Andrew McCooey argued passionately that Myra Hindley was ‘genuinely repentant’ after more than 20 years in prison (Picture: PA)
The lawyer who represented Moors Murderer Myra Hindley as she aimed to get parole – and received hate mail and threats from the public as a result – has died aged 75.
Andrew McCooey faced the ire of the country, the tabloids, and his family when he took on the case of the UK’s most hated woman in 1987.
But he said he was acting on his principles as a Christian, adding he believed she was ‘fully reformed and genuinely repentant’ over the crimes she committed alongside boyfriend Ian Brady between 1963 and 1965.
Mr McCooey took Hindley on as a client shortly after opening his own firm, McCooey and Co., in the Kent town of Sittingbourne after eight years of practicing law.
His wife Margaret told KentOnline last year: ‘We were members of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and someone had approached the organisation to ask if they knew a local solicitor, who would be willing to take on Myra Hindley’s application for parole.
‘This was long after the murders and the horrific things that were done. In prison, she had become a Christian.’
She said their families were ‘terribly upset’ by the decision, and the couple soon got a brick through their window.
However, she explained: ‘The point for us was, is there anyone so evil, who was brought so low, who God couldn’t forgive?’
Mr McCooey attended Hindley’s funeral at Cambridge Crematorium (Picture: Jerry Daws/REX/Shutterstock)
Mr McCooey represented Hindley for 15 years, until her death from pneumonia in 2002. Ian Brady, with whom she killed five children aged between 10 and 17 around Manchester, died in 2017.
In an interview with the Law Society Gazette in 1995, the lawyer said: ‘In my judgment, she is a fully reformed and genuinely repentant human being, albeit with her own shortcomings, weaknesses and difficulties of coping with the enormous guilt she must carry.
‘But she is someone who is completely different to the perception of her as is particularly advanced by the tabloid newspapers.’
Ian Brady showed no enthusiasm for being released from prison, but Hindley made several pleas for parole (Picture: PA)
Though most famous for representing Hindley, Mr McCooey had a long career in law that included saving eight people who had been sentenced to death in the US and the Caribbean.
He was also the lawyer behind the acquittal of Stephen Owen, who went on trial for attempted murder after shooting the lorry driver who ran over and killed his 12-year-old Darren.
Mr McCooey retired in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and moved into a care home in October.
He died on December 27, and is survived by his wife, children and grandchildren.
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Andrew McCooey said Hindley was ‘fully reformed and genuinely repentant’.