Rose West is serving a whole-life sentence after being convicted of the murder of 10 young women and girls. West, 51, was the only woman at the time serving a whole-life sentence.

She had helped her husband, Fred, dismember and bury their victims under the cellar or in the garden of their Gloucester home over the course of 16 years in the Seventies and Eighties. Fred West committed suicide while awaiting trial.

Tracie Andrews was jailed for life in 1997 after being convicted of stabbing her fiancé to death and then claiming that he was the victim of a road-rage attack. Andrews, now 38, was found guilty at Birmingham Crown Court of the murder of Lee Harvey, a 25-year-old unemployed bus driver. Mr Harvey was stabbed more than 30 times in a country lane near the home they shared in Alve-church, Worcestershire.

Bachan Kaur Athwal, 70, was given a life sentence last month and told to serve a minimum of 20 years for the “honour killing” of her daughter-in-law. Athwal, from Hayes, West London, was convicted of the murder of Surjit Kaur Athwal, who disappeared ten years ago after going to a wedding in India. The court was told that she had conspired with her son to kill his wife because she had had an affair.

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth