Explainer
Inside Low Newton: the high security prison that
will house Lucy Letby
Durham facility is regarded as safe by inspectors and
houses Joanna Dennehy, who also received a whole life order
Charlie
Moloney
Mon 21 Aug
2023 20.25 BST
The
high-security prison where Lucy Letby will spend the rest of her life also
houses some of Britain’s most high-profile criminals.
Letby, 33,
is reportedly being sent to HMP Low Newton in Durham to serve the whole-life
order that she received on Monday for murdering seven babies and attempting to
murder six others.
Low Newton
holds women from 18 years old upwards and includes those serving short
sentences and also high security (restricted status) women. It houses Joanna
Dennehy, who became the first woman to receive a whole-life order at sentencing
after she murdered three men during a 10-day spree in 2013.
Dennehy’s
sentencing judge revealed she had told a psychiatrist that she killed “to see
if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for
it.”
Other
former inmates of Low Newton included Rose West, who was convicted of 10
murders, carried out with her husband Fred, at Winchester crown court in 1995.
It also
housed Tracey Connelly, the mother of Baby P, who died after months of abuse in
2007, and also Sharon Carr, who became known as “The Devil’s Daughter” when she
murdered an 18-year-old stranger.
A prison
cell. On the right there is a bed on a raised metal frame. In the centre, there
is a barred window in the far fall with red curtains. On the left there are
some storage units
A general
population prison cell at Low Newton. Photograph: HMI Prisons
As of April
last year, there were 242 prisoners at the facility, which has been declared a
safe environment by the Independent Monitoring Boards.
Levels of
self-harm and violence are “relatively low” at the institution and there were
no deaths in custody at Low Newton in the reporting year 2021-22.
The prison
has seven wings plus a healthcare unit. Prisoners and staff “take great pride
in cleaning these areas and keeping the prison tidy”, the IMB report said.
Women at
Low Newton have the option of shopping at the prison shop, Rags to Riches,
which the IMB said “is popular with the women”.
The prison
has organised animal visits and has brought goats and sheep into the
establishment alongside having a residential rabbit and two birds, the IMB
report added.
“Prisoners
have had access to these animals, often with the most challenging of prisoners
giving good results in feedback surveys, which have shown that this initiative
has had a calming effect,” the report stated.
Inmates of
Low Newton created a play exploring the troubled lives of female prisoners,
which made its national debut at the Edinburgh festival fringe in 2015.
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