International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 7, No. 4, April 2017 Take Me to the Moors: Mediatised Murder 40 Years on An Analysis of Granada TV’s See No Evil Martin King and Ian Cummins Manchester. Wessenden Moor and Wessenden Head Moor Abstract—The Moors Murders were one of, if not the most where the bodies were found, form a boundary with West high profile murder cases in Britain in the 20th Century. In Yorkshire. Two other children Pauline Reade (16) and Keith 1966, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were convicted of the Bennett (12) had gone missing in Manchester in the period abduction, sexual assault and murder of Lesley Anne Downey when Hindley and Brady had committed these murders. It (10), John Kilbride (12) and Edward Evans (17). The victims’ was always felt that Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett had bodies were buried on the bleak unforgiving Saddleworth been victims of the Moors Murderers but despite a huge Moor outside of Manchester. The Moors themselves have become central to the on-going fascination with these brutal search their bodies were not found in the initial crimes – they are a site of memory negotiated through the investigation of the case. In 1985, Brady and Hindley remorse of horrific events, Lieux d’horreur; places which recall eventually confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and past events with the violence and horror still present, linking Keith Bennett. In a huge police operation, they were taken the monstrous with a particular place. A prime example of back to the Moors in an attempt to find the missing bodies. mediatised murder, there are a number of cultural products Pauline Reade was found, but at the time of writing the which re-present the case. This paper will provide an analysis of See No Evil (2006), a dramatization of Brady and Hindley’s body of Keith Bennett has never been found. crimes, trial and conviction made 40 years on from those Hindley, remained in prison until her death in 2002. events by Granada TV in the UK, establishing the centrality of Brady was transferred to Ashworth Special Hospital in 1985. place to the ongoing fascination and combined cultural impact He is now Britain’s longest serving prisoner. The Moors of these crimes. Murders and its aftermath has been a persistent feature of Index Terms—Moors, murders, evil, mediatised, place. the media and wider cultural life in the UK for nearly 50 years. The pictures of Brady and Hindley taken at the time of their arrest must be among the most reproduced images in I. INTRODUCTION modern media. The picture of Hindley – with her dyed blonde her part of a tribute to her lover’s obsession with “Over the moor, take me to the moor Nazi atrocities has become an iconic image, forever Dig a shallow grave associated with her evil-ness. The picture, with a caption And I’ll lay me down “the woman Britain never forgave” appeared at the top of Lesley-Ann with your pretty white beads her BBC obituary in 2002 [3]. The case has been a stable Oh John, you’ll never be a man feature of the UK news media since Brady and Hindley And you’ll never see your home again were arrested. There are many contributory factors here: the Oh Manchester, so much to answer for” [1] brutal horror of the murders, the fact that a woman was Take me to the Moors: Mediatised Murder 40 Years on – involved, the continued search for the bodies of Keith an Analysis of Granada TV’s See No Evil Bennett and Pauline Reade and the fact that Hindley and The Moors Murders are one of, if not the, most high Brady were on remand when the House of Commons profile murder cases in Britain in the 20th Century. They effectively abolished the death penalty means that this is a were murders which according to the BBC “shocked the story that has never left the news media cycle. Brady was nation and remain the benchmark by which other acts of evil sent to Ashworth Special Hospital in 1985. He appealed are measured”. In 1966, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were against this hoping to be returned to prison in 2014 but the convicted of the abduction, sexual assault and murder of appeal was turned down. Lesley Anne Downey (10), John Kilbride (12) and Edward Evans (17). The trial judge, Mr Justine Atkinson, described them, in his summing up, as two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity [2] with newspaper reports of the trial II. LIEUX D’IMAGINATION describing Hindley as the most evil woman in Britain [2]. Nora’s [4] concept of Lieux de mémoire examines the The victims’ bodies were buried on the bleak unforgiving ways in which a “rapid slippage of the present into a Saddleworth Moor outside of Manchester, England. historical past that is gone for good” [4] is compensated for Saddleworth Moor is an area of the Pennines in Northern by the focus of memory on particular physical spaces. He England, historically part of Yorkshire but nearer Greater outlines an idea of a modern world obsessed with the past and in search of roots and identity that are fast disappearing, a loss of collectively remembered values replaced by a Manuscript received May 13, 2016; revised July 14, 2016. socially constructed version of history as a representation of Martin King is with the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK (e- mail: [email protected]). the past.Nora [4] sees memory and history as being in Ian Cummins is with the University of Salford, UK (e-mail: opposition with each other. He states: “History’s goal and [email protected]). doi: 10.18178/ijssh.2017.7.4.821 206 International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 7, No. 4, April 2017 ambition is not to exact but to annihilate what has in reality of Nora [4] and Rejinders[13] and the analysis of See No taken place” [4]. As an example of the ways in which Evil [14] which follows can be seen as a prime example of particular spaces become sites of the imagination he uses the genre. Wolfreys [15], for example, in examining Iain the battlefields of Verdun as one example, an illustration of Sinclair’s work on the city of London sees the city as “the the fact that sites where horrific and violent events have site through which wander the ghosts of its dead” a process taken place have the horror removed as part of a process of through which the certainties of the present are undone. becoming a space where people come to remember the past. The Moors Murders provide a good example of what These ideas about constructed memory, breaking with the Greer [16] has termed “mediatised murder”, events which neo-Durkheiman tradition of collective memory as organic actually happened in a physical space but have also become systems, spawned a number of further studies in France and well known to the public through extensive media coverage had been highly influential in Germany and the Netherlands of the events and the perpetrators over the past 50 years. In [5]-[6]. this sense the events are associated with a specific place and Rejinders [7] draws on this concept and uses it in a study thus provide an example of Nora’s [4] L’ieux de memoire examining the TV detective tour. In an ethnographic study but the media pilgrimage to events related to the of three popular TV detective tours : The Inspector Morse perpetrators, Hindley’s relationship with Lord Longford and tour in Oxford, UK; the Baantjer Tour in Amsterdam, her fight for parole in the 1970s and 80s, and Brady’s recent Netherlands and The Wallander Tour in Ystad, Sweden he Mental Health Tribunal appearance also give the events develops the concept of Lieux d’imagination; places which something in common with L’ieux d’imagination, with the provide a physical point of reference to an imagined world. Moors themselves as L’ieux d’horreur. They are known as Rejinders [7] states: “By visiting these locations and the Moors Murders/Moors Murderers yet the murders did focusing on them, tourists are able to construct and not necessarily happen in that place. Edward Evans was subsequently cross a symbolic boundary between an definitely killed elsewhere and there is no concrete evidence ‘imagined’ and a ‘real’ world”. regarding the location of the other two murders for which The phenomena of the media pilgrimage to location of Brady and Hindley were convicted. film and TV series is well documented [8]-[10]. Couldry [9] in his study of the Coronation Street tour in Granada Studios, Manchester, UK, concluded that the significance of the III. METHODOLOGY media pilgrimage is the symbolic boundary between what is The 2006 TV drama See No Evil [14] was viewed and ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the media. In drawing on this work analysed using the approach of bricolage as a research Rejinders[7] introduces the concept of Lieux d’imagination method. Wibberley[17] sees bricolage as a little used in relation to detective fiction tours. As in the case of Lieux method, stating that “bricolage brings together in some form, de memoire [4] the locations are places where horrific acts different sources of data” and that “the consideration of the have taken place, albeit in a fictional sense, and part of what process by which bricolage is built – however emergent- is happens on the TV detective tours, according to an important aspect of the overall work”.Lincoln [18] sees Rejinders[7], is the sanitizing of this horror, for example, bricolage as “the assembly of mythic elements, motifs, through re-enactment of scenes from particular episodes.