Killer Brady too ill for hearing

Moors murderer Ian Brady's mental health tribunal will not take place next week because he is too ill to attend, a judge ruled yesterday.

Judge Robert Atherton said he accepted that Brady, who is understood to have suffered a seizure earlier this week, was too ill to take part in the public hearing, which was due to begin on Monday. No new date has been set.

Brady, 74, who with Myra Hindley murdered five children in the 1960s, has been returned to Ashworth psychiatric hospital after undergoing medical tests at Fazakerley General Hospital in Aintree, Liverpool.

The judge said that while his condition was not life-threatening, it was serious enough to "preclude his attendance and proper participation in the hearing".

The tribunal will consider Brady's application to be transferred to a Scottish prison and to be allowed to die. He has been tube-fed since refusing food 12 years ago.