astrology horoscopes forecast

Moors murderer Ian Brady sleeps during the day in his clothes and only leaves his room at night, his mental health tribunal was told today.

A lawyer for the special hospital where he is held said Brady, 75, is angry, irritable and so terrified of being attacked he never appears when other patients are around.

The child killer even had a pen taken away from him because nurses feared he would use it as a weapon after he brandished it in another patient’s face during a row.

He had falsely accused his victim of making animal noises at him while slamming a cupboard door, but in fact the other patient had been sitting quietly reading, the hearing’s three-man panel was told.

The killer, who has been on hunger strike since 1999, wants to be judged sane so he can be transferred to a normal prison where he cannot be force-fed and can starve himself to death.

Maximum security: Ashworth Hospital where Brady is being force fed

But Eleanor Grey QC, for Ashworth Special Hospital in Merseyside, which opposes his application, said Brady “deliberately lies and distorts the truth about the past”, lives a “lonely and nocturnal existence”, emerging at night to make cups of coffee.

He denied himself “pleasurable experiences” such as walks in the hospital grounds because of his “uncompromising and antagonistic” attitude to staff and other patients.

He was “extremely isolated and withdrawn” and had a “very restricted range of emotions” but showed “anger and irritability”.

He “did not wish to appear weak” and had said: “I will never let them see me in pain.

"I will act as if I do not have a care in the world. In these penal s***-holes, if you show any sign of weakness, this lot will jump you.”

Court hearing: A sketch shows Brady at the tribunal

Ashworth psychiatrist Dr James Collins said Brady claimed in the late 90s that he was “controlled by an outside force” and could change the laws of physics and walk through locked doors.

Brady took notes as the tribunal discussed whether the “paranoid features of his severe mental disorder” amounted to a mental illness.

He walked out of the morning hearing after 80 minutes without explanation but reappeared in the afternoon and addressed the tribunal in a soft Scottish accent, which was difficult to hear over the video link from the hearing in Ashworth to a Manchester courtroom.

Brady, in dark glasses and with a feeding tube in one nostril, said he left because the hospital evidence was full of repetitions.

Moors murderers: Ian Bradyand Myra Hindley

“I have listened to it ad nauseam and I know it by heart,” he said, claiming that one panel member, Dr Cameron Boyd, had even been lulled to sleep by the evidence.

Brady and partner Myra Hindley sexually tortured and killed five youngsters in the 60s then buried their bodies on Saddleworth Moor above Manchester.

Both were jailed for life at Chester in 1966. Hindley died of cancer in jail in November 2002 at the age of 60.

The tribunal continues.

View gallery

The hunt for Keith Bennett's body

View gallery