Hindley vows to fight against `incarceration by lynch mob'

Myra Hindley last night vowed to continue her fight to be released from prison after being told officially by Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, that she will never be freed.

In a statement from her cell to The Independent, Hindley described her incarceration as political "containment" fuelled by a "lynch- mob rationale".

The Independent disclosed in December 1994 that David Waddington, the former Home Secretary, had secretly decided in 1990 that she should serve a whole life sentence - or tariff - from which she would never be released. Her lawyers challenged that decision but yesterday Mr Howard rejected their representations and confirmed the tariff.

Hindley and Ian Brady were jailed for life in 1966 for the moors murders of Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17. In 1987, they confessed to killing Keith Bennett, 12, and Pauline Reade, 16. Responding from Durham jail, Hindley, 54, said: "I have been in prison for more than three decades. During those years, I have been transformed by the tabloids from the willing accomplice described at my trial ... into the instigator and perpetrator of the crimes."

The statement, which begins by expressing regret for the victims of her crimes and their relatives, says: "Regarding the nature of the crimes in which I was involved - nobody but myself can be fully aware of their heinousness."

And she goes on to quote a report by the Committee on the Penalty for Homicide, chaired by Lord Lane, the former Lord Chief Justice, which says the current system which allows home secretaries to decide on prisoners' tariffs "confers on a politician decisions that are by their very nature sentencing decisions. This means that considerations of politics rather than justice determine the length of offenders' sentences". Hindley's lawyers said they would be challenging Mr Howard's decision by way of judicial review in the High Court. In a statement, the solicitors Taylor Nichol said the original trial judge, Mr Justice Fenton Atkinson, had said only that Hindley should be kept in prison for a very long time.

The advice of the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, in 1978 was that she should serve a shorter term than Brady. In 1982, Lord Lane recommended she serve 25 years, advice he confirmed in 1985, but in the same year the Home Office set its provisional tariff of 30 years. David Waddington then fixed the whole life tariff in 1990.

In her statement, Hindley said she hoped that one day she could contribute something to society.

"I shall continue to seek release from what has become mere containment. If I am ever released, it is then that my sentence will really being."