In 1966 Brady and his accomplice Myra Hindley were given life sentences for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride and Edward Evans, but police kept files open on two other missing children, Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett.

When news of the body found at Saddleworth yesterday reached Brady at Park Lane Mental Hospital in Liverpool he told his solicitor that he was prepared to return to the Manchester moors.

Police were directed to the shallow grave at Hollin Brow Knoll by Hindley.

She began to co-operate with the police in November 1986 after she received a letter from the mother of Keith Bennett who disappeared in 1964.

Hindley had also been visited twice by the head of Manchester CID, Peter Topping, in Cookham Wood prison, Kent.

Under heavy police guard she returned to the moor twice last autumn as Detective Chief Superintendent Topping and his squad of eight officers had sealed off the area for further investigation.

On her second visit in February Hindley confessed that she and Brady had committed two other murders.