MYRA HINDLEY was cremated last night at a closely guarded private ceremony at Cambridge Crematorium. In death, as in life, so much about the Moors murderer remained shrouded in secrecy.

Mourned by ten close friends, but no family, there was little to mark the passing of the woman who helped Ian Brady to murder five children more than 35 years ago.

From Hindley’s choice of Albinoni’s Adagio — piped through the chapel speakers — to the glass-sided hearse that brought her body the 30 miles from West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds, it was a very ordinary cremation.

Only the scenes outside, where 25 police officers kept more than 60 members of the media fenced away from the East Chapel, were testimony to the extraordinary emotion Hindley excites even in death.

Lorry drivers thundering along the A14 sounded angry blasts on their horns and a middle-aged woman from Soham left a scrawled placard saying “Burn in hell” outside the crematorium gates.

Inside the tiny chapel, the ten mourners sat on blue padded wooden chairs for the special evening service. The police list of those set to attend included Nina Wilde, Hindley’s former lesbian lover; Trish Forrester, a friend, and Andrew McCooey, Hindley’s solicitor. None of Hindley’s family turned up. Her mother, Nellie Moulton, 82, was too frail to leave her sheltered accommodation in northern England.

Lit by the flashes of photographer’s cameras, the black Volvo hearse pulled up under the chapel porch and, after a five-minute wait, Father Michael Teader, Hindley’s Catholic priest in Highpoint Prison, Suffolk, came out and anointed the beechwood coffin with holy water.

Hindley’s family had requested no flowers, but one white bouquet was carried into the chapel and the gold-handled coffin was bedecked with lilies, carnations, gerberas and tulips. Four undertakers carried the coffin through the chapel doorway, under the inscription Mors Janua Vitae — “death is the gate to life” — as the drizzle turned into heavy rain.

As Hindley requested, the chapel heard prayers for the repose of her soul. Then at the end of the 25-minute service. Father Teader pressed a button and the blue curtains smoothly closed around the coffin. A Prison Service officer later went to the back of the crematorium and quietly took possession of the ashes.

The details of what will be done with them ashes are being kept secret. Hindley stated in her will that the disposal of her ashes would be at the discretion of Father Teader. It is thought that they will be strewn in the prison grounds.

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