The 69-year-old child killer has launched a legal bid to appear before a Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) at Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside to get himself moved to a conventional prison.

But he first wanted the tribunal to allow the hearing to be held in public in Liverpool.

Brady gave evidence to the tribunal at a four-day preliminary hearing at the secure mental unit in Maghull near Liverpool last month.

But he has now been told while the "substantive" hearing will go ahead, it has ruled it must not be held in public and instead will be confined to the hospital.

Brady has been on hunger strike for several years but is being kept alive by force feeding. He detests what he regards as the inhumane treatment at Ashworth.

It has been claimed Brady wants to return to prison so he can kill himself.

The hearing ended on October 30 when the panel of legal and medical experts sitting on the MHRT retired to consider the application.

Such tribunals review the cases of patients held under the Mental Health Act. It is understood they deemed it "contrary to the interests of the patient," that the hearing be in public.

Brady, originally from Glasgow, was jailed alongside Myra Hindley in 1966 for murdering five children in the Manchester area in the 1960s. Hindley died in jail in November 2002.