Brother of Moors murderers’ victim Lesley Ann Downey admits he will never forgive himself for not being with her the day she died… and two other survivors reveal how they got away from Britain’s sickest killers
THE brother of Moors murder victim Lesley Ann Downey has revealed he should have been with her at the fair on the day she was abducted.
Terry West, Lesley’s older brother, has spoken out for the first time since her death in the documentary, Left For Dead: The Moors Murderers – and said he was wracked with guilt.
In a heart-breaking interview with the Channel 5 documentary, Terry said: “I should have been with her. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been with her. I know it wouldn’t have done.”
Lesley was 10 when she was abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady at a Boxing day fair near her Manchester home.
Terry, 12 at the time, was due to take his little sister but fell ill.
He explained: “I said, ‘If I feel any better, later on, I’ll take you to the fair. But as the day went on I just got worse and I was sniffling and sneezing.
“I said to my mum, ‘I won’t be able to take her.’ My mum said, ‘I realise that. I’ll get one of the neighbours to take her.’”
When Lesley didn’t return by 5pm, as she had been told, the family began to worry.
Terry said: “I was just completely numb, wondering. It was not like her. She’d be back on time. I couldn’t get my head round why she wasn’t back.
“My mum started panicking and she went with my stepdad to go and look for her on the fair. When they came back I said, ‘She’s not come back’ and Mum said, ‘She’s nowhere to be seen.’ The look on her face, anxious, ‘Where is she?’
“By that time she knew something had happened, but what?
“I was upset. I should have been with her.
“I was just saying, ‘She’ll be alright. Nobody would hurt her.’ I remember saying that to my mum. Little did we know what had happened at the back of us, on the moors.”
Lesley was raped and murdered by the evil pair before being dumped in a shallow grave on Saddleworth Moor, where she lay undiscovered until October 1965, over nine months later.
Terry recalled: “My mum had to go and identify her and she came home, I was sat on the stairs and I said, ‘Is it Lesley?’ She just said, ‘Yeah.’ I just went to pieces. Never to have our Lesley back.”
Between 1963 and 1965, the evil lovers murdered five children – Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley and 17-year-old Edward Evans.
They were finally caught in October 1965, and were sent to jail for life.
Talking to the documentary, the younger brother of John Kilbride – abducted in November 1963 while helping to pack up a local market – revealed how his disappearance destroyed the happiness of his whole family.
Terry Kilbride said: “To see my mum and my dad go the way they went from that night… the worry on my mother’s face and my dad was going crazy. He started hitting the drink very heavy and the house just went dead.
“It was very hard not knowing whether he was dead or alive. Every night stood at the window hoping and hoping.”
In an emotional moment, he reveals a photograph of the family sitting at a dinner table with one empty chair.
He said: “We’re all having a meal and John is missing from where he should be. That chair wasn’t sat on for two years, until John was found.”
The show also interviewed three men who had brushes with Brady and Hindley as children and escaped with their lives.
Tommy Rhattigan was seven when Hindley lured him to her house with the promise of bread and jam after seeing him on the street in November 1963.
He said: “There was this coyness about her. She gave me a coy look and a smile and I smiled at her and we got into a conversation.
“I told her my name was Tommy and I was seven. She came closer to me and I can smell now the perfume – a very strong smell of perfume and hairspray. And her eyes, she had blue eyes, kind eyes, so I felt comfortable with her.
“The man was hanging around looking from side to side and waiting. Then he said ‘Hurry up’. She said to me ‘Are you hungry? You look hungry.’
“I said, ‘Yeah’ and she said, ‘Come on then. D’you want to come back for a jam butty?’”
But at the house, the mood changed and Tommy was scared.
He said:“They went into the kitchen and I could hear muffled talking. Then she came out and put the slice of bread and jam down and it banged onto the table – and she’s completely changed. Her eyes had completely changed and the smile wasn’t there.
“She brought me a glass of water and went back into the kitchen and that’s when I heard her say something to him and he snapped at her, ‘f***ing wait’.
“It was really quite angry. It was at the stage I just really wanted to go. I don’t know why I didn’t run for the front door. But the nearest point for me to escape was the window.
“I remember lifting the latch and pushing it up and it came up four inches and no more. I was panicking so much I felt physically sick.
“I can remember jumping out of the window and getting entangled in the net curtain. I could hear the woman shouting ‘the little sh**’s getting away.’
“She grabbed for my foot but caught the ankle and my momentum has kept me going. As I went I heard the man shout ‘the b******’ but I was over that wall and I was gone.
“If I hadn’t jumped out of the window I wouldn’t be sitting here today.”
David Gray also revealed that the pair tried to lure him into their car by pretending they were police when he was 10.
He said: "“I asked him to show me a warrant card and he said, ‘you watch too much telly son.’
"I stepped back and I nudged the door and the shop doorbell jangled. The driver said, ‘Come on Ian. We’ve got to go.’ The man casually stepped towards the car and got in the car and they drove off.
“I stood there afraid to move and I remember for the next few days being really afraid.”
He said he realised who they were after seeing their pictures in the paper after their arrest.
He added: "As I opened the paper up I realised what they wanted to do to me. When I picked that paper up, my childhood ended.”
Myra Hindley died in 2002 and Ian Brady in May 2017.
They never revealed the whereabouts of victim Keith Bennett, who has never been found.
Left For Dead: The Moors Murderers is on Channel 5 on Wednesday at 10pm.
