Inside Low Newton: The high security prison which could house Lucy Letby
The high security prison where Lucy Letby is likely to spend the rest of her life has also housed some of Britain’s most infamous criminals.
Letby, 33, is reportedly being sent to HMP Low Newton, near Durham, which is one of a handful of high security women’s prisons in the country.
The former nurse is starting a whole-life order for murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others while working in the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit between 2015 and 2016.
She is only the fourth woman to have received the tariff.
Only three other women have faced such a punishment: the girlfriend of Moors murderer Ian Brady, Myra Hindley – who died in 2002 – and serial killers Rose West and Joanna Dennehy.
Low Newton, in Brasside, on the outskirts of Durham, holds women from 18 years old upwards and includes those serving short sentences and also high security (restricted status) women.
Next door to HMP Frankland, a high security male prison, it has housed some of the UK’s most notorious female offenders, including West and Dennehy.
Low Newton is also home to the 'Primrose Project', designed to treat women with 'dangerous and severe personality disorders', the only women's prison in the UK with such a unit.
The inmates who have spent time at Low Newton:
Rosemary West:
West collaborated with her husband Fred West in the torture of at least nine young women between 1973 and 1987. The "House of Horrors" killer also murdered her eight-year-old stepdaughter Charmaine in 1971.
She was convicted in 1995 of 10 murders.
She spent a decade at Low Newton but was moved in 2019 to HM Prison New Hall, in West Yorkshire.
It was reported she was moved after Dennehy threatened to kill her, though the Ministry of Justice denied the claims.
Joanna Dennehy
Dennehy murdered three men during a 10-day spree in 2013.
She went on the run in Norfolk after killing the men and is now serving a life-sentence.
Dennehy, who was compared in court to a "Shakespearean villain", admitted murdering Lucasz Slaboszewski, 31, John Chapman, 56, and Kevin Lee, 48, whose bodies were found in ditches in Cambridgeshire last year.
She also admitted the attempted murders of Robin Bereza and John Rogers, whom she randomly selected and stabbed in the street in Hereford, and preventing the lawful and decent burial of all three murder victims.
Sharon Carr
Britain’s youngest female murderer has spent some time at Low Newton.
Carr, who became known as “The Devil’s Daughter” when she murdered an 18-year-old stranger at the age of 12.
The 1992 murder was initially unsolved until Carr stabbed another person in 1994.
She was convicted of the murder in 1997.
The Belize-born British woman was reportedly moved from Low Newton in 2019 following a violent incident with another prisoner.
Tracey Connelly
The mother of Baby P, who died after months of abuse, was jailed in 2009 for causing or allowing the death of her 17-month-old son at their home in Tottenham, north London in 2007.
Known publicly as Baby P, Peter had suffered more than 50 injuries despite being on the at-risk register and receiving 60 visits from social workers, police officers and health professionals over eight months.
A series of reviews identified missed opportunities for officials to save the toddler’s life had they reacted properly to warning signs.
Connelly was handed a sentence of imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of five years after admitting her crimes.
Her boyfriend Steven Barker and his brother Jason Owen were also convicted in relation to the case.
Connelly was released from prison in 2022 following her fourth parole review.
Anne Darwin
Anne Darwin, wife of "canoe man" John Darwin, who faked his own death as part of an insurance claim.
Mr Darwin went missing in 2002 while canoeing off the coast of Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, where the couple lived.
His wife became complicit in her husband’s deception, allowing them to collect his life insurance.
She lied to their sons, Mark and Anthony, for five years while her husband secretly lived in a bedsit.
Eventually they moved to Panama City, before their secret was exposed by the discovery of a photo showing them in an estate agents’ office in July 2006. They were jailed for fraud in 2008.
While an inmate at Low Newton, Darwin is reported to have written to her sons to apologise.
Karen Matthews
The mother of Shannon Matthews, she kidnapped her daughter in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire in 2009.
Shannon was discovered 24 days after she disappeared from her home in Dewsbury Moor, hidden and drugged at her stepfather's uncle's home, less than a mile away.
Matthews, was jailed after a court heard that she planned the 2008 disappearance in an attempt to claim a cash reward.
She was reportedly moved from Low Newton in 2009.
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