Lucy Letby fast-tracked to enhanced prisoner status - £33 a week to spend on chocolate

Lucy Letby has been fast-tracked to a privileged prisoner status that includes more time outside of her cell and extra cash to spend on chocolate and sweets, a source says. The former neonatal nurse, 35, is serving 15 whole-life orders at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others between June 2015 and June 2016. After being incarcerated at the category A jail, Letby was moved straight from her induction to its unit four, for enhanced prisoners who are given extra privileges, according to an insider.

While all inmates are usually categorised as standard prisoners before being considered for special treatment, Letby immediately joined the 25% of HMP Bronzefield's population in the enhanced prisoner unit, they added. The benefits of being upgraded to unit four include £33 per week to spend on chocolate and sweets in the prison canteen - compared to £19.80 for standard prisoners - and the opportunity to get a job and have double the number of visits as her less-privileged counterparts.

"Lucy is reserved and very quiet, she isn't really a problem with staff," the source told MailOnline.

"It grates with officers, though - she's committed the worst crimes possible and here she is on the enhanced unit with all the benefits that come with it.

"The real reason she is here is safety, she would be attacked on any other unit."

Letby, who has been in custody since November 2020 but received a whole life order in August 2023, has maintained her innocence and high-profile figures including Tory MP Jeremy Hunt have also called for her case to be re-examined.

Mr Hunt said evidence from 14 paediatric specialists which suggested the deaths of the newborns were linked to natural causes or mistakes in medical care "raised serious and credible questions" about the evidence presented in court to convict the 35-year-old.

An inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes is due to be published in early 2026 by Lady Justice Thirlwall, after the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, began considering evidence presented on her behalf from a panel of medical experts shedding doubt on whether the infants were murdered.

The former nurse, who worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital when the crimes took place, lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal.

Lawyers for the families of her victims have dismissed the medical panel's suggestion that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the babies' deaths as "full of analytical holes" and "a rehash of" the defence case heard during Letby's trial.

A review of deaths and non-fatal collapses at the Countess of Chester Hospital during Letby's time as a nurse between 2012 and 2016 is ongoing, alongside a separate probe into corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter at the medical centre.

The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for comment.