Moors Murders: Search for Keith Bennett's body restarts

The search for the body of one of the Moors murderers' victims has restarted after "potential human remains" were found on moorland, police have said.

Keith Bennett, 12, was one of five children tortured and killed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in the 1960s, but his body has never been recovered.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said it had received information about a "site of interest" on Saddleworth Moor.

Keith's brother had been told about the "potential development", it added.

Keith disappeared on 16 June 1964 while on his way to see his grandmother in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.

Police searched Saddleworth Moor in 1986 following reports Hindley and Brady had confessed to his murder.

His mother Winnie Johnson, who died in 2012, spent her life trying to locate her son, even taking to the moor herself, armed with a spade.

A plaque in her and Keith's memory was placed on the moor, with the inscription: "To Winnie and Keith. May you both RIP. Keith will come home."

GMP's Force Review Officer Martin Bottomley said police had been contacted on Thursday by the representative of an author who has been researching the murders.

He said after "direct contact with the author, we were informed that he had discovered what he believes are potential human remains in a remote location on the moors".

Mr Bottomley said the author had agreed to meet officers "to elaborate on his find and direct us to a site of interest".

He said after a site assessment, specialist officers had "begun initial exploration activity".

"We are in the very early stages of assessing the information which has been brought to our attention, but have made the decision to act on it in line with a normal response to a report of this kind," he said.

"It is far too early to be certain whether human remains have been discovered and this is expected to take some time."

Brady, who was born in Glasgow but later moved to Manchester, was jailed in 1966 for the murders of John Kilbride, aged 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.

In 1985, after being moved to a secure hospital, Brady also admitted murdering Keith and 16-year-old Pauline Reade.

The children had been abducted by Brady and his partner Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, between 1963 and 1965.

The pair were caught after Hindley's brother-in-law witnessed the murder of Edward and reported it to police, who found his body at Brady and Hindley's shared home in Hyde, Greater Manchester.

Lesley Ann was the first victim to be found on Saddleworth Moor, after police received a tip-off from one of Brady's neighbours, and subsequent searches of the area unearthed the remains of Pauline and John.

Keith's body was never found and Brady, who died in 2017, never revealed where it was buried, despite being taken to the moor to join a police search in 1987.

In 2009, police said a covert search operation, which used a wealth of scientific experts, had also failed to discover any trace of the boy.

Following Brady's death, his lawyer Robin Makin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was with his client less than two hours before he died but the whereabouts of the remains of Keith Bennett did not come up in conversation.

"I would be very surprised if he really had information that was useful," he said.

"He did go to the moors a long time ago and I suspect that if there had been information for him that he could have provided, he would have provided it then."

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