Tragic Winnie Johnson is to say a final goodbye to her lost son Keith Bennet - at a special memorial service for the Moors Murders victims.

Winnie will speak at tomorrow's service at Manchester Cathedral, which was arranged after police ended the 45-year search for Keith's body. Winnie, from Longsight, is the only surviving mother of the five Moors Murders victims. But relatives of other victims are expected to be at the service.

Members of the public are also invited to attend. The televised service will be led by Bishop of Manchester Nigel McCulloch. Candles for each of the five Moors victims will be lit.

A final committal for Keith will be read by family priest Father Ian Gomersall.

Winnie, 76, will describe her heart-rending struggle to find Keith’s grave on Saddleworth Moor.

She will also thank police officers and search teams who tried over five decades to find him.

Keith, 12,  was snatched by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley  in June 1964. The pair were convicted of murdering three other youngsters – Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride –  in a trial which  shocked the country.

But it was another 20 years before they admitted killing Keith and Pauline Reade, 16.

Hindley, who died in 2002 aged 60, and Brady, who has spent 25 years at high-security Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside, both made apparent attempts to show police the location of Keith’s shallow grave.
 
Officers re-opened the case two years ago, but surveys of the moorland with modern-day technology failed to locate his remains. The force declared last July that it had called off the search.

Tomorrow’s memorial service for Keith will start at 11am.

A Manchester Cathedral spokesman said: “There has never been a funeral for Keith. This will hopefully give the family the closure they deserve.

“The Moors Murders were such a public event. They made such a deep impact on the people of Manchester and they are invited to show their respects.”

Brady, the longest serving prisoner in England and Wales, was declared criminally insane in 1985. He has made several unsuccessful legal bids for the right to die from hunger strike.