Plea to unlock Brady briefcases

Ian Brady's briefcase could help in the search for Keith Bennett

Detectives still searching for the body of Ian Brady victim Keith Bennett have reportedly been denied access to his briefcases and papers.

Before his death in May 2017, Brady asked for two locked cases which were in his room at Ashworth Hospital, Merseyside, to be put into secure storage.

The Times reports that a district judge at Manchester Magistrates' Court has refused to grant officers a search warrant - which would allow them to open the cases - saying that there is no chance of a prosecution because Brady is dead.

The newspaper also claims that Robert Makin, Brady’s solicitor and the executor of his will, has also turned down the request from police.

Keith Bennett went missing in 1964 while on his way to his grandmother's house in Longsight – with  Brady taking the secret of his burial site to the grave when he died in 2017.

Keith’s brother Alan Bennett told The Times: “There is a desperate need to look for anything that may help in the recovery of Keith’s body and there may be something in those cases.

“The refusal by Mr Makin to help any further is a great cause of distress considering that my brother’s body still remains on the moor.”

• Oldham Council succeed in preventing Moors Murderer Ian Brady's ashes being scattered on Saddleworth Moor

Brady tortured and killed five children with partner Myra Hindley in the 1960s. He died aged 79 from cancer and emphysema, after spending more than five decades behind bars.

He was jailed for the killings of John Kilbride, 12, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, 17, in 1966.

He went on to admit the murders of Keith and Pauline Reade, aged 16.

The remains of three of his victims were found on Saddleworth Moor. The body of another was found at Hindley’s house in Wardle Brook Avenue in Hattersley.

Myra Hindley died in jail in 2002, aged 60, after suffering respiratory failure following a heart attack.