MYRA HINDLEY, the Moors murderer, died in hospital last night tended by a priest and guarded by two prison officers.

After 36 years in prison Hindley was the longest serving woman prisoner in the country and died only weeks from a House of Lords decision that could have freed her immediately.

Winnie Johnson, the mother of one of her victims, said: “I hope she goes straight to Hell, where she deserves to be.”

Hindley, 60, once dubbed the “face of evil”, was transferred to West Suffolk Hospital at Bury St Edmunds from Highpoint Prison suffering from respiratory illness on Tuesday. She had been ill for some time and had a heart attack some weeks ago.

As her condition deteriorated the priest sat by her bed in a private room throughout Thursday night and gave her the last rites shortly after dawn yesterday.

Throughout the day prisoner 964055 slipped in and out of consciousness and finally died at 4.58pm without friends or family by her side. Her mother, Hetty, who had always stood by her, was too old to come to her bedside and was told of her death at her home in the North of England within minutes.

Ian Brady, the lover who she claimed had led her blindly into the serial murder of children, was also told. Now 64, he is being held at Ashworth mental hospital.

An inquest will be held next week because Hindley died in custody. Apart from her mother, Hindley has no relatives and the Prison Service will organise a private funeral at a secret location under a police guard. She had asked to be cremated and her ashes then scattered without any memorial.

Hindley was jailed at Chester Assizes in 1966 with Brady for the sexual abuse, torture and murder of young children in a trial which left 1960s Britain frozen in horror.

If the offences had been a few weeks earlier the couple would have been hanged.

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