CPS planned new trial to stop Hindley being freed

The police and the Crown Prosecution Service were formulating a back-up plan to keep Myra Hindley in prison if the law had been changed to allow her release.

The Moors murderer still inspired such revulsion that, nearly four decades after her crimes were committed, there would have been a public outcry if she had been freed.

As an inquest into Hindley's death was opened and adjourned yesterday, The Independent learnt that Greater Manchester Police and the CPS were contemplating charging her with a further two murders, those of Keith Bennett, 12, and Pauline Reade, 17.

Hindley and Ian Brady were jailed at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, 17. Brady was also convicted of murdering 12-year-old John Kilbride, whose body was never found, and she was found to be an accessory.

In 1987, they confessed to killing Keith and Pauline but were not charged. There was little point, with successive home secretaries promising that Hindley's sentence meant a "whole life tariff''. David Blunkett also hinted that, for Hindley, life would mean life. But in May this year, the European Court ruled that the Home Secretary had no right to overrule the parole board if it recommended a killer's release.

Sources close to Mr Blunkett indicated he would fight any attempt by the judges to remove that power, but he is expected to lose a second case on the issue within weeks when the law lords rule on an appeal by Anthony Andrews and two other killers whose sentences were lengthened by previous home secretaries.

A police spokeswoman said: "Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service were contacted by Winnie Johnson [Keith Bennett's mother] following the European Court ruling. Since then, we have reviewed the situation with regard to the possibility of further criminal charges including examination of evidence from the 1960s and 1980s alongside specialists from the CPS."

She said a report would be produced in weeks. Asked whether this was a back-up plan in case of legal change, she added: "If someone is serving life as life and there is no prospect of them being released it is not in the public's interest to charge them because they cannot serve any more time.''

A spokesman for the civil rights group Liberty said: "It shows again how important it is that it would be a judge who decided on any sentence, were there to be another trial and conviction, because the judge can take into account all relevant facts and look at the history, and not be swayed by the tabloids or any electoral concerns.''

Hindley's lengthy battle for freedom ended on Friday when she died in custody at the age of 60. The inquest was held at Highpoint prison near Bury-St-Edmunds, Suffolk, where she spent the last three years. A heavy smoker with a history of osteoporosis, angina and respiratory problems, she died of bronchial pneumonia due to heart disease.

Dr Michael Heath, a Home Office pathologist, said tests were still awaited but he was confident that the "heavily built, late middle-aged'' Hindley died of natural causes. "There was no evidence of violence or injury which could have caused or contributed to her death,'' he said.

"I strongly suspect the toxicology tests will show nothing sinister as well.''