Police guard for 'dignified' funeral of Myra Hindley

Myra Hindley's funeral will be held tonight, under cover of darkness and long after the crematorium closes to other services. Within a tight police cordon, a handful of people will be present for the ceremony of one of the most notorious killers of modern times.

Yesterday a solitary bunch of white freesias was left outside the Cambridge crematorium where the funeral will be held at 7.30pm. Its message read: "Rest in Peace, Myra." Many do not share that sentiment.

Superintendent John Raine, of Cambridgshire police, said: "A policing operation has been put in place to ensure a dignified cremation is allowed to take place, such as would be accorded to any other individual. The operation is only to ensure her family are allowed to grieve in peace as any other family and friends would do."

Only 12 people will attend the Roman Catholic service, by Father Michael Teader, the chaplain at Highpoint prison near Haverhill in Suffolk where Hindley served the last three of her 36 years in jail. She requested the presence of her mother, Nellie Moulton, 82, but she is in frail health in a Manchester nursing home, and her niece Sharon Scott, brother-in-law William Scott, solicitor Andrew McCooey, Edward Fitzgerald QC, her friend Trish Forrester and her former lover, Nina Wilde.

The Moors murderer's long battle for freedom ended last Friday when she died aged 60 at West Suffolk Hospital, from bronchial pneumonia due to heart disease. She was a heavy smoker.

The Cambridge Crematorium agreed to take on the task on "humanitarian grounds" after staff at the West Suffolk Crematorium in Bury St Edmunds refused.

John Roebuck, of Cambridge City Council, said: "Holding the funeral in the evening causes the least disruption. The Prison Service and family wish it to happen as quickly as possible and we were willing to co-operate."

The £340 funeral – paid for by Hindley's estate instead of the prison as in most deaths in custody – will be held four hours after other services finish.

Staff at the crematorium said it was the first time they could remember a night service there. The last time they were asked to work out of normal hours was on a Saturday in July last year when Lola Hayne, Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare's mother, was cremated, two days after he was jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Hindley and Ian Brady, her lover at the time, were jailed for life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17. He was also convicted of murdering John Kilbride, 12, and she was found to have been an accessory. In 1987, they confessed to killing 12-year-old Keith Bennett, whose body has never been found, and Pauline Reade, 16.

Two hours after the cremation, Hindley's ashes will be collected and taken back to Highpoint. Father Michael and her family will decide where they will scatter them secretly.