Lucy Letby, Beverley Allitt and haunting reality of killer nurses' lives behind bars

Vanessa Frake Harris - who worked in the prison service for 27 years - has drawn haunting parallels between serial killer nurses Beverley Allitt and Lucy Letby. She says that ‘Angel of Death’ Allitt, 57, was the ‘mirror image’ of Letby - with her appearance bearing no relationship to her crimes. She explains: “Beverley Allitt was one of the quietest, mouse-like people. She didn’t look like she would say boo to a goose. She was very subdued: the kind of person you would instantly put onto suicide watch.” Another former governor, Suzy Dymond-White, says she found Letby, 36, ‘doe eyed’. She says: “She looks quite sweet and innocent. All the pictures you see of Lucy Letby, she’s this angelic-looking young woman. You’d be happy to sit next to her on the bus.” The insights are revealed in an extraordinary new book, Inside: Women Behind Bars, which sheds new light on life within women’s prisons and the notorious offenders they house. BAFTA-nominated documentary filmmaker Jonathan Levi co-wrote the book with wife and fellow bestselling author Dr Emma French, gaining unprecedented access to former staff, governors and prisoners for their research. A nurse, Allitt attacked 13 children on the children’s ward at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire. Four died while others suffered lasting consequences. She was handed 13 life sentences for her crimes, committed during a 59 day period between February and April, 1991. Former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby is serving 15 whole-life prison orders for the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of eight others, between June 2015 and June 2016, at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Currently, she is an inmate at HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey. Emma says: “The parallels are striking and disturbing in equal measure. Like Letby, Allitt was a carer in whom parents had placed absolute trust. Like Letby, she used insulin and the injection of air into the bloodstream as weapons. Like Letby, her crimes came to light through a pattern that simply could not be explained by coincidence.” According to the book, Allitt - believed to have the psychiatric disorder Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, in which sufferers can fake or induce illnesses in others, stopped eating and drinking within days of arriving at HMP New Hall in West Yorkshire. She was eventually transferred to Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire, where she remains. Bev Butler, who joined the prison service in 1987, recalls: “She went on hunger strike; she was in a cell with the door open and we watched her 24/7. She was intimidating. Very smarmy, wanting to be liked. Everyone was told, ‘don’t accept anything from her, don’t take sweets from her, don’t take anything she offers,’ because you just never knew what she was capable of. She wasn’t allowed to mix with anybody, she was that dangerous. And she professed her innocence. She didn’t do anything. She hadn’t harmed them. She didn’t want to kill them...“ Letby’s character and how her refusal to attend her sentencing hearing - and hear victims’ statements - was viewed by staff, is also examined. Jo Taylor, an officer with 15 years in the prison service, recalls to the authors her experience of the serial killer at New Hall prison: “Apparently she’s very cocky, and pretty controlling. Lucy Letby says what she wants. She was on a hospital ward for her own protection. In the olden days you never refused a judge. Why not get her in a body belt and then put duct tape over her mouth? I would have Lucy Letby in there kicking and screaming.” The safety of both women is under constant threat because of the nature of their crimes. Vanessa explains: “Particularly with women, child killers are seen as the lowest of the low. A lot of women have had their children taken away from them because of their prison sentence, or may have lost babies or miscarried. When put in with a child killer, it can be very provocative. There are a lot of lifers who would absolutely delight in having the scalp of Lucy Letby.” Inside: Women Behind Bars is the fourth book in a series looking at life inside prison walls - the first examining the fate of women. Emma says: “Women make up about four per cent of the prison population, so it’s a very different experience from that of men. Most women are inside for non violent offences and are serving short sentences. "You'd think the fact they're in there for less time would be a good thing, but it doesn't give them enough time to break the cycle, to get away from an abusive partner, for instance. They just go back into the same situation. and then come back in [to prison] again. One of our contributors described women arriving in prison and asking whether their old room was free.” Female felons also seem to be of greater interest to the public. Emma explains: “Women who kill and who violate the role society thinks they play - that's lastingly haunting.” While the book includes first hand accounts of some of the country’s most notorious women prisoners, Jonathan says the stories of ordinary women behind bars are just as compelling. Explaining their findings, he says: “One of the recurring themes was that violence is treated differently when it comes to women. We've written about male prisons and prisoners where violence is really integral to what they’ve done. But we met Neah Tuohy. Her brothers brought her up and they taught her to defend herself if she was attacked. When she did, she got sent to prison.” Hairdresser Neah was 24 in May 2016 when she was jailed for 12 years for glassing a man in the face as he lay unconscious in the street on St Patrick’s Day in 2015 in east London’s Gants Hill, following a fight at a nearby taxi rank. Jonathan adds: “I think judges come down more harshly on women in sentencing when it comes to violence. There’s a societal expectation that women shouldn't be violent.” The author’s work means he’s met some of the 20th century's most high profile male killers, including Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and Robert Napper, who murdered Rachel Nickell. But he thinks people may be surprised by the number of convicted female paedophiles in the UK. One of the most high profile is former nursery nurse Vanessa George. Jailed in 2009 for sexually abusing toddlers and babies in her care, she gained parole in 2019. Jonathan says: “It’s presented as a crime mainly perpetrated by men, but there are a lot more female offenders than we like to think. I'm not sure if we are ready to confront that reality.” According to Suzy Dymond-White, female sexual predators, like George, are motivated by control. She says: “Women who sexually offend tend to be in a position of care or authority. And the victims are almost always people over whom they have control – children in their care, vulnerable adults.” While their specific acts were different - with Letby and Allitt’s crimes not having a sexual nature - she says that, similarly, their victims were children in their care. While Emma and Jonathan are not against jail as a punishment for female offenders, they both believe women’s prisons need to change. Jonathan explains: “They're not being treated in the correct way. This isn’t a story about monsters. It’s about a system that was designed primarily for men that has never been adequately remade for the women it also holds.” *Inside: Women Behind Bars - Behind Closed Doors of Notorious Women's Prisons by Emma French and Jonathan Levi is published by Blink Publishing (Out 18th June 2026, £10.99)