A Scottish author has said that Moors Murder Ian Brady deserves to be treated "decently" like anyone else.
Jean Rafferty started writing to the child murder while researching her fictional novel Myra, Beyond Saddleworth.
Brady and his partner, Myra Hindley, were responsible for the murders of five children in the 1960s.
But author Ms Rafferty, who has only written to the murder and never met him, says that she felt she should treat him as a human being.
The author has exchanged gifts with Brady including pictures of his hometown of Glasgow which she said started as a quid pro quo.
Speaking to John MacKay on Scotland Tonight she said: "I don’t think that it is a case of indulging. When it came to the markers of the year like Christmas I suppose what I really felt was that I should be responding to him as a human being, not as a monster or evil, these are really not useful words."
She added: "I think it’s a case of treating him as decently as you would treat anybody else. He hasn’t treated people decently but there’s no reason why other people should treat him badly."
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