Dragged back to the point: Brady told to focus answers

Ian Brady has been repteadly asked to "focus" his answers at his mental health tribunal.

The Moors murderer's responses were often unfocused and full of digressions - at one point, after another rambling exposition, his talking trailed off and he stopped abruptly to ask what the original question was.

Miss Lieven asked him directly why he wanted to leave Ashworth.

Brady said originally it was a "decent and progressive" regime when it was the "star" of the specialist hospitals such as Broadmoor and Rampton.

But he complained that the regime changed when Ashworth went from being run by the Home Office to being under the control of the NHS.

"Security ruled care," he said. "Of course, that was not official policy, it was covert."

He described Ashworth, and the like, now as a "penal warehouse".

Miss Lieven regularly dragging him back to the point, asking again why he wanted to leave the hospital.

"The most beneficial and therapeutic treatment any prisoner can get is decent intelligent staff in a decent intelligent ward," Brady said.

"As I say, I enjoy freewheeling conversations, I'm not interested in being analysed.

"Some of these psychiatrists, I would throw a net over them. I would not allow them on the street. They are unbelievable. How has this person got the job in the first place and how is it they're able to hold the job?"

Miss Lieven asked Brady again to "just focus on where we are now" and why he wanted to go back to a jail.

Brady mumbled and made reference to his notoriety as a prisoner, saying the media and the public are still interested in the case.

He then added: "Why are they still talking about Jack the Ripper, after a century? Because of the dramatic background, the fog, cobbled streets.

"Mine's the same... Wuthering Heights, Hound Of The Baskervilles."