Whole life orders have been reportedly issued in approximately 100 cases since introduction in 1983, although some of these prisoners have since died in custody, or had their sentences reduced on appeal.
From being declared insane in 1985 until his death he was held in a mental hospital and was on long-term hunger strike, which led to him being force-fed through a tube.
Hindley's supporters, including penal reformer Lord Longford, journalist David Astor and prison governor Peter Timms, claimed that the increase in Hindley's sentence was the response of a succession of Home Secretaries to public opinion, as there was widespread media and public opposition to Hindley ever being released, and similarly widespread doubt as to whether her reported remorse and rehabilitation were genuine – the fact that she had not admitted the two additional murders until 20 years into her sentence further strengthened the argument of those who felt that her reported turnaround was nothing more than an attempt to boost her chances of parole.
Her claims that Brady had bullied and blackmailed her into taking part into killings were also met with similar doubt by the public and media.
Relatives of the Moors Murders victims were at the centre of a campaign to keep Hindley imprisoned and several of them vowed to kill her[11] if she was ever paroled.
[12] The question as to whether Hindley should ever be released prompted more debate than that of any other prisoner of notoriety, with some high-profile backing from her supporters, but vitriol from the tabloid press and the public, as well as the families of her victims.
Her death left only Rosemary West (jailed for life for 10 murders in 1995) as a female prisoner serving a whole-life tariff, until the addition of Joanna Dennehy in 2014,[13] and Lucy Letby in 2023.
Despite the alibis provided by his girlfriend Sheilagh Farrow, Hardy was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1978.
His trial judge said that he found the idea of ever seeing Bamber free again "difficult to foresee", and advised that he should serve at least 25 years behind bars before release could even be considered.
After 12 years in prison, Duffy went on a conscience-clearing exercise, admitting to a third killing of which he had been originally acquitted, and implicating schoolfriend David Mulcahy as his accomplice.
Hindley's death in November 2002 left West as the only confirmed female prisoner on the whole-life tariff register, until the addition of Joanne Dennehy, in 2014.
[citation needed] Vinter was among the killers who mounted the successful legal challenge against the whole life tariff in July 2013, with the Court of Appeal later ruling in February 2014 that such sentences were justified provided that they were reviewed within 25 years of being issued.
[63] In February 2016, Vinter was given a third life sentence for the attempted murder of fellow prisoner Lee Newell (also serving a whole-life tariff) at HMP Woodhill, with the judge once again reiterating that he should never be released.
The Justice Liaison Service and police were told about violent pornography Reynolds had viewed, as well as images he had created of young women and teenage girls he personally knew.
[90] Several agencies were involved with Reynolds but there was no co-ordinated approach to managing or monitoring him, and consequently few people who knew him were aware of these incidents.
[92] A murderer at the age of 22 and sentenced to life at 23, Reynolds is one of the youngest people in British history to be handed a whole-life tariff.
In September 2016, the Welsh media reported that Reynolds was lodging a fresh appeal to the European Court of Human Rights which was likely to be heard during 2017.
In 1996, Birley had been convicted of the murder of 69-year-old Maurice Hoyle in his house in Barnsley and served 18 years of a life sentence before being released on licence.
[113] He buried their bodies in the garden and later fled to Ghana in an attempt to evade justice, but was caught and returned to the UK.
The Judge said that he had carried out the murders to "satisfy his lust for sex with young men who were rendered unconscious" and gave him a whole-life term.
[119] Fellows was also found guilty of shooting dead John Kinsella, a friend of Massey from Liverpool, three years later.