Moors Murderer Ian Brady cost taxpayers almost £19,000 after his death, it has been reported.
The bill is said to include £15,500 spent by the Royal Liverpool Hospital transferring and securely storing the child killer’s corpse after he died aged 79 at the high-security Ashworth Hospital in May.
The Sun, which obtained the figures under Freedom of Information laws, reports that Brady left several thousand pounds in his will to animal charities.
Terry Kilbride, whose 12-year-old brother John was one of five victims of Brady and Myra Hindley, said: “No one should have to pay any more for him.”
Brady was buried at sea under a shroud of secrecy after a judge ordered he should be cremated with no ceremony, no flowers and without fulfilling his wishes for a particular piece of classical music to be played.
Court documents released in November showed the secret operation was carried out under police guard on late on 25 October.
According to The Sun’s figures the cremation at Southport Crematorium cost £1,070.
The killer’s ashes were then taken out to sea from Liverpool Marina by boat and jettisoned in a biodegradable urn made of rock salt – said to have cost £35.
The bill for Merseyside Police’s services after Brady’s death was £2,570.40, The Sun said.
The £19,000 bill paid by taxpayers
£15,000 transferral and secure storage of corpse
£1,070 cremation
£35 biodegradable urn made of rock salt
£2,570.40 Merseyside Police’s services after Brady’s death
The Royal London National Funeral Cost Index, published in August, showed the average funeral costs £3,784.
Kilbride told the newspaper: “We’ve paid for him all his life.
“We had an idea of how much it’s cost to keep him in – the expense of the police and Ashworth Hospital and so on.
“It all mounts up. Obviously he’s had to be buried by the state but all his money should go towards paying it back.”
Brady and Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, tortured and murdered five children in the 1960s. Four of the victims were buried on Saddleworth Moor in the south Pennines.
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.
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.
Brady was jailed for three murders in 1966. He and Hindley later confessed to another two murders.