List of prisoners with whole life orders

Updated: 5/20/2026, 8:14:28 PM Wikipedia source

This is a list of prisoners who have received a whole-life order, formerly called a whole-life tariff, through some mechanism in jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. From the introduction of the whole-life order system in 1983 until an appeal by a prisoner named Anthony Anderson in 2002, a whole-life order was set by government ministers. Thereafter only a judicial body could decide to impose such an order. The effect of a whole-life order is that the prisoner serves the sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Whole-life orders have been reportedly issued in approximately 100 cases since introduction in 1983, although some of these prisoners had their sentences reduced on appeal. By 2023, there were believed to be more than 70 prisoners currently serving whole-life sentences in England and Wales. These include some of Britain's most notorious criminals, including the serial murderer Rosemary West and the premature baby serial killer Lucy Letby. Several prisoners serving whole-life sentences have challenged the legality of whole-life sentences in the High Court or European Court of Human Rights. These include Jeremy Bamber and Gary Vinter, whose second legal challenge to the European Court of Human Rights was successful, although the High Court later ruled that whole-life sentences could still be issued as long as they were reviewed within 25 years. Arthur Hutchinson has challenged his sentence several times in both the High Court and the European Court of Human Rights, but has been unsuccessful each time. Despite the fact that ministers can no longer decide when or if a life sentence prisoner can be considered for parole, they still retain the power to release a prisoner during their sentences on compassionate grounds. This normally includes cases only when a prisoner is incapacitated, seriously ill or of great age. Several months before ministers were stripped of their powers to set minimum sentences, the High Court also stripped ministers of their power to overrule the Parole Board's decision that a life sentence prisoner can be paroled.

Tables

· Imposed by Home Secretaries

John Thomas Straffen

Name

John Thomas Straffen

Year

1952

Died

2007

Notes

Britain's longest-serving prisoner, who spent 55 years in prison until his death. Straffen was convicted of murdering two prebubescent girls in July 1951. The following year, he escaped for a four-hour period and was convicted of murdering another girl during this short spell at large, although he long proclaimed his innocence. Straffen was repriev

Ian Duncan Brady (né Ian Duncan Stewart)

Name

Ian Duncan Brady (né Ian Duncan Stewart)

Year

1966

Died

2017

Notes

One of the Moors murderers who was convicted, in May 1966, of murdering three children between 1963 and 1965. He was convicted just six months after the abolition of the death penalty, and less than two years after final executions in Britain. His trial judge said it was unlikely that Brady could ever be rehabilitated and suitable for parole, altho

Myra Hindley

Name

Myra Hindley

Year

1966

Died

2002

Notes

The other of the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady's girlfriend and accomplice who was involved in all five murders with Brady. She was convicted of two of three murders which were detected in 1965, and of being an accessory in the third murder, as she was not present when Brady committed the murder. The convictions of Brady and Hindley came just six mont

Raymond Leslie Morris

Name

Raymond Leslie Morris

Year

1969

Died

2014

Notes

Morris was named by police as the perpetrator of the Cannock Chase murders, which comprised the abduction, rape and murder of three girls aged between 5 and 7 between 1965 and 1967, and the kidnapping and rape of nine-year-old Julia Taylor. However, he was only convicted of the final murder, that of seven-year-old Christine Darby, and of the attemp

Donald Neilson

Name

Donald Neilson

Year

1976

Died

2011

Notes

The Black Panther, nicknamed for wearing a black balaclava, shot dead three postmasters during robberies in various areas of the country, then abducted a 17-year-old heiress from her Shropshire home. He attempted to ransom the heiress, but her body was found two months later in a drain in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. He was convicted in July 1976

Trevor Joseph Hardy

Name

Trevor Joseph Hardy

Year

1976

Died

2012

Notes

Trevor Joseph Hardy murdered three teenage girls between December 1974 and March 1976. Janet Lesley Stewart, 15, was murdered on New Year's Eve 1974 and buried in a shallow grave in Newton Heath, North Manchester. She had been stabbed. Wanda Skala, 17, was murdered in July 1975 on Lightbowne Road, Moston. She was hit over the head with a paving sto

Robert John Maudsley

Name

Robert John Maudsley

Year

1977

Notes

Robert John Maudsley (born June 1953) killed four people. He committed three of these murders in prison after receiving a life sentence for a single murder in the mid-1970s. He was alleged to have eaten part of the brain of one of three men he killed in prison, which earned him the nickname "Hannibal the Cannibal" among the British press. He commit

Archibald Thompson Hall

Name

Archibald Thompson Hall

Year

1978

Died

2002

Notes

The Killer Butler or Monster Butler, so named as he committed his murders while working in service to members of the British aristocracy as a butler. Hall, also known as Roy Fontaine, was a Glaswegian thief and confidence trickster with numerous convictions and prison sentences by the time he committed his first murder, of an ex-cellmate, whom he s

John Childs

Name

John Childs

Year

1979

Notes

John Childs was convicted of the murder of six people in contract killings which were committed between 1974 and 1978; he implicated two others and they were convicted in 1980, but they were released on appeal in 2003 after his evidence was called into question. He murdered Terence Eve in 1974, Robert Brown in 1975, George Brett and his 10-year-old

Dennis Andrew Nilsen

Name

Dennis Andrew Nilsen

Year

1983

Died

2018

Notes

An ex-Army and ex-police civil servant who claimed to have murdered and dismembered up to 15 young men at his homes in North London, storing the body parts inside and around the residences. Nilsen was arrested in February 1983 after workmen investigating a blocked and odorous drain found human flesh. Nilsen's trial judge originally recommended a 25

Arthur Hutchinson

Name

Arthur Hutchinson

Year

1984

Notes

A fugitive who in 1983 gatecrashed a wedding reception at a house in Sheffield shortly after the bride and groom had left and stabbed to death the bride's father, mother and brother, before raping her teenage sister at knifepoint. Police quickly labelled him as the killer after identifying a handprint on a champagne bottle and a bitemark in a piece

Jeremy Neville Bamber (né Jeremy Paul Marsham)

Name

Jeremy Neville Bamber (né Jeremy Paul Marsham)

Year

1986

Notes

In October 1986, he was found guilty of shooting dead his adoptive parents, sister and six-year-old twin nephews at the family farmhouse in Essex 14 months earlier, in order to claim a six-figure inheritance while also laying evidence to suggest his sister, a known schizophrenic, had committed the murders before killing herself. His trial judge sai

Victor Miller

Name

Victor Miller

Year

1988

Notes

He abducted, sexually assaulted and battered to death a 14-year-old boy from Hagley in Worcestershire in February 1988. He confessed after being arrested for an unrelated crime soon afterwards and led detectives to the body. Police later revealed they believed Miller was responsible for around 30 unsolved sexual assaults. In court later that year,

John Francis Duffy

Name

John Francis Duffy

Year

1988

Notes

The Railway Killer, who attacked numerous women in the south of England, raping all of them and murdering three, before revolutionary psychological profiling helped police to catch him, although they got no nearer the accomplice they knew Duffy worked with. He was initially sentenced to life with a recommended 30-year minimum sentence for two murde

Victor Farrant

Name

Victor Farrant

Year

1988

Died

2024

Notes

Victor Farrant was convicted of one count of murder and one count of attempted murder in 1998 and was told by the judge he was never to be released from prison. He also had convictions for rape in 1988 and committed his latest crimes a few weeks later after he was released. He was being considered for early release on compassionate grounds in 2024,

Anthony Arkwright

Name

Anthony Arkwright

Year

1989

Notes

Arkwright was arrested after he hacked and battered to death three people, including his elderly grandfather, a two-day killing spree in South Yorkshire during August 1988 when aged 21, which means he is likely to be the youngest offender to have been issued with a whole-life tariff by any of the appropriate authorities. He was convicted of all thr

Mark Robinson

Name

Mark Robinson

Year

1989

Notes

Mark Robinson killed Patricia Anne Wagner at the age of 17 after she threatened to tell his mother about the affair the two were having, to which Robinson responded by strangling her. When he was released in 1989, he met Sharon Morley in Wakefield, with the two moving to Billingham shortly after; however, Sharon wanted to move back to Wakefield whi

Victor Castigador

Name

Victor Castigador

Year

1990

Died

2017

Notes

A Filipino illegal immigrant who led a gang of robbers on a grudge attack at a London amusement arcade where he himself worked. Four members of staff were tied up, locked in a cage within the vault before being doused in white spirit and set alight. Two died, two suffered serious burns. Castigador received an initial 25-year tariff from his trial j

Malcolm Green

Name

Malcolm Green

Year

1991

Notes

Malcolm Green was jailed for life in 1971 for the brutal murder of a Cardiff women. He spent 18 years in prison before being released on parole in 1989. Soon afterwards, he bludgeoned to death a young tourist from New Zealand. Green dismembered the body, wrapped it in plastic bags, and dumped it in different places along a road in South Wales. He w

Colin Ireland

Name

Colin Ireland

Year

1993

Died

2012

Notes

The Gay Slayer, who set about achieving a New Year's resolution to become a serial killer by targeting patrons of a public house frequented by gay men. Ireland pretended to be homosexual in order to be taken to each of his victims' homes, where he took advantage of their desire for S&M activity to truss, torture and murder them, often then robbing

Colin Hatch

Name

Colin Hatch

Year

1994

Died

2011

Notes

A paedophile who was convicted of sexual assault on boys in 1991 and 1992 but jailed for only three years after it was decided he was not dangerous enough to be held involuntarily in a Secure Hospital, against the advice of the psychiatrist. He was paroled early and committed the sexually motivated murder of seven-year-old Sean Williams in summer 1

Rosemary Pauline West

Name

Rosemary Pauline West

Year

1995

Notes

Convicted in November 1995 of the murder of ten women and girls at her home in Gloucester, including one of her daughters and her stepdaughter, between 1971 and 1987. Her husband, Frederick West, committed suicide in jail before he could stand trial for a total of 12 murders (two of which are believed to have occurred just before his association wi

Peter Howard Moore

Name

Peter Howard Moore

Year

1996

Notes

Moore murdered four men in apparently sexually motivated attacks in Wales. He confessed to police but claimed at trial it was a fictional lover, "Jason", who had killed them. Following his conviction the judge said he would urge the Home Secretary to impose the whole-life tariff; it was revealed in 2011 that he remained subject to this after the pr

Anthony Sawoniuk (né Andrei Sawoniuk)

Name

Anthony Sawoniuk (né Andrei Sawoniuk)

Year

1999

Died

2005

Notes

Belarusian Nazi collaborator who was convicted of murder committed outside the UK against non-British citizens, during the Holocaust, based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. He is the only person sentenced to a whole-life tariff under the 1991 War Crimes Act and was one of the oldest prisoners in Britain when he died aged 84 in Norwich L

Harold Frederick Shipman Jr.

Name

Harold Frederick Shipman Jr.

Year

2000

Died

2004

Notes

Former general practitioner who was convicted in January 2000 of killing 15 of his patients at his surgery in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in the 1990s, giving them lethal doses of diamorphine. Suspicion was raised in 1998 when the daughter of his last victim found that Shipman had crudely forged her mother's will. Shipman was sentenced to life impris

Name	Year	Died	Notes
John Thomas Straffen	1952	2007	Britain's longest-serving prisoner, who spent 55 years in prison until his death. Straffen was convicted of murdering two prebubescent girls in July 1951. The following year, he escaped for a four-hour period and was convicted of murdering another girl during this short spell at large, although he long proclaimed his innocence. Straffen was repriev
Ian Duncan Brady (né Ian Duncan Stewart)	1966	2017	One of the Moors murderers who was convicted, in May 1966, of murdering three children between 1963 and 1965. He was convicted just six months after the abolition of the death penalty, and less than two years after final executions in Britain. His trial judge said it was unlikely that Brady could ever be rehabilitated and suitable for parole, altho
Myra Hindley	1966	2002	The other of the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady's girlfriend and accomplice who was involved in all five murders with Brady. She was convicted of two of three murders which were detected in 1965, and of being an accessory in the third murder, as she was not present when Brady committed the murder. The convictions of Brady and Hindley came just six mont
Raymond Leslie Morris	1969	2014	Morris was named by police as the perpetrator of the Cannock Chase murders, which comprised the abduction, rape and murder of three girls aged between 5 and 7 between 1965 and 1967, and the kidnapping and rape of nine-year-old Julia Taylor. However, he was only convicted of the final murder, that of seven-year-old Christine Darby, and of the attemp
Donald Neilson	1976	2011	The Black Panther, nicknamed for wearing a black balaclava, shot dead three postmasters during robberies in various areas of the country, then abducted a 17-year-old heiress from her Shropshire home. He attempted to ransom the heiress, but her body was found two months later in a drain in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. He was convicted in July 1976
Trevor Joseph Hardy	1976	2012	Trevor Joseph Hardy murdered three teenage girls between December 1974 and March 1976. Janet Lesley Stewart, 15, was murdered on New Year's Eve 1974 and buried in a shallow grave in Newton Heath, North Manchester. She had been stabbed. Wanda Skala, 17, was murdered in July 1975 on Lightbowne Road, Moston. She was hit over the head with a paving sto
Robert John Maudsley	1977		Robert John Maudsley (born June 1953) killed four people. He committed three of these murders in prison after receiving a life sentence for a single murder in the mid-1970s. He was alleged to have eaten part of the brain of one of three men he killed in prison, which earned him the nickname "Hannibal the Cannibal" among the British press. He commit
Archibald Thompson Hall	1978	2002	The Killer Butler or Monster Butler, so named as he committed his murders while working in service to members of the British aristocracy as a butler. Hall, also known as Roy Fontaine, was a Glaswegian thief and confidence trickster with numerous convictions and prison sentences by the time he committed his first murder, of an ex-cellmate, whom he s
John Childs	1979		John Childs was convicted of the murder of six people in contract killings which were committed between 1974 and 1978; he implicated two others and they were convicted in 1980, but they were released on appeal in 2003 after his evidence was called into question. He murdered Terence Eve in 1974, Robert Brown in 1975, George Brett and his 10-year-old
Dennis Andrew Nilsen	1983	2018	An ex-Army and ex-police civil servant who claimed to have murdered and dismembered up to 15 young men at his homes in North London, storing the body parts inside and around the residences. Nilsen was arrested in February 1983 after workmen investigating a blocked and odorous drain found human flesh. Nilsen's trial judge originally recommended a 25
Arthur Hutchinson	1984		A fugitive who in 1983 gatecrashed a wedding reception at a house in Sheffield shortly after the bride and groom had left and stabbed to death the bride's father, mother and brother, before raping her teenage sister at knifepoint. Police quickly labelled him as the killer after identifying a handprint on a champagne bottle and a bitemark in a piece
Jeremy Neville Bamber (né Jeremy Paul Marsham)	1986		In October 1986, he was found guilty of shooting dead his adoptive parents, sister and six-year-old twin nephews at the family farmhouse in Essex 14 months earlier, in order to claim a six-figure inheritance while also laying evidence to suggest his sister, a known schizophrenic, had committed the murders before killing herself. His trial judge sai
Victor Miller	1988		He abducted, sexually assaulted and battered to death a 14-year-old boy from Hagley in Worcestershire in February 1988. He confessed after being arrested for an unrelated crime soon afterwards and led detectives to the body. Police later revealed they believed Miller was responsible for around 30 unsolved sexual assaults. In court later that year,
John Francis Duffy	1988		The Railway Killer, who attacked numerous women in the south of England, raping all of them and murdering three, before revolutionary psychological profiling helped police to catch him, although they got no nearer the accomplice they knew Duffy worked with. He was initially sentenced to life with a recommended 30-year minimum sentence for two murde
Victor Farrant	1988	2024	Victor Farrant was convicted of one count of murder and one count of attempted murder in 1998 and was told by the judge he was never to be released from prison. He also had convictions for rape in 1988 and committed his latest crimes a few weeks later after he was released. He was being considered for early release on compassionate grounds in 2024,
Anthony Arkwright	1989		Arkwright was arrested after he hacked and battered to death three people, including his elderly grandfather, a two-day killing spree in South Yorkshire during August 1988 when aged 21, which means he is likely to be the youngest offender to have been issued with a whole-life tariff by any of the appropriate authorities. He was convicted of all thr
Mark Robinson	1989		Mark Robinson killed Patricia Anne Wagner at the age of 17 after she threatened to tell his mother about the affair the two were having, to which Robinson responded by strangling her. When he was released in 1989, he met Sharon Morley in Wakefield, with the two moving to Billingham shortly after; however, Sharon wanted to move back to Wakefield whi
Victor Castigador	1990	2017	A Filipino illegal immigrant who led a gang of robbers on a grudge attack at a London amusement arcade where he himself worked. Four members of staff were tied up, locked in a cage within the vault before being doused in white spirit and set alight. Two died, two suffered serious burns. Castigador received an initial 25-year tariff from his trial j
Malcolm Green	1991		Malcolm Green was jailed for life in 1971 for the brutal murder of a Cardiff women. He spent 18 years in prison before being released on parole in 1989. Soon afterwards, he bludgeoned to death a young tourist from New Zealand. Green dismembered the body, wrapped it in plastic bags, and dumped it in different places along a road in South Wales. He w
Colin Ireland	1993	2012	The Gay Slayer, who set about achieving a New Year's resolution to become a serial killer by targeting patrons of a public house frequented by gay men. Ireland pretended to be homosexual in order to be taken to each of his victims' homes, where he took advantage of their desire for S&M activity to truss, torture and murder them, often then robbing
Colin Hatch	1994	2011	A paedophile who was convicted of sexual assault on boys in 1991 and 1992 but jailed for only three years after it was decided he was not dangerous enough to be held involuntarily in a Secure Hospital, against the advice of the psychiatrist. He was paroled early and committed the sexually motivated murder of seven-year-old Sean Williams in summer 1
Rosemary Pauline West	1995		Convicted in November 1995 of the murder of ten women and girls at her home in Gloucester, including one of her daughters and her stepdaughter, between 1971 and 1987. Her husband, Frederick West, committed suicide in jail before he could stand trial for a total of 12 murders (two of which are believed to have occurred just before his association wi
Peter Howard Moore	1996		Moore murdered four men in apparently sexually motivated attacks in Wales. He confessed to police but claimed at trial it was a fictional lover, "Jason", who had killed them. Following his conviction the judge said he would urge the Home Secretary to impose the whole-life tariff; it was revealed in 2011 that he remained subject to this after the pr
Anthony Sawoniuk (né Andrei Sawoniuk)	1999	2005	Belarusian Nazi collaborator who was convicted of murder committed outside the UK against non-British citizens, during the Holocaust, based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. He is the only person sentenced to a whole-life tariff under the 1991 War Crimes Act and was one of the oldest prisoners in Britain when he died aged 84 in Norwich L
Harold Frederick Shipman Jr.	2000	2004	Former general practitioner who was convicted in January 2000 of killing 15 of his patients at his surgery in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in the 1990s, giving them lethal doses of diamorphine. Suspicion was raised in 1998 when the daughter of his last victim found that Shipman had crudely forged her mother's will. Shipman was sentenced to life impris

· Sentenced by judges

Jeremy Thorpe Wing

Name

Jeremy Thorpe Wing

Year

2002

Notes

Wing, who was 61 when sentenced, was found guilty of sexually abusing two children, who were seven when the abuse began. He was also reportedly facing charges over the abuse of a third child. Police raided Wing's home discovering toys, motorised go-karts, water pistols, video games, and footage of Wing and another man, Brian Hogg, abusing children.

Paul Glen

Name

Paul Glen

Year

2004

Notes

Glen was employed as a hitman and in 2004 had been hired to murder Vincent Smart, but instead he murdered Smart's friend Robert Bogle. After his trial, it was revealed that Glen had a previous conviction for murder, having killed hotelier Ivor Usher in February 1989, and served 13 years of his original life sentence before being paroled in 2002, ki

Andrzej Kunowski

Name

Andrzej Kunowski

Year

2004

Died

2009

Notes

A Polish murderer who was imprisoned in England. Kunowski murdered a 12-year-old Macedonian girl, Katerina Koneva, in West London in May 1997, but was not arrested and charged until six years later. Kunowski served just over five years of his life sentence before he died from heart failure in Frankland Prison on 23 September 2009. He was identified

Phillip Peter Heggarty

Name

Phillip Peter Heggarty

Year

2004

Notes

Convicted of murdering his friend, Derek Bennett, in a hammer attack in 2003. He later set fire to a Renault Laguna after placing Bennett's body in it—his body was so severely burnt that it had to be identified by dental records. The trial judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans, sitting at the Crown Court in Swansea imposed a whole-life order, which the

Thomas Hamilton McDowell

Name

Thomas Hamilton McDowell

Year

2004

Notes

McDowell murdered and dismembered German trainee rabbi Andreas Hinz, then dumped his head, limbs and torso in bin bags in Camden, North London. McDowell, who suffered abuse as a child and grew up hating homosexuals, admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility, but was convicted of murder following a trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Mark Martin

Name

Mark Martin

Year

2005

Notes

He killed three homeless women in Nottingham between December 2004 and January 2005, declaring his ambition to become "Nottingham's first serial killer". Two of his accomplices were convicted alongside him in 2005 but received 14 and 25-year minimum terms.

Mark Richard Hobson

Name

Mark Richard Hobson

Year

2005

Notes

Murdered his girlfriend Claire Sanderson at their home near Selby in July 2004, before luring her twin sister Diane there and murdering her several days later. He then fled the property and murdered an elderly couple who lived several miles away before going on the run. He was arrested soon after, when he was spotted hiding in bushes near a petrol

William Horncy

Name

William Horncy

Year

2005

Notes

Achieved notoriety in 2005 when he was convicted of murdering millionaire Amarjit Chohan as well as Chohan's wife, mother-in-law and two sons in an effort to take over the Chohan family freight business to ship drugs into the UK. The bodies of Chohan's two sons have not been found.

Kenneth Regan (né Kenneth Avery)

Name

Kenneth Regan (né Kenneth Avery)

Year

2005

Notes

Achieved notoriety in 2005 as he too was involved, with William Horncy, in the murder of millionaire Amarjit Chohan as well as Chohan's wife, mother-in-law and two sons, whose bodies were never found. He was a former drug dealer who became a Police supergrass to gain early release from prison for a prior crime. He murdered Amarjit Chohan and his fa

Paul Culshaw

Name

Paul Culshaw

Year

2005

Died

2013

Notes

A murderer and sex offender. In 2005, he was found guilty of murdering Clare Benson-Jowry the previous year. After his trial, it was revealed that Culshaw had previous convictions for crimes including rape, attempted murder and indecent assault. Culshaw was found collapsed in his cell at Frankland Prison on 5 February 2013 and died the following da

Glyn Trevor John Dix

Name

Glyn Trevor John Dix

Year

2005

Died

2014

Notes

Found guilty of murdering his wife Hazel, having stabbed her to death and chopped her body into 16 pieces at their home in Redditch, Worcestershire in the previous year. It was then revealed that he had already been out of prison on life licence following a previous conviction for murdering a woman during the 1970s. Dix died in 2014, aged 60.

Daniel Julian Gonzalez

Name

Daniel Julian Gonzalez

Year

2006

Died

2007

Notes

A drug addict, inspired by horror films, who stabbed four randomly chosen people (including three pensioners) to death over a 24-hour period and tried to kill two more. His mother had previously begged for help from the authorities, rhetorically asking in one letter if her son might "have to commit murder" before anyone would do something about him

Viktor Dembovskis

Name

Viktor Dembovskis

Year

2006

Notes

A Latvian immigrant who raped and murdered a 17-year-old female neighbour as she walked home from school in West London, before fleeing back to Latvia. Dembovskis was deported from Latvia after a joint operation by British and Latvian police. It was revealed that Dembovskis had a string of convictions in Latvia stretching back 25 years including tw

John McGrady

Name

John McGrady

Year

2006

Notes

A convicted rapist who strangled and mutilated 15-year-old neighbour Rochelle Holness in Catford, London, in September 2005 before dumping her dismembered remains in bin bags. He slit his wrists and confessed to his girlfriend after the attack, but his suicide bid was thwarted and he was brought to justice, admitting the murder in court several mon

Stephen McColl

Name

Stephen McColl

Year

2006

Notes

Underworld figure who worked as an informer for Greater Manchester Police after three other police forces rejected his services. Convicted in August 2006 of two murders. The first victim, Michael Doran, was a member of his gang whom he suspected of being an informer for the Manchester police, prior to becoming one himself. The second, Philip Noakes

Rahan Arshad

Name

Rahan Arshad

Year

2007

Notes

Taxi driver who murdered his wife and three children, who were found dead in their home in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, Greater Manchester, in August 2006.

Andrew Randall

Name

Andrew Randall

Year

2007

Notes

Murdered his seven-week-old daughter Jessica Randall in Kettering, Northamptonshire, in 2005 after he threw the baby girl headfirst into a settee in their home after abusing her since birth. He told officers he resented her since she was born and he was handed a whole-life tariff as a result at Northampton Crown Court. There were concerns about Jes

David William Tiley

Name

David William Tiley

Year

2007

Notes

Two months after he was released from prison for a double rape, he stabbed to death his disabled fiancée Susan Hale, who suffered from a degenerative brain disorder, and then killed her carer Sarah Merritt when she arrived at their home in Southampton.

Michael Smith

Name

Michael Smith

Year

2007

Notes

Murdered 35-year-old Peter Summers in an attack with a bottle in Stoke-on-Trent in August 2006. He was convicted of this murder nine months later. Smith had been previously convicted of murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend Sheila Deakin in 1975 and spent 30 years in prison, only being released on parole 12 months before he went on to murder Peter S

Steven Gerald James Wright

Name

Steven Gerald James Wright

Year

2008

Notes

The Suffolk Strangler, who was jailed for life in February 2008 after being found guilty of murdering five women, whose bodies were found in the Ipswich area during December 2006. See also: Ipswich serial murders.

Levi Bellfield

Name

Levi Bellfield

Year

2008

Notes

Attacked three young women, killing two and seriously injuring the third in sexually motivated attacks in London and Surrey between February 2003 and August 2004. He was first arrested in November 2004, before being re-arrested and charged in March 2006. After he was convicted of these murders, Surrey Police identified him as the prime suspect in t

Douglas Gary Vinter

Name

Douglas Gary Vinter

Year

2008

Notes

Strangled and murdered his wife Anne White in Normanby, Teesside, on 10 February 2008. He admitted the murder in court two months later, and was already on life licence having spent nine years in prison for the murder of local railway worker Carl Edon in August 1995. Vinter applied to the High Court for lesser minimum term to be set, but this appea

Simon Wilson

Name

Simon Wilson

Year

2008

Notes

Was sentenced to a whole-life sentence in 2008 after admitting grievous bodily harm, sexual assault and attempted rape after attacking his 71-year-old victim. Was deported back to Britain from Australia where he lived for most of his life, for committing murder and rape, after serving 16 years.

Marc Chivers

Name

Marc Chivers

Year

2009

Notes

Strangled his ex-girlfriend Maria Stubbings with a dog lead in December 2008. He pleaded guilty to the crime in court 12 months later and was jailed for life. He had previously served 15 years in prison in Germany for murdering another ex-girlfriend and was deported to the UK in January 2008. Chivers had a string of previous convictions for some ex

Peter Britton Tobin

Name

Peter Britton Tobin

Year

2009

Died

2022

Notes

Convicted in 2009 of the murder of Dinah McNicol in Margate, Kent, in 1991. Tobin had already been convicted in Scotland for the murder that same year of Vicky Hamilton, whose body was found in Tobin's back garden alongside that of McNicol, and also for the murder of Angelika Kluk in a Glasgow church in 2006. Tobin was already serving two concurren

Royston Jackson

Name

Royston Jackson

Year

2010

Died

2019

Notes

Convicted of the murder of convicted sex offender Gordon Boon in October 2008, after being released on licence two years earlier following his conviction for another murder he had committed in 1989. He died from cancer at HMP Whitemoor in March 2019.

Peter William Sutcliffe

Name

Peter William Sutcliffe

Year

2010

Died

2020

Notes

The Yorkshire Ripper, who murdered 13 women and attacked seven others between 1975 and 1980 in West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. He was caught by chance while sitting in his car with a sex worker and potential victim in Sheffield in January 1981, and made a full confession to each attack to the police, even though they had only arrested him fo

Ernest Leslie Wright

Name

Ernest Leslie Wright

Year

2010

Died

2020

Notes

Convicted of the execution-style murder of Neville Corby (aged 42) with a shotgun and the simultaneous attempted murder of Corby's partner. Had been previously convicted of murder in 1971 and served 26 years. Died from heart failure and pneumonia on 4 September 2020 following a fall in HMP Wakefield.

Anthony John Hardy

Name

Anthony John Hardy

Year

2010

Died

2020

Notes

Killing of three women to "satisfy depraved and perverted needs". Police believe he was involved in six other murders of women but these cases have not been brought to court.

John Nigel Maden

Name

John Nigel Maden

Year

2010

Notes

Drugged, raped and killed his 12-year-old niece Tia Rigg at his Manchester home after luring her there on the pretext of babysitting. He then phoned police and told them that he had murdered her "because he felt like it". He had previously developed an obsession with violent pornography and images of extreme child abuse.

Desmond Lee

Name

Desmond Lee

Year

2010

Notes

Convicted in 2010 of murdering his lover Christopher Pratt by breaking his voice box and a bone in his neck in his flat in Ravensthorpe, then using his credit cards to go on a shopping spree before dumping his body. Served 14 years of a life sentence from 1990 to 2004 after murdering his landlady Shirley Carr after she taunted him over the breakdow

Wilbert Anthony Dyce

Name

Wilbert Anthony Dyce

Year

2010

Notes

Convicted in 2010 of a 1982 triple murder in which a mother and her two young daughters were killed. The murder was initially treated as racially motivated, as racist slogans had been spray-painted over the walls of the family's home, but Dyce was eventually linked to the crimes by advances in DNA technology, and it was established that the hallmar

Stephen Shaun Griffiths

Name

Stephen Shaun Griffiths

Year

2010

Notes

Convicted of murdering three women in Bradford, one murder involving the use of a crossbow. He dismembered his victims before dumping the remains in the River Aire. Griffiths also claimed to have cannibalised his victims, though this has never been definitively proven.

John Sweeney

Name

John Sweeney

Year

2011

Notes

Convicted of murdering two women whose bodies were found mutilated and dumped in canals in London and the Netherlands.

George Norman Johnson

Name

George Norman Johnson

Year

2011

Notes

Convicted in 2011 of the premeditated murder of 89-year-old Florence Habesch in February that year to fund his drug addiction. Wolverhampton-born Johnson had already served 20 years of a life sentence imposed in 1986 for the murder of a man in a burglary at his house.

John William Cooper

Name

John William Cooper

Year

2011

Notes

Convicted in 2011 of two double murders in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the first in 1985 and the second in 1989.

David Baxendale

Name

David Baxendale

Year

2011

Notes

Convicted in March 2011 of the murder by repeated stabbing of a woman in Nutfield, Surrey, in June 2010. Baxendale had a history of violence stretching back some 20 years. In 2001 he was convicted of murder in Spain, where he had repeatedly stabbed his victim and for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He served seven years of his sentenc

Andrew Dawson

Name

Andrew Dawson

Year

2011

Notes

Convicted of the murder of John David Matthews and Paul Hancock in July 2010. He was out on licence from a previous murder conviction committed in the 1980s.

David Cook

Name

David Cook

Year

2012

Died

2020

Notes

Convicted in 1988 of strangling a young woman to death, Cook was released in 2009. Cook strangled a second victim when on parole, and the second judge gave him a whole-life tariff. He died on 24 December 2020.

David Robert Oakes

Name

David Robert Oakes

Year

2012

Died

2013

Notes

Convicted and sentenced to a whole-life term for the double murder, using a double-barrelled shotgun, of his ex-girlfriend Christine Chambers and their two-year-old daughter following the breakdown of their relationship and just hours before a custody hearing to agree access rights to their daughter. Christine had been assaulted over a period of se

Stephen Farrow

Name

Stephen Farrow

Year

2012

Died

2023

Notes

Farrow, a vagrant with a history of psychiatric illness, was convicted of the murders of Betty Yates (aged 77) and John Suddards (aged 59). Mr Justice Field, sentencing, said: "The sentence for murder is a mandatory life sentence and in respect of each count I pass a life sentence. I next have to consider whether you should be made the subject of a

Mark Leonard Bridger

Name

Mark Leonard Bridger

Year

2013

Notes

Bridger was found guilty of abducting and murdering five-year-old April Jones, who was last seen alive on 1 October 2012, in Machynlleth, Wales. He claimed to have accidentally run her over while driving and that he could not remember where he had hidden her body due to being intoxicated. On 30 May 2013, he was found guilty of abduction, murder and

Dale Christopher Cregan

Name

Dale Christopher Cregan

Year

2013

Notes

Cregan murdered Police Constables Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone, two Greater Manchester Police officers, in a gun and grenade attack on 18 September 2012. He also pleaded guilty to two separate killings of two members of the same family earlier in 2012, as part of a gangland feud in Manchester. Cregan received a whole-life prison term on 13 June 201

Gary David Smith

Name

Gary David Smith

Year

2013

Notes

Smith, along with accomplice Lee Newell, murdered convicted child killer Subhan Anwar in his cell at HMP Long Lartin on 14 February 2013 by strangling him with tracksuit trousers. Smith was already serving a life sentence for a previous murder committed in 1998. He received a whole-life sentence on 23 September 2013.

Lee William Newell

Name

Lee William Newell

Year

2013

Notes

Convicted alongside Gary Smith for the February 2013 murder of convicted child killer Subhan Anwar in his cell at HMP Long Lartin. Newell was already serving a life sentence for a previous murder committed in 1988 and received a whole-life sentence on 23 September 2013.

Jamie Reynolds

Name

Jamie Reynolds

Year

2013

Notes

Pleaded guilty to murdering 17-year-old Georgia Williams after luring her to his home in Wellington, Shropshire, in May 2013. He then dumped her body near Wrexham, North Wales, where it was found just after his arrest in Glasgow several days later. In 2008 Reynolds tried to strangle a girl, but this merely resulted in a final warning when police in

Anwar Daniel Rosser

Name

Anwar Daniel Rosser

Year

2014

Notes

"Psychotic, bullying alcoholic" 33-year-old Anwar Rosser, a former soldier, murdered sleeping four-year-old Riley Turner in a "savage and sadistic" attack on 20 January 2013 while Rosser was staying at the Turner family home. The motive for the killing remains unknown. He admitted the murder in court a year later and was sentenced to life in prison

Ian John McLoughlin

Name

Ian John McLoughlin

Year

2014

Notes

Ian McLoughlin committed his first killing in 1984, when he bludgeoned 49-year-old Len Delgatty with a hammer before strangling him. The jury chose to convict him of manslaughter (rather than murder) on 19 September 1984, and he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. On 27 June 1985, this was reduced to eight years on appeal. In September 1990, ju

Michael Olumide Adebolajo

Name

Michael Olumide Adebolajo

Year

2014

Notes

On the afternoon of 22 May 2013, a British Army soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was attacked and killed by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, south-east London. Both men were Muslim converts. Twenty-nine-year-old Adebolajo was found guilty of Rigby's murder on 19 Dec

Joanna Christine Dennehy

Name

Joanna Christine Dennehy

Year

2014

Notes

Described by the judge as a "cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer". Convicted of murdering three men in seemingly random attacks which were committed in March 2013. She confessed to all three murders at the Old Bailey on 18 November 2013. Due to the pending High Court ruling on the legality of whole-life sentences, sentencing

Paul O'Hara

Name

Paul O'Hara

Year

2014

Notes

Described by police as "a predatory, violent individual", O'Hara was sentenced to a whole-life term on 30 June 2014 after admitting murdering his girlfriend Cherylee Shennan. On 17 March 2014, Shennan was in her own home giving evidence to two police officers about domestic abuse suffered at O'Hara's hands when he burst in, attacked the two officer

Ryan Matthews (AKA Stephen Cecil King)

Name

Ryan Matthews (AKA Stephen Cecil King)

Year

2015

Notes

62-year-old convicted murderer Matthews was sentenced to a whole-life term on 9 January 2015, after pleading guilty to the murder of healthcare assistant Sharon Wall at Wotton Hill Hospital in Gloucester on 9 July 2014. Matthews left Broadmoor Secure Hospital in 1999 under the Mental Health Act and his mental health had "deteriorated" throughout st

David Mitchell

Name

David Mitchell

Year

2015

Notes

On 11 December 2013, 47-year-old David Mitchell killed his homosexual lover, convicted sex offender Robert Hind, in a drunken rage. The body was dismembered and dumped in several refuse bags in or by a canal a short distance from his home. Mitchell had previously served 23 years of a life sentence for the murder of his girlfriend in 1990 and was re

Jason Gomez

Name

Jason Gomez

Year

2015

Notes

On 25 March 2015, 45-year-old Jason Gomez and 33-year-old Paul Wadkin lured a fellow prisoner 46-year-old Darren Flynn into a cell at HMP Swaleside and then stabbed him over 190 times with a thin black handle and a knife wrapped in material. Jason Gomez was already serving life for a previous murder committed in 2001 when he stabbed his business pa

Ian Birley

Name

Ian Birley

Year

2015

Notes

On 13 July 2015, 43-year-old Ian Birley and his girlfriend, 39-year-old Helen Nichols, followed 65-year-old John Gogarty to his home in Wombwell, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, before demanding his PIN and stabbing him 69 times. This was the second murder for which Birley had been convicted. In 1996, Birley had been convicted of the murder of 69-y

Russell Anthony Oliver

Name

Russell Anthony Oliver

Year

2016

Notes

On 31 May 2015, previously convicted murderer Russell Anthony Oliver, 46, attacked John York in his cell at high-security HMP Long Lartin. York, who was jailed for life in 2013 for beating a man to death, died from head injuries. Mr Justice Haddon-Cave handed Oliver a whole-life sentence at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday 24 March 2016. Co-accus

Anthony Ayres

Name

Anthony Ayres

Year

2016

Notes

On 19 November 2015, Anthony Ayres murdered 36-year-old mother-of-one Kelly Pearce at a friend's flat in Canvey, Essex, by stabbing her 40 times and then beating her to death. Ayres had a previous murder conviction dating back to 1994 for murdering his then-girlfriend Dawn Wisdom in 1993, and had been released on licence in May 2012. On 26 July 201

Christopher Halliwell

Name

Christopher Halliwell

Year

2016

Notes

On 19 October 2012, Christopher Halliwell pleaded guilty to the murder of Sian O'Callaghan who he picked up outside a nightclub in Swindon in March 2011 before stabbing her to death. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years. While under arrest in connection with O'Callaghan's disappearance, Halliwell confessed to killin

Arthur Simpson-Kent

Name

Arthur Simpson-Kent

Year

2016

Notes

Murdered his partner, former EastEnders actress Sian Blake, 43, and their two sons Zachary, aged eight, and Amon, four, by beating and stabbing them at their home in Erith, London, in December 2015. Police believe he committed the murders because she was planning to leave him. He buried their bodies in the garden and later fled to Ghana in an attem

Thomas Alexander Mair

Name

Thomas Alexander Mair

Year

2016

Notes

Murdered Jo Cox, Labour MP, in Birstall, West Yorkshire on 16 June 2016. Mair had researched and laid out an assassination plan. Because of the severity of the offence, including the political motivation (the trial judge said that he had no doubt that the murder was committed for the purpose of advancing a political, racial and ideological cause, n

Stephen John Port

Name

Stephen John Port

Year

2016

Notes

Murdered Gabriel Kovari, 22, from Lewisham, Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, Kent, Anthony Walgate, 23, from Dagenham, east London, and Jack Taylor, 25, also from Dagenham, between August 2014 and September 2015. Port, a former chef, met his victims on dating websites, including Grindr, and coaxed them to his home in Barking for sex before giv

Leroy Campbell

Name

Leroy Campbell

Year

2017

Notes

Raped and murdered nurse Lisa Skidmore by strangling with a ligature in Bilston and attempted to murder her mother by strangling with a vacuum cord, who came to visit her daughter at her home. He tried to cover his tracks by setting fire to Lisa's room and leaving items with other peoples DNA on them. He had been released four months earlier after

Billy White

Name

Billy White

Year

2017

Notes

Murdered his girlfriend Lucy Ayris in 2015 and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 15 years by Judge Gerald Gordon at the Old Bailey on 11 May 2016. White later murdered fellow prisoner Brett Rogers (himself a convicted murderer) whilst a prisoner at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire. Judge Robert Juckes QC gave White term a whole-life order f

John Wass

Name

John Wass

Year

2017

Notes

John Wass, 69 was convicted of 17 counts of historical child abuse which included rape, sexual assault and sexual exposure against 3 different victims going back to the 1960s. Was handed a whole-life tariff at Derby Crown Court on 1 August 2017 after a 3-week trial. Wass is currently the only serving whole-life prisoner who has never been convicted

Alan Maidment

Name

Alan Maidment

Year

2017

Notes

Murdered Thomas Jones, who he believed had assaulted his girlfriend by stabbing him 32 times in Swinton before placing items on top of the body and setting it on fire. He then watched the blaze on a bench across the road while firefighters tackled the blaze before being arrested. It was only nine months after he was released on licence from a previ

William John McFall

Name

William John McFall

Year

2018

Notes

Convicted of the murder of Quyen Ngoc Nguyen alongside his accomplice Stephen Unwin, although he was cleared on the rape charge. William McFall, 51 was previously convicted of murder of a pensioner in Northern Ireland in May 1996 and was released on licence in 2010. Was sentenced at Newcastle Crown court alongside his accomplice by Mr Justice Morri

Stephen Unwin

Name

Stephen Unwin

Year

2018

Notes

Convicted of the murder and rape of Quyen Ngoc Nguyen. He trapped her before subjecting her to sexual and physical assault before driving her to a remote location and setting her on fire. He then drove to a cash machine and withdrew money from her bank account while she burned. Stephen Unwin, 40 had previously been convicted of murdering a pensione

John Taylor

Name

John Taylor

Year

2018

Notes

He was given a second life sentence after admitting 16 sexual offences spanning from 1977 to 1987, a host of crimes including rape, buggery, grievous bodily harm and several other offences. Was originally jailed for life in June 2002 for the murder of Leanne Tiernan and told to expect to spend the rest of his life in prison, although four years lat

Mark Fellows

Name

Mark Fellows

Year

2019

Notes

After a 26-day trial, Mark Fellows, 38, was found guilty of murdering Paul Massey, 55, shot outside his home in 2015 as part of an ongoing feud between rival gangs the A Team and the 'Anti' or 'AA Team'. Fellows was also found guilty of shooting dead John Kinsella, a friend of Massey from Liverpool, three years later. The appeal against his sentenc

Khairi Saadallah

Name

Khairi Saadallah

Year

2021

Notes

Khairi Saadallah was sentenced to a whole-life order in January 2021 for murdering three people during the 2020 Reading stabbings. Saadallah murdered James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49 and Joe Ritchie-Bennett, 39 on 20 June 2020 in Forbury Gardens, a public park located in Reading, Berkshire, UK. The presiding judge Mr Justice Sweeney said: "During

Wayne Couzens

Name

Wayne Couzens

Year

2021

Notes

Wayne Couzens was sentenced to a whole-life order on 30 September 2021 for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard, on 4 March 2021. Couzens, a serving Metropolitan Police officer, falsely arrested Everard in London and proceeded to kidnap and transport her to Dover in Kent. Subsequently, Couzens raped Everard, before strangling he

David Fuller

Name

David Fuller

Year

2021

Notes

David Fuller was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole-life order on 15 December 2021 for the murders of Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pearce, 20, in Royal Tunbridge Wells in 1987, to run concurrently with a sixteen-year sentence for the sexual abuse of more than 100 female corpses in two hospital mortuaries in Kent, over a period of 12 years

Anthony Russell

Name

Anthony Russell

Year

2022

Notes

Triple murderer who raped a pregnant woman before strangling her, as well as murdering a mother and son. He was sentenced to a whole-life order in March 2022. The sentencing judge, Mr Justice Wall, described Russell as "exceptionally dangerous and manipulative".

Ali Harbi Ali

Name

Ali Harbi Ali

Year

2022

Notes

Murdered David Amess, a long-serving Conservative MP, in Leigh-on-Sea on 15 October 2021. Ali, an Islamic State supporter, stabbed Amess more than 20 times while attending a constituency surgery. Amess received treatment at the scene for his injuries, but was later pronounced dead. Ali, who pleaded not guilty but did not dispute much of the evidenc

Hakeem Kigundu

Name

Hakeem Kigundu

Year

2022

Notes

Kigundu, an illegal immigrant from Uganda, set fire to a block of flats in Reading where he lived after being given an eviction notice due to his persistent anti-social behaviour. The fire killed two men: Richard Burgess and Neil Morris, and seriously injured two others.

Damien Bendall

Name

Damien Bendall

Year

2022

Notes

Bendall was sentenced to a whole-life order after admitting the murder of a pregnant woman, her two young children and their school friend at a house in the Derbyshire town of Killamarsh in September 2021. He also confessed to the rape of one of the children prior to the murders.

Louis de Zoysa

Name

Louis de Zoysa

Year

2023

Notes

Louis De Zoysa shot and killed Metropolitan Police officer Sgt Matt Ratana whilst he was acting in the execution of his duty, after concealing an antique gun in his jacket. De Zoysa fired four shots, hitting Sgt Ratana in the chest and leg, whilst handcuffed at Croydon Custody Suite. It was the first whole-life order handed down whilst TV cameras w

Lucy Letby

Name

Lucy Letby

Year

2023

Notes

After a trial which lasted nearly a year, Letby was convicted of murdering seven new-born babies and attempting to murder six others by injecting insulin and air whilst serving as a NHS nurse in the neonatal ward in the Countess of Chester Hospital during 2015 and 2016. Letby, who was not in court to hear her sentence, received a whole-life sentenc

Lawrence Bierton

Name

Lawrence Bierton

Year

2023

Notes

Convicted of a third murder whilst out of prison on licence, Bierton was given a whole-life order on 20 December 2023. He had been convicted in 1996 of the murder of two sisters.

Name	Year	Died	Notes
Jeremy Thorpe Wing	2002		Wing, who was 61 when sentenced, was found guilty of sexually abusing two children, who were seven when the abuse began. He was also reportedly facing charges over the abuse of a third child. Police raided Wing's home discovering toys, motorised go-karts, water pistols, video games, and footage of Wing and another man, Brian Hogg, abusing children.
Paul Glen	2004		Glen was employed as a hitman and in 2004 had been hired to murder Vincent Smart, but instead he murdered Smart's friend Robert Bogle. After his trial, it was revealed that Glen had a previous conviction for murder, having killed hotelier Ivor Usher in February 1989, and served 13 years of his original life sentence before being paroled in 2002, ki
Andrzej Kunowski	2004	2009	A Polish murderer who was imprisoned in England. Kunowski murdered a 12-year-old Macedonian girl, Katerina Koneva, in West London in May 1997, but was not arrested and charged until six years later. Kunowski served just over five years of his life sentence before he died from heart failure in Frankland Prison on 23 September 2009. He was identified
Phillip Peter Heggarty	2004		Convicted of murdering his friend, Derek Bennett, in a hammer attack in 2003. He later set fire to a Renault Laguna after placing Bennett's body in it—his body was so severely burnt that it had to be identified by dental records. The trial judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans, sitting at the Crown Court in Swansea imposed a whole-life order, which the
Thomas Hamilton McDowell	2004		McDowell murdered and dismembered German trainee rabbi Andreas Hinz, then dumped his head, limbs and torso in bin bags in Camden, North London. McDowell, who suffered abuse as a child and grew up hating homosexuals, admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility, but was convicted of murder following a trial at Southwark Crown Court.
Mark Martin	2005		He killed three homeless women in Nottingham between December 2004 and January 2005, declaring his ambition to become "Nottingham's first serial killer". Two of his accomplices were convicted alongside him in 2005 but received 14 and 25-year minimum terms.
Mark Richard Hobson	2005		Murdered his girlfriend Claire Sanderson at their home near Selby in July 2004, before luring her twin sister Diane there and murdering her several days later. He then fled the property and murdered an elderly couple who lived several miles away before going on the run. He was arrested soon after, when he was spotted hiding in bushes near a petrol
William Horncy	2005		Achieved notoriety in 2005 when he was convicted of murdering millionaire Amarjit Chohan as well as Chohan's wife, mother-in-law and two sons in an effort to take over the Chohan family freight business to ship drugs into the UK. The bodies of Chohan's two sons have not been found.
Kenneth Regan (né Kenneth Avery)	2005		Achieved notoriety in 2005 as he too was involved, with William Horncy, in the murder of millionaire Amarjit Chohan as well as Chohan's wife, mother-in-law and two sons, whose bodies were never found. He was a former drug dealer who became a Police supergrass to gain early release from prison for a prior crime. He murdered Amarjit Chohan and his fa
Paul Culshaw	2005	2013	A murderer and sex offender. In 2005, he was found guilty of murdering Clare Benson-Jowry the previous year. After his trial, it was revealed that Culshaw had previous convictions for crimes including rape, attempted murder and indecent assault. Culshaw was found collapsed in his cell at Frankland Prison on 5 February 2013 and died the following da
Glyn Trevor John Dix	2005	2014	Found guilty of murdering his wife Hazel, having stabbed her to death and chopped her body into 16 pieces at their home in Redditch, Worcestershire in the previous year. It was then revealed that he had already been out of prison on life licence following a previous conviction for murdering a woman during the 1970s. Dix died in 2014, aged 60.
Daniel Julian Gonzalez	2006	2007	A drug addict, inspired by horror films, who stabbed four randomly chosen people (including three pensioners) to death over a 24-hour period and tried to kill two more. His mother had previously begged for help from the authorities, rhetorically asking in one letter if her son might "have to commit murder" before anyone would do something about him
Viktor Dembovskis	2006		A Latvian immigrant who raped and murdered a 17-year-old female neighbour as she walked home from school in West London, before fleeing back to Latvia. Dembovskis was deported from Latvia after a joint operation by British and Latvian police. It was revealed that Dembovskis had a string of convictions in Latvia stretching back 25 years including tw
John McGrady	2006		A convicted rapist who strangled and mutilated 15-year-old neighbour Rochelle Holness in Catford, London, in September 2005 before dumping her dismembered remains in bin bags. He slit his wrists and confessed to his girlfriend after the attack, but his suicide bid was thwarted and he was brought to justice, admitting the murder in court several mon
Stephen McColl	2006		Underworld figure who worked as an informer for Greater Manchester Police after three other police forces rejected his services. Convicted in August 2006 of two murders. The first victim, Michael Doran, was a member of his gang whom he suspected of being an informer for the Manchester police, prior to becoming one himself. The second, Philip Noakes
Rahan Arshad	2007		Taxi driver who murdered his wife and three children, who were found dead in their home in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, Greater Manchester, in August 2006.
Andrew Randall	2007		Murdered his seven-week-old daughter Jessica Randall in Kettering, Northamptonshire, in 2005 after he threw the baby girl headfirst into a settee in their home after abusing her since birth. He told officers he resented her since she was born and he was handed a whole-life tariff as a result at Northampton Crown Court. There were concerns about Jes
David William Tiley	2007		Two months after he was released from prison for a double rape, he stabbed to death his disabled fiancée Susan Hale, who suffered from a degenerative brain disorder, and then killed her carer Sarah Merritt when she arrived at their home in Southampton.
Michael Smith	2007		Murdered 35-year-old Peter Summers in an attack with a bottle in Stoke-on-Trent in August 2006. He was convicted of this murder nine months later. Smith had been previously convicted of murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend Sheila Deakin in 1975 and spent 30 years in prison, only being released on parole 12 months before he went on to murder Peter S
Steven Gerald James Wright	2008		The Suffolk Strangler, who was jailed for life in February 2008 after being found guilty of murdering five women, whose bodies were found in the Ipswich area during December 2006. See also: Ipswich serial murders.
Levi Bellfield	2008		Attacked three young women, killing two and seriously injuring the third in sexually motivated attacks in London and Surrey between February 2003 and August 2004. He was first arrested in November 2004, before being re-arrested and charged in March 2006. After he was convicted of these murders, Surrey Police identified him as the prime suspect in t
Douglas Gary Vinter	2008		Strangled and murdered his wife Anne White in Normanby, Teesside, on 10 February 2008. He admitted the murder in court two months later, and was already on life licence having spent nine years in prison for the murder of local railway worker Carl Edon in August 1995. Vinter applied to the High Court for lesser minimum term to be set, but this appea
Simon Wilson	2008		Was sentenced to a whole-life sentence in 2008 after admitting grievous bodily harm, sexual assault and attempted rape after attacking his 71-year-old victim. Was deported back to Britain from Australia where he lived for most of his life, for committing murder and rape, after serving 16 years.
Marc Chivers	2009		Strangled his ex-girlfriend Maria Stubbings with a dog lead in December 2008. He pleaded guilty to the crime in court 12 months later and was jailed for life. He had previously served 15 years in prison in Germany for murdering another ex-girlfriend and was deported to the UK in January 2008. Chivers had a string of previous convictions for some ex
Peter Britton Tobin	2009	2022	Convicted in 2009 of the murder of Dinah McNicol in Margate, Kent, in 1991. Tobin had already been convicted in Scotland for the murder that same year of Vicky Hamilton, whose body was found in Tobin's back garden alongside that of McNicol, and also for the murder of Angelika Kluk in a Glasgow church in 2006. Tobin was already serving two concurren
Royston Jackson	2010	2019	Convicted of the murder of convicted sex offender Gordon Boon in October 2008, after being released on licence two years earlier following his conviction for another murder he had committed in 1989. He died from cancer at HMP Whitemoor in March 2019.
Peter William Sutcliffe	2010	2020	The Yorkshire Ripper, who murdered 13 women and attacked seven others between 1975 and 1980 in West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. He was caught by chance while sitting in his car with a sex worker and potential victim in Sheffield in January 1981, and made a full confession to each attack to the police, even though they had only arrested him fo
Ernest Leslie Wright	2010	2020	Convicted of the execution-style murder of Neville Corby (aged 42) with a shotgun and the simultaneous attempted murder of Corby's partner. Had been previously convicted of murder in 1971 and served 26 years. Died from heart failure and pneumonia on 4 September 2020 following a fall in HMP Wakefield.
Anthony John Hardy	2010	2020	Killing of three women to "satisfy depraved and perverted needs". Police believe he was involved in six other murders of women but these cases have not been brought to court.
John Nigel Maden	2010		Drugged, raped and killed his 12-year-old niece Tia Rigg at his Manchester home after luring her there on the pretext of babysitting. He then phoned police and told them that he had murdered her "because he felt like it". He had previously developed an obsession with violent pornography and images of extreme child abuse.
Desmond Lee	2010		Convicted in 2010 of murdering his lover Christopher Pratt by breaking his voice box and a bone in his neck in his flat in Ravensthorpe, then using his credit cards to go on a shopping spree before dumping his body. Served 14 years of a life sentence from 1990 to 2004 after murdering his landlady Shirley Carr after she taunted him over the breakdow
Wilbert Anthony Dyce	2010		Convicted in 2010 of a 1982 triple murder in which a mother and her two young daughters were killed. The murder was initially treated as racially motivated, as racist slogans had been spray-painted over the walls of the family's home, but Dyce was eventually linked to the crimes by advances in DNA technology, and it was established that the hallmar
Stephen Shaun Griffiths	2010		Convicted of murdering three women in Bradford, one murder involving the use of a crossbow. He dismembered his victims before dumping the remains in the River Aire. Griffiths also claimed to have cannibalised his victims, though this has never been definitively proven.
John Sweeney	2011		Convicted of murdering two women whose bodies were found mutilated and dumped in canals in London and the Netherlands.
George Norman Johnson	2011		Convicted in 2011 of the premeditated murder of 89-year-old Florence Habesch in February that year to fund his drug addiction. Wolverhampton-born Johnson had already served 20 years of a life sentence imposed in 1986 for the murder of a man in a burglary at his house.
John William Cooper	2011		Convicted in 2011 of two double murders in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the first in 1985 and the second in 1989.
David Baxendale	2011		Convicted in March 2011 of the murder by repeated stabbing of a woman in Nutfield, Surrey, in June 2010. Baxendale had a history of violence stretching back some 20 years. In 2001 he was convicted of murder in Spain, where he had repeatedly stabbed his victim and for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He served seven years of his sentenc
Andrew Dawson	2011		Convicted of the murder of John David Matthews and Paul Hancock in July 2010. He was out on licence from a previous murder conviction committed in the 1980s.
David Cook	2012	2020	Convicted in 1988 of strangling a young woman to death, Cook was released in 2009. Cook strangled a second victim when on parole, and the second judge gave him a whole-life tariff. He died on 24 December 2020.
David Robert Oakes	2012	2013	Convicted and sentenced to a whole-life term for the double murder, using a double-barrelled shotgun, of his ex-girlfriend Christine Chambers and their two-year-old daughter following the breakdown of their relationship and just hours before a custody hearing to agree access rights to their daughter. Christine had been assaulted over a period of se
Stephen Farrow	2012	2023	Farrow, a vagrant with a history of psychiatric illness, was convicted of the murders of Betty Yates (aged 77) and John Suddards (aged 59). Mr Justice Field, sentencing, said: "The sentence for murder is a mandatory life sentence and in respect of each count I pass a life sentence. I next have to consider whether you should be made the subject of a
Mark Leonard Bridger	2013		Bridger was found guilty of abducting and murdering five-year-old April Jones, who was last seen alive on 1 October 2012, in Machynlleth, Wales. He claimed to have accidentally run her over while driving and that he could not remember where he had hidden her body due to being intoxicated. On 30 May 2013, he was found guilty of abduction, murder and
Dale Christopher Cregan	2013		Cregan murdered Police Constables Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone, two Greater Manchester Police officers, in a gun and grenade attack on 18 September 2012. He also pleaded guilty to two separate killings of two members of the same family earlier in 2012, as part of a gangland feud in Manchester. Cregan received a whole-life prison term on 13 June 201
Gary David Smith	2013		Smith, along with accomplice Lee Newell, murdered convicted child killer Subhan Anwar in his cell at HMP Long Lartin on 14 February 2013 by strangling him with tracksuit trousers. Smith was already serving a life sentence for a previous murder committed in 1998. He received a whole-life sentence on 23 September 2013.
Lee William Newell	2013		Convicted alongside Gary Smith for the February 2013 murder of convicted child killer Subhan Anwar in his cell at HMP Long Lartin. Newell was already serving a life sentence for a previous murder committed in 1988 and received a whole-life sentence on 23 September 2013.
Jamie Reynolds	2013		Pleaded guilty to murdering 17-year-old Georgia Williams after luring her to his home in Wellington, Shropshire, in May 2013. He then dumped her body near Wrexham, North Wales, where it was found just after his arrest in Glasgow several days later. In 2008 Reynolds tried to strangle a girl, but this merely resulted in a final warning when police in
Anwar Daniel Rosser	2014		"Psychotic, bullying alcoholic" 33-year-old Anwar Rosser, a former soldier, murdered sleeping four-year-old Riley Turner in a "savage and sadistic" attack on 20 January 2013 while Rosser was staying at the Turner family home. The motive for the killing remains unknown. He admitted the murder in court a year later and was sentenced to life in prison
Ian John McLoughlin	2014		Ian McLoughlin committed his first killing in 1984, when he bludgeoned 49-year-old Len Delgatty with a hammer before strangling him. The jury chose to convict him of manslaughter (rather than murder) on 19 September 1984, and he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. On 27 June 1985, this was reduced to eight years on appeal. In September 1990, ju
Michael Olumide Adebolajo	2014		On the afternoon of 22 May 2013, a British Army soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was attacked and killed by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, south-east London. Both men were Muslim converts. Twenty-nine-year-old Adebolajo was found guilty of Rigby's murder on 19 Dec

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