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 more than 100 cases since introduction in 1983, although some of these prisoners have had their sentences reduced on appeal. By 2026, there were believed to be around 90 prisoners currently serving whole-life sentences in England and Wales.How long do murderers serve in prison?. Fullfact.org. Retrieved 18 September 2017.Gov.uk. Offender Management Statistics Quarterly: January to March 2017. See Excel file for "Annual Prison Population: 2017", Table 1.9a. Retrieved 18 September 2017. 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 government 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 from their sentences on compassionate grounds. This normally includes cases only when a prisoner is of great age or in ill health.
A number of prisoners have had their sentences reduced on appeal by the High Court.
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.
Imposed by Home Secretaries Successive Home Secretaries are known to have imposed whole-life orders for at least 23 murderers between 1983 and 2002 (note, this list is incomplete). In 2002, a former Junior Home Office Minister during the 1980s, Douglas Hogg, admitted to setting 600 tariffs between 1986 and 1989 on behalf of the Home Secretary.
NameYearDiedNotesJohn Thomas Straffen19522007Britain's longest-serving prisoner, who spent 55 years in prison until his death. Straffen was convicted of murdering two prepubescent 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 reprieved from a death sentence owing to learning difficulties, and instead remained in prison for the rest of his life. He died at Frankland prison in November 2007, aged 77. For the final five years of his life, he was the oldest prisoner known to be serving a whole-life tariff, following the death of Archibald Hall.Ian Duncan Brady (né Ian Duncan Stewart)19662017One 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, although that the same was not necessarily true of Hindley once removed from Brady's influence. By 1994, it had been confirmed that Brady was one of a small group of prisoners who had been issued with a whole-life tariff.
With accomplice Myra Hindley, he buried the children in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moor. 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. In 2001, he published a book on serial killing. The body of one of his victims, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, remains undiscovered on the Moor, despite Brady's and Hindley's own heavily guarded efforts to locate the remains themselves after they admitted two further murders in 1986; they both did, however, guide police to the buried body of 16-year-old Pauline Reade in 1987.
Brady never made a legal challenge against his whole-life tariff and made it clear long before his death that he did not want to be paroled. He died, aged 79, at Ashworth Hospital in May 2017.Myra Hindley19662002The 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 months after the abolition of the death penalty, and less than two years after the last execution in Britain – although more than 10 years had passed since the last execution of a woman in Britain. In 1986, she and Brady confessed to two more murders and returned to the moors to help police find the body of one of the victims, although the final body has still not been found.
Hindley's trial judge recommended she should serve at least 25 years in prison, feeling that unlike Brady there was a possibility that Hindley could be rehabilitated and suitable for parole – once removed from Brady's influence. The 25-year minimum term was endorsed in 1982 by the Lord Chief Justice. By this stage, reports suggested that Hindley was rehabilitating in prison and had found religion and rejected Brady and her past, but her tariff was increased to 30 years in 1985 and, finally, to a whole-life tariff in 1990, although she was not informed of the whole-life tariff until December 1994. In 1986, she and Brady had both confessed to two additional murders and helped the police locate one of the bodies the following year.
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 if she was ever paroled.
Hindley subsequently made three appeals against the whole-life tariff, but each appeal was unsuccessful, and she died in jail at the age of 60 in November 2002, just over a week before a long-anticipated High Court ruling which had been expected to secure her freedom. 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. Lord Longford was at the centre of the campaign for Hindley to be paroled, and condemned the media for their "exploitation" of Ann West, mother of victim Lesley Ann Downey. Ann West gave regular newspaper and television interviews to argue against any suggestion of Hindley ever being released from prison, and vowed to kill Hindley if she ever was released.
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, and Lucy Letby in 2023.Raymond Leslie Morris19692014Morris 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 attempted abduction of 10-year-old Margaret Aulton and creation of child pornography featuring his five-year-old niece. Although Morris was never officially confirmed to have been among the prisoners issued with a whole-life tariff, Morris remained in prison for 45 years until his death at HMP Preston on 11 March 2014.Donald Neilson19762011The 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 after being caught when two police officers he took hostage overpowered him in Nottinghamshire seven months earlier. In 2008, Neilson lost an appeal to have his tariff reduced to 30 years, the original minimum sentence recommended by the trial judge. He remained in prison until his death three years later at the age of 75, having served 36 years.Trevor Joseph Hardy19762012Trevor 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 stone and sexually assaulted. Sharon Mosoph, 17, was murdered in March 1976, and dumped in the Rochdale Canal at Failsworth, Oldham. She had been strangled and mutilated after walking by when Hardy was attempting to burgle a shopping centre at night. He was suspected of committing other murders. At the height of the hunt for the serial killer, 23,000 people were stopped and searched. The case has not been as widely reported in the media as the majority of comparable cases of multiple murder.