The body of Moors Murderer Ian Brady has been released after it was confirmed his ashes will not be scattered on Saddleworth Moor.
The remains of the 79-year-old were discharged from the mortuary and are now the property of his long-time lawyer Robin Makin.
Brady died on Monday at Merseyside’s high-security Ashworth Hospital.
On Tuesday senior coroner Christopher Sefton announced he would retain the body until assurances were made Brady’s ashes would not be dispersed on the moors where he buried his victims. Sefton also stated a funeral director and crematorium willing to take it would have to be confirmed before the release.
On Wednesday a second inquest hearing heard Makin state there was “no likelihood” Brady’s ashes would be spread there.
Coroner’s officer Alby Howard-Murphy said: “I spoke to Mr Makin this afternoon regarding the hearing yesterday and he was unhappy with the comments that were made in court yesterday and suggested that there is no likelihood that the ashes would be spread on Saddleworth Moor.”
Michael Armstrong, representing Merseyside Police, said there were no suggestions Makin had made any funeral arrangements for Brady within the Sefton area.
The inquest was told Brady’s cause of death was cor pulmonale, a form of heart failure, secondary to bronchopneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or lung disease.
A full hearing is expected be held on June 29.
The body was discharged on Thursday at 2pm, with Merseyside Police confirming: “Responsibility for the body has now transferred to the Executor of Ian Brady’s will.”
The force, which had been provided an armed guard for the remains since Brady’s death, added it “has no further involvement.”
Brady was jailed for life in 1966 along with his girlfriend Myra Hindley for abducting, abusing, torturing and killing five children in Manchester before burying them on nearby Saddleworth Moor.
Pauline Reade, 16, disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12, 1963 and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year. Keith Bennett was taken after he left home to visit his grandmother; Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day, 1964; and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965.
Hindley died in jail in 2002 aged 60.
Keith’s body has never been found, despite exhaustive searches of the barren landscape by the police, army and even using a US spy satellite.