'Don't analyse me': Ian Brady breaks silence after 50 years

SERIAL killer Ian Brady says he is the victim of a conspiracy to keep him locked up in a psychiatric institution.

In his first public pronouncements in almost 50 years, the Moors Murderer told a medical tribunal today there is a conspiracy to "prove" he is insane. "Manufactured psychosis is the lynchpin for keeping me . . . in a mental hospital," he said.

The 75-year-old murderer said he wants to go to an ordinary prison because he doesn't want to be "analysed" or subjected to a "care plan", reports The Guardian, which described his demeanour as "relaxed and in control".

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Brady, who has been held at Ashworth Hospital since he was diagnosed as criminally insane in 1985, claimed that psychiatric facilities "give you false drugs and turn you into a zombie". He also criticised psychiatrists, saying he "wouldn't allow them on the street".

Earlier reports suggested Brady – who has been on hunger strike for almost a decade – wanted to be sent to prison in Scotland because he would not be force-fed there.

Staff at Ashworth disagree that Brady is fit to be transferred. They say he is still a paranoid schizophrenic who should stay at a psychiatric facility.

Speaking in a pronounced Scottish accent, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, Brady said "Who doesn't talk to themselves?" when asked about reports he addresses people who aren't present. He also said he memorised "whole pages" of Shakespeare and Plato and recited them in his room.

Brady, who was convicted along with his accomplice Myra Hindley of torturing and murdering five children aged from 10 to 17, wore a dark suit during today's appearance from Ashworth via videolink. He accused the public and media of being obsessed with his crimes, saying they were attracted to their "theatricality", which he compared to works of fiction such as Wuthering Heights and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Asked how he had spent his time in prison, he said he had "studied psychology and German and had worked on braille texts for many years", the BBC reports. He told the tribunal he had mingled with the Kray twins and convicted IRA bombers, and worked as a barber at Wormwood Scrubs prison before being sent to Ashworth.

Although he has been on hunger strike for almost a decade, it was revealed that Brady makes himself toast most mornings.