'They stripped away our innocence'

Colin Wilson, Britain's foremost criminologist, who spent years corresponding with Ian Brady and studying Myra Hindley, said yesterday that no crime – since the murders of Jack the Ripper in 1888 – has had such a profound affect on the soul of Britain as those of Brady and Hindley.

"Before the moors murders, we had little or no concept of women as evil," said Mr Wilson, the author of such books as A Criminal History of Mankind. "She ushered in a new era. Not since the Ripper has a crime changed a society so much. The Ripper made the Victorians rethink their sentimental view of life. London wasn't a genteel, charming place any more. There was poverty, prostitution and malevolent evil."

Mr Wilson said Hindley "deserves as equal a portion of the blame as Brady".

He added: "He told me that she took a very active part in the sexual assault of Pauline Reade [the first victim, aged 16]. He also maintained that she strangled Lesley Ann Downey [the 10-year-old heard on the tape] and later deliberately played in public with the cord used to kill the child.

"They stripped away our innocence. They've made us brood on how such monsters can be created. They've made us question what exists in our society – and in us – that can allow these people to become what they are."