A TORMENTED mother has paid her own tribute to the murdered son she cannot mourn.

Winnie Johnson, the mother of Keith Bennett, placed a wreath on Wessenden Moor, 40 years after her 12-year-old son vanished into the arms of evil Moors Murderers Ian Brady and the late Myra Hindley.

Mrs Johnson 70, of Fallowfield, Manchester, put the heart-shaped wreath near the spot where Hindley showed police where the bodies of Keith and another victim, Pauline Reade, were buried.

It is off Wessenden Head Road, high above Meltham.

A card says the family will never forget.

It was on June 16, 1964, that Keith, of Ashton-under-Lyne, set out to walk the short distance from home to his grandmother's house.

He never arrived.

His body is believed to have been buried on the moors above Meltham, but has never been found.

Hindley, who died aged 60 in November, 2002, and Brady, 66, were never formally charged with Keith's murder because of a lack of evidence.

But 20 years later they confessed to killing him.

The couple - who killed five children and teenagers between 1962 and 1964 - were jailed in 1966.

But for Mrs Johnson the horror of never recovering her son's body continues.

She has written to Home Secretary David Blunkett, pleading with him to order a new search of the moors.

In 1985, police returned to the moors in an attempt to find the bodies of Pauline and Keith.

The body of Pauline, who disappeared when she was 16, was found.

Mrs Johnson said: "When I wrote to David Blunkett this year he said the police needed fresh evidence before they could go back to the moors.

"But what more evidence do they need?" she asked.

"I have written to Mr Blunkett asking him to meet me. He will be the first Home Secretary to do so."

Mrs Johnson often goes to the spot on the moor near where Hindley said Keith's body was buried.

"It is a bleak place, but very quiet and peaceful. I always feel better when I have been, because I feel Keith is near and watching me."

Mrs Johnson has also written to Brady, begging him to tell her where Keith's body is, so she can have a proper funeral for her son.

"I told him that none of us are getting any younger and Myra Hindley is now dead," she said.

"I said it is about time he told me where my lad is, so that I can bury him while I still can.

"I have not had a reply."