The papers are having a field day - you would think Satan himself had passed away.

On the scale of things, how do Brady's crimes compare to, say -

Assad - who has killed half a million of his own people with cluster bombs and chlorine gas?

Vietnam - where millions of tonnes of skin-burning Napalm were dropped on innocent villagers?

Hiroshima - where millions were killed, either instantly by being burnt to death, or over a longer period with lingering cancers?

Despite your rather bizarre political views ITK, we all seem to think the same (including Robbie) on this - which is essentially, the media cannot resist a good story and inflates anything to get that result. Dreadful crimes yes; but many have done as bad if not worse. And most of them are free. The reason I voted Lib Dem ages ago was because they were the only party prepared to vote against killing innocent people in Iraq; so, elected, they allowed the Tories to do the same in Libya.

I read the headlines on numerous papers in the shop today, but did not make want to buy one. Yes we know what he did and everything else, we knew also that he would never tell us where he buried Keith (doubt he remembered any way) and I thought getting a paper would also give Brady more publicity.

If every crime was compared to the great scheme of things surely every crime could be shrugged off as not as bad as all that. Perhaps Brady/Hindley's crimes are considered particularly abhorrent because of the personal nature of it and clearly also the fact that they targeted children. They weren't dropping bombs from a great height but hunting, torturing and killing children for kicks.

Agreed Jo but we all know that's not the real story; the real story is it's a great media story. Which somehow is unpleasant. Especially when many other equally nasty criminals and killers have got less publicity and as a result are allowed to change, improve, regret, do good.

Jo wrote:
If every crime was compared to the great scheme of things surely every crime could be shrugged off as not as bad as all that. Perhaps Brady/Hindley's crimes are considered particularly abhorrent because of the personal nature of it and clearly also the fact that they targeted children. They weren't dropping bombs from a great height but hunting, torturing and killing children for kicks.

Have to agree with you Jo on this and that's rare.

And like Zodiac left clues to taunt the police and victims families like they not suffered enough.

Even in the UK alone there have been worse serial/spree killers in more recent years, e.g. Thomas Hamilton.

I think the media obsession with Brady is because his and Hindley's crimes was very traumatic for the populace and public because they were so unusual back then.

I tend to agree.
Back then these crimes were so few (because of hanging?) that they stuck in people's minds.

These days murder is so common you can hardly remember the last one
(a fact which is "proved" by the knowledge that I haven't the faintest idea who Hamilton is !!!!)

In The Know (but not this time) wrote:
I tend to agree.
Back then these crimes were so few (because of hanging?) that they stuck in people's minds.

These days murder is so common you can hardly remember the last one


Murder is - fortunately - not very common these days. It is no more common than it ever was, and very possibly less common, if anything.

In The Know (but not this time) wrote:
(a fact which is "proved" by the knowledge that I haven't the faintest idea who Hamilton is !!!!)

Genuinely? I remember that day clearly. I was then a young man of 22/23. Possibly, part of the reason why I remember the Dunblane massacre clearly is because I was sat at home on study leave in my parents' then home taking a break from my studies and watching Sky News.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre

JK2006 wrote:
Agreed Jo but we all know that's not the real story; the real story is it's a great media story. Which somehow is unpleasant. Especially when many other equally nasty criminals and killers have got less publicity and as a result are allowed to change, improve, regret, do good.

True.

I was recently reading a wiki article about a certain Ben Gunn.

He describes himself as a prison reformer, and he has had articles published in the Guardian and elsewhere. He was sentenced to prison at the age of 14 after pleading guilty to causing the death of another juvenile, and he served a long time in prison, apparently because he objected to the authorities' power over him, or summat.

Personally, I do not agree with putting 14 year olds in adult prisons under any circumstances, but then again I'm probably a mad far left communist Corbynite type.

The Daily Mail, which you're a fan of when it suits your views, Jonathan, recently had a front page suggesting that it was wrong for the state not to have killed Brady.

This headline was and is disgusting, and it panders to the worst instincts in society. The justice system should not be a tool for far right media and their sympathisers.

The law at the time was that the death sentence had been (legally and constitutionally) abolished. No-one in their right mind would have sympathy for the likes of Brady or Hindley , but the Mail and other far right media should not be not be allowed to become the arbiters of morals in society, for many reasons, not least because of their own complicity in the murder of Jo Cox, just one year ago.

tdf wrote:
Genuinely?

Yes .. but now you've mentioned the "key word" (Dunblane) I remember.
Hungerford was around the same time.

Jo wrote:
If every crime was compared to the great scheme of things surely every crime could be shrugged off as not as bad as all that. Perhaps Brady/Hindley's crimes are considered particularly abhorrent because of the personal nature of it and clearly also the fact that they targeted children. They weren't dropping bombs from a great height but hunting, torturing and killing children for kicks.

I agree, Jo. All lives are equal, but this was a particularly shocking crime.
Mind you, Brady was insane, and Tony Blair is apparently sane...

I was three years old, so he was near enough before my time.
Anything I have read or heard about him has been too coloured by time and the opinions of others for me to know what the full truth was.

In The Know (but not this time) wrote:
I tend to agree.
Back then these crimes were so few (because of hanging?) that they stuck in people's minds.

These days murder is so common you can hardly remember the last one
(a fact which is "proved" by the knowledge that I haven't the faintest idea who Hamilton is !!!!)

The death penalty was abolished shortly before Brady and Hindley were sentenced, so the fear of it was obviously no deterrent to them when the crimes were committed.

Hungerford was 1987 and Dunblane 1996.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre

There was a whole string of disasters in the 1980s, e.g. Hillsborough, Piper Alpha oil rig fire, Zeebrugge ferry disaster, Kings Cross fire, Heysel Stadium disaster.

honey!oh sugar sugar. wrote:
The death penalty was abolished shortly before Brady and Hindley were sentenced, so the fear of it was obviously no deterrent to them when the crimes were committed.

True (the exception proves the rule?) ... but it would have saved the millions that it cost to keep them in prison.