Closure eludes Keith Bennett’s family as no human remains found on Saddleworth Moor

Hopes of a final resolution to the mystery of Moors Murders victim Keith Bennett were dashed on Friday after police announced they had found no new human remains on Saddleworth Moor.

Forensics officers and detectives had spent the past week searching for the remains of the 12-year-old killed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1964, after reports that a suspected child’s skull had been found close to the burial sites of three other victims.

But Greater Manchester Police have now concluded there is no evidence of human remains buried at the site on a remote peat bog close to the A635 at Greenfield.

Senior officers revealed that the suspected child’s skull may in fact have been “plant-based” material.

Detective Chief Inspector Cheryl Hughes, senior investigating officer, said: “The items given to us by the member of the public have been examined by a forensic scientist. At this stage, the indications are that it would be considerably smaller than a juvenile jaw and it cannot be ruled out that it is plant-based.”

DCI Hughes added: “The investigation into Keith’s disappearance and murder will not be closed until we have found the answers his family have deserved for so many years.”

The announcement will come as a bitter blow to the surviving family of Keith, who was abducted on his way to visit his grandmother in Manchester on June 16 1964.

His mother, Winnie Johnson, died in 2012 aged 78, never having discovered what happened to her son’s body.

Alan Bennett, Keith’s brother, called into question the plausibility of the investigation last week, pointing out that police had already excavated deeper than the previous shallow graves of the other victims.

John Ainlie, the Bennett family’s solicitor, told The Telegraph: “This is dreadfully disappointing news for the family. We’re very concerned that their expectations have been raised without any foundation and that the police have been put to this level of work.”

Forensics officers began their search after author Russell Edwards claimed he had located the boy’s makeshift grave following “extensive soil analysis”.

Between July 1963 and Oct 1965, Brady and Hindley murdered five children before Brady was eventually caught red-handed with the body of their final victim, 17-year-old Edward Evans.

Extensive searches of the Moors led to the discovery of Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12 and Lesley Ann Downey, 10, but Keith’s body was never found.

Speaking from his home in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, Kilbride’s older brother Terry, 67, told The Telegraph: “It’s not very nice for Alan, is it? Alan has gone through a hell of a lot this last week, and what’s going through his head, only God knows.”

Brady claimed he could not remember where he had buried Keith. Hindley had lured the boy into a van by asking him to help with some boxes, while her lover Brady sat watching from the back seat.