Greater Manchester's top cop insists officers were acting on 'credible' information during the fruitless search for Keith Bennett's remains last month. Police spent a week searching an area of Saddleworth Moor after an amateur sleuth claimed to have found a human jaw bone, near to Dovestone Reservoir.
Keith was one of the five victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, having been abducted and killed aged just 12 on June 16, 1964. Officers returned to the moors to find Keith on September 30, but on October 7 the search was brought to an end.
Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester this morning (November 1), Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson spoke of his team's determination to finally bring closure to Keith's family after almost six decades, and insisted the tip-off had not been 'crackpot'. Asked by presenter Eamonn O'Neal how 'draining on resource' the search had been, Chf Con Watson said: "Well it was an unwelcome distraction because it proved not to have any validity.
READ MORE: Keith Bennett: The 'evidence' that led to seven days of police searching Saddleworth Moor
"We, like everybody else of course, would do literally anything to bring a proper closure to the family of Keith Bennett. For us, we were hoping against hope that we could recover that little chap's remains and lay him to rest with dignity. That would be a marvellous, brilliant thing and we were desperate to be able to do that."
Chf Con Watson added: "We don't just disappear off with any sort of crackpot-type information - the information we got on the face of it was credible, it was worth pursuing, and we were absolutely determined we were going to pursue whatever was told to us with all the diligence in the world because the worst thing of course would be not to follow it up and not to obtain the opportunity. But of course, we're conscious that when we are doing that, the family are suffering."
Speaking at a press conference as the search came to an end, where she confirmed no evidence of human remains had been recovered, Detective Chief Inspector Cheryl Hughes insisted the efforts were 'not a waste of time'. While the search was taking place, Keith's brother Alan - who previously had a team conduct its own search - questioned the claims that author Russell Edwards had made about a jaw bone on the site.
Amid a public row between himself and Mr Edwards, Mr Bennett said the episode had led to 'anguish, anger, hurt and distress'. During the search, Mr Bennett said: "I am just getting frustrated, annoyed, confused and feeling a lot more emotions because there is more to this than meets the eye."
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