in the daily news

Does he deserve an ethical debate around him ..no...he should be treated with the same amount of compassion as anyone else but he really does not deserve headline coverage

OP posts:

Original poster

SodaStreamy · 26/06/2013 18:10

also does no one else remember Bobby Sands?

OP posts:

Thisisaeuphemism · 26/06/2013 18:13

That's not true or fair Biwi - he was on the front of the sun and the mirror again today. Totally unnecessary.
We know that he and others like him crave noteriety- let's not give it to them. the next generation need to hear the name of Keith Bennett and his mother not Ian Brady.

limitedperiodonly · 26/06/2013 18:27

I remember Bobby Sands soda. What's your point?

It has been acknowledged by Margaret Thatcher's ministers that it was a mistake in the long run to escalate the argument over whether IRA inmates should be treated as political prisoners. She was being told this at the time. The British government ended up backing down over it in a typical fudge.

However, though I think it was tactically foolish, I do understand her point of view.

I don't see the connection between an argument for political status and a tribunal to decide whether a prisoner has received the correct diagnosis.

Unless you're saying that neither of them should receive the oxygen of publicity, which is a bit of a dangerous thing to say IMO

lottiegarbanzo · 26/06/2013 18:31

To answer directly - why - because the moors murders were such a huge, notorious case when they happened. Because of the crime and because the death penalty had recently been abolished.

People alive at the time, who either thought he should have been hanged, or had argued against the death penalty, have a strong interest in exactly what 'life' means, in his case. That includes his attempt to foreshorten his sentence via suicide.

In the same way as Jack the Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper but even more so because the victims were children, the case was known about by everybody and the serial nature of the crimes created a climate of fear. It's one of those events that is seared into the brain of everyone alive at the time and becomes part of their life and times, so there is an ongoing interest.

Whether there should be so much press coverage is a different question. It's clear he is revelling in it and loves his notoriety and the control he maintains. Perhaps coverage 'should' be limited to serious discursive articles on the inside pages of the broadsheets. That's not how people consume news though. Rather the way to make money as a provider of news media that the public gets what the public wants - in the format it chooses to consume most.

So, as with all 'distasteful' front page coverage, if everyone agreed with you, they wouldn't buy the papers and it would soon stop. They don't. They want it. Therefore your argument is with 'the public' not with commercial organisations who are merely providing what is desired.

BIWI · 26/06/2013 22:02

Yes, it's about ethics. Someone who was not sentenced to death, given the changes in the law re the death penalty. Someone who has been given a life sentence (to mean life) on the basis of his mental health - i.e. insanity. Someone who has been on (supposed) long-term hunger strike, who wants the right to starve himself to death.

Should we as a civilised society allow him the right to starve himself, or should we insist that we continue to force-feed him? If he gets his wish, he is not serving the sentence that has been handed down to him. Yet, if he can prove that he is not insane, there are no grounds for not sending him to a normal prison.

Whether you like it or not, these are important ethical issues that have to be debated. The ethical debate isn't actually about Ian Brady. It's about the issues that his case raises.

Other prisoners who may be on hunger strike aren't involved in quite the same complicated situations.

Thisisaeuphemism - why should the next generations not hear his name? They need to know about the horrific crimes that he committed! And it's not a mutually exclusive thing - his victims can be remembered at the same time.

fluffyraggies · 26/06/2013 22:37

The ethical issues are indeed important and news worthy.

Under the circumstances however, i feel news coverage of this case should have been restricted as much as is possible to covering the legal and ethical debate with as much avoidance of showing sketches and quotes from IB as possible.

The 'circumstances' being that IB is fully aware of his power over the media, and how to manipulate it, and does indeed revel in the publicity, It is quite obvious he uses his chance to speak publicly to inflict more pain on who ever may be hurt by his comments. His main target from his prison room for years has been Keith Bennett's mother. Spending years in the knowledge that he knew where her sons body lay and she didn't was a thing of pleasure for him. He literally toyed with her.

Now this trial. He should have his legal rights. But should not be given a public voice.

BIWI · 26/06/2013 22:39

You know, this is the first time since his trial, I think I'm right in saying, that he has actually been seen! It doesn't make any difference if he's shown on telly or not. He is so notorious that his case and his protest will always make the front pages.

Shallishanti · 26/06/2013 22:50

Does anyone know why the mental health tribunal was made public, that's unheard of isn't it?
obviously should be reported, it is a mattee of public interest, but why give him a platform?

McNewPants2013 · 26/06/2013 22:54

I think it is a waste of tax payer money fucking £250,000 this has estimated cost.

He lost all his Human rights imo when he tortured and murder those 5 innocent children. Keep the sick twisted freak where he is and put an injunction on the media that he cant be named.

LunaticFringe · 26/06/2013 23:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MyBaby1day · 27/06/2013 03:49

YANBU, he's a horrible murderer and shouldn't be given air time or air AT ALL!. At least for the victims families and friends stop mentioning him. He shouldn't be allowed rights to go to appeals and such like, to me the only thing everyone should get (no matter how henous their crime) is a fair trial, after that get rid!. He's a burden.

MrsHoarder · 27/06/2013 04:26

Because the law applies to everyone including laws for people's own protection and laws allowing decisions to be challenged in court. I wouldn't want to live in a society where this isn't the case tbh and want the media to some a light on this as much add possible.

Doesn't mean I don't think his crimes are utterly repulsive and that he deserves to suffer, just that I think that protecting my own and wider society's morals is more important than he is and that it isn't clear cut so the legal system her to consider it and the media shine a light on it.

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