Laughter at life term

Joanna Dennehy told a psychiatrist killing "got moreish".

Expect to die in prison, cold-blooded killer told.

Serial killer Joanna Dennehy joined the ranks of Rose West and the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley yesterday when she became only the third woman to be given a "whole life" jail term.

The 31-year-old, who admitted she found killing "moreish", laughed as she was told she would die behind bars for murdering three men and attempting to kill two more.

West, who was convicted of 10 murders in 1995, and Hindley, who died in 2002, had their sentences imposed by the home secretary, making Dennehy the first woman to have one imposed by a judge.

Jailing her, Justice Spencer said she was a "a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer". She had told a prison psychiatrist that she killed to "see how I would feel", and continued when it "got moreish".

Dennehy, of Peterborough, murdered her victims - Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, Kevin Lee, 48, and John Chapman, 56 - in March last year. She then dumped their bodies in ditches with the help of two male accomplices.

Police launched a national manhunt when they discovered the bodies of Dennehy's landlord and two tenants, who had all been stabbed repeatedly through the heart, in Cambridgeshire.

It is thought Dennehy, who had a predilection for "coupling sexual activity with acts of violence", had lured them to their death with the promise of sex. She had then driven 225km to Hereford, where she repeatedly stabbed two dog walkers, chosen at random. One of the two was Robin Bereza, a retired firefighter, who described Dennehy in court as "evil".

Addressing Dennehy, who has been diagnosed with psychopathic disorders, Justice Spencer said: "Although you pleaded guilty, you've made it quite clear you have no remorse."

Gary Stretch, 47, also of Peterborough, and thought to be Britain's tallest serving prisoner at 1.9m, was found guilty of the attempted murder of Bereza and John Rogers in Hereford, at the trial at Cambridge Crown Court. The judge ordered him to serve life in prison, with a minimum term of 19 years. Stretch and Dennehy's other accomplice, Leslie Layton, were tried at the Cambridge court earlier this year.

Dennehy met Slaboszewski just days before his killing at a property in Peterborough on or soon after March 19. He had told friends he had met an "English girlfriend", and it is thought he went to meet Dennehy expecting sex.

She had stabbed Slaboszewski in the heart and stored his body in a wheely bin - at one point smirking as she showed the corpse to a teenage girl.

On March 29 Dennehy had gone on to stab Chapman at the block of bedsits they shared in Bifield, near Peterborough. The court heard Chapman, a Falklands War veteran, had described Dennehy to friends as a "man-woman".

Afterwards Dennehy had arranged to meet Lee - her landlord, with whom she was having an affair - before stabbing him to death. Later, Stretch and Layton had helped her transport the bodies.

Lee's body was discovered in a ditch near Newborough on March 30. On April 3 the bodies of Slaboszewski and Chapman were found in a ditch at Thorney Dyke, Peterborough.

Layton, 36, of Bifield, Orton Goldhay, was found guilty of preventing the lawful burial of two murder victims and perverting the course of justice. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.