Life of Britain's most hated woman

Reviled as "the most hated woman in Britain", Myra Hindley's crimes with Ian Brady shocked the nation - a disgust that is felt to this day.

But her early life belied the monster she became after falling in with Brady.

Hindley was born in a working class suburb of Manchester in July 1942.

Her father Bob, a labourer who served with the Parachute Regiment during the Second World War, was a tyrant and beat her regularly when she was young but also taught her how to fight.

Conditions at home were cramped and when her sister Maureen was born in 1946, Hindley was sent to live with her grandmother, who lived nearby.

As a teenager Hindley was a normal girl. She dyed her hair blonde and practised judo, but became increasingly drawn to Catholicism and readied herself for formal reception into the Church.

After leaving school at 15 she learned how to type, working at a local electrical engineering firm.

In 1961 the 18-year-old joined Millwards Merchandise, a small chemical distributing firm in Gorton, Manchester, where she met Brady, who had a number of minor criminal convictions.

She became infatuated with him, and after a year the pair began a love affair, living together at her grandmother's house.

Brady was obsessed with Nazi philosophy and he and Hindley began reading books on Nazi atrocities to each other, and watched X-rated films.

Their interests became increasingly perverse, and the pair planned bank robberies and took explicit photos of each other.

Their talk turned to murder, and on July 12 1963 they killed their first victim, 16-year-old Pauline Reade, a friend of Hindley's sister Maureen, after luring her to Saddleworth Moor in the Pennines above Manchester.

Hindley was eventually convicted of killing Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, and of shielding Brady after John Kilbride's murder. She was jailed for life in 1966.

In 1987 she and Brady finally admitted murdering Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, and following a return to the moors Pauline's remains were discovered.

Hindley waged a long campaign to be released, but in 1998 the Appeal Court backed the decision by former Home Secretary Jack Straw that she should stay in prison until she died.

She became a devout Roman Catholic in prison and gained a degree in humanities.

Despite taking her case to the House of Lords in 2000, the Law Lords again ruled Mr Straw's decision had been lawful and justified.

Hindley died in jail in November 2002, aged 60, after suffering respiratory failure following a heart attack.

She was cremated following a private funeral conducted by Father Michael Teader, a Roman Catholic priest at Highpoint Prison, Suffolk, where Hindley spent her final years in jail.

A member of the public left a banner at the entrance to the crematorium which read "Burn in hell".