CHILD killer Ian Brady has protested over plans for a TV drama about his crimes.

The 67-year-old moor surderer has written to the chairman of Granada Television, the company planning to film the story.

He says publicity about his crimes is "now rivalling Coronation Street in longevity", and questions the show's impact on the families of his victims.

Brady and his girlfriend, Myra Hindley, killed four children and buried them on the bleak Saddleworth Moor, high above Holmfirth and Meltham.

They were caught when a fifth victim was found at their home.

Brady has no legal powers to halt the programme, but is seeking support from government ministers.

The killer has sent copies of his letter to the Home Secretary and Attorney General.

The planned film, called See No Evil: The Story Of The Moors Murders is expected to start in Manchester this year.

It would be screened by ITV in 2006 - exactly 40 years after Brady and his accomplice Hindley were convicted of their crimes.

The writer, Neil McKay, has promised the production will give "an unsensational account of the most notorious crimes of the last century."

Hindley died in hospital in 2002, having failed in her long campaign to be released from prison.

Brady is mentally ill and is a patient at the high security Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside.

He has been on hunger strike for almost six years, in protest at not being allowed to end his own life. He is fed through a plastic tube.

In his letter to Granada TV, Brady questions whether the programme will add anything to the public's knowledge of the case.

"The true facts have never been divulged, only speculation in numerous books," he says.

"The only book written by me is a clinical study on criminal psychology."

There have been previous attempts to produce films about the Moors Murders, but to date no major drama of the story has been produced.

"In all four attempts, the companies involved judiciously took the legal precaution of offering me a release contract," said Brady.

Granada has said that its programme, a factual drama, is the result of two years of intensive research with detectives who worked on the original murder investigation.

But Brady says he fears the programme will be based on the "uninformed evidence of peripheral individuals" and challenges evidence given in court in 1966 about how the police solved the case.

The producer, Jeff Pope, said:

"We are going to take an in-depth look at how two of Britain's most notorious child killers were caught."