IT’S the ‘Monster Mansion’ home to some of Britain’s most notorious female killers – with baby killer Constance Marten the latest high profile inmate joining the likes of Lucy Letby and murderous mum Beinash Batool.
Now a former inmate of HMP Bronzefield has lifted the lid on the hell she experienced behind bars at the Category A privately-run women’s prison in Surrey.
The prison has been under the spotlight since aristocrat Constance Marten became the latest child killer to join its ranks[/caption]
Lucy Letby is serving time there for murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others in a year-long reign of terror at the Countess of Chester Hospital[/caption]
Lei Bartley served three years in six prisons – including two stints in Bronzefield – for conspiracy to import drugs.
She was part of a gang of 13 drug smugglers, led by two corrupt British Airways baggage handlers, who imported £32million of cocaine through London Heathrow Airport.
Now a campaigner for prison reform and support for ex-prisoners, Lei tells The Sun that Bronzefield is not fit for purpose, with poor management, daily fights, inappropriate sexual relationships between prison officers and inmates, and guards who are too young and inexperienced to be working wings at such a high profile prison.
She brands it “uninhabitable” and rife with “young, hungry males” who prey on vulnerable lags.
“Bronzefield is a nightmare. It is uninhabitable for women in there,” she says.
“Just a day in Bronzefield is horrific… I am still traumatised by it.
“The conditions are horrific, the showers are appalling. There is no management in that prison – women are controlled by how many sanitary towels they can have.
“It was over-bearing with males – young, hungry males at that. I witnessed women having relationships with officers. I witnessed a lot of things on a daily basis.
“You see girls getting unlocked early for whatever is going on with them and the officers. It is a mess, a complete mess.”
Bronzefield’s roll call of former inmates reads like a who’s who of the most despised female criminals in Britain, from serial killer Rosemary West and spree killer Joanna Dennehy, to Mairead Philpott who became known as Britain’s most hated mum after setting fire to her home where her six kids were killed.
Beinash Batool, who murdered her ten-year-old step-daughter Sara Sharif, is incarcerated at HMP Bronzefield[/caption]
Beinash Batool, who murdered her ten-year-old step-daughter Sara Sharif, is incarcerated there, along with Sian Hedges, who, along with her partner, killed her 18-month-old son, and Nicola Edgington, serving time for murdering a grandmother in the street with a butcher’s knife.
The prison has been under the spotlight since aristocrat Marten became the latest child killer to join its ranks.
In July two inmates at the prison died within days of each other, causing outrage and concern among fellow lags.
But those tragedies do not surprise Lei, who now runs Beyond Barz to help ex-prisoners re-integrate into society.
“I was in prison for three years from 2018-2021 and during that time seven women died – some of whom took their own lives,” she says.
Former inmates at the prison have reported regular fights, drug use and being locked up in their cells for hours upon end, only being allowed out for meal times or yard exercise.
Gut-wrenching birth tragedy
In 2019 – while Lei was an inmate there – the prison was at the centre of tragedy and controversy after a teenager gave birth in her cell alone to a baby later found dead.
Although Rianna Cleary, who was 18 at the time, had pressed her “cell bell” to summon assistance, she was in labour for more than 12 hours before anyone came to help – by which time she was covered in blood with her dead baby Aisha.
She had bitten through the umbilical cord as she had no other way to sever it.
An inquest found that baby Aisha had died after ‘systemic failings’ contributed to her being delivered in a prison cell without medical assistance.
Bronzefield is a nightmare. It is uninhabitable for women in there… I am still traumatised by it
Lei Bartley
Serial killer Joanna Dennehy, who is serving a whole life term for murdering three men and stabbing two others, served part of her sentence at Bronzefield.
Lei says a lack of planning meant sometimes young women who had committed minor offences could end up sharing cells with women like Dennehy, convicted of the most serious offences.
She explains: “House Block 4 is where some of the high profile prisoners are. But they used to take some of the young girls and put them on that wing.
“It was a mess and horrific – young girls who have been arrested for theft, for example, and they could be put in a cell with someone who has committed offences against children.”
HMP Bronzefield also has a 24-hour healthcare unit – but Lei believes some of the inmates treated there during her time in prison should not have been in prison at all.
“There were little old women with oxygen masks on,” she says. “They just shouldn’t have been there.”
Women ‘violated’ by guards
Former inmates at the prison have reported regular fights, drug use and being locked up in their cells for hours upon end, only being allowed out for meal times or yard exercise[/caption]
Lei says a lack of planning meant sometimes young women who had committed minor offences could end up sharing cells with women convicted of the most serious offences[/caption]
Shockingly Lei claims that she saw a woman with Down’s syndrome put into the prison’s segregation unit because she tried to grab an officer’s keys.
“I know from my previous work as a mental health support worker that that can be part of her condition,” she explains.
But the issue that troubled Lei the most was the inappropriate relationships between male prison staff and some of the women prisoners.
“There were multiple, consistent inappropriate relationships – consented and non-consented,” she claims.
It was over-bearing with males – young, hungry males at that. I witnessed women having relationships with officers. I witnessed a lot of things on a daily basis
Lei Bartley
“Many of these women are vulnerable, so even if it is consented, you have no right.
“Let’s talk about the women that get violated in the prison on a daily basis, get looked at when they are coming out of the shower.
“It is disgusting… they are supposed to be protecting these women, because a lot of them are in prison because of men. I saw it myself, all ages, and it is horrific.
“I don’t understand why it is not being spoken about, why these things are being brushed under the carpet.”
Britain’s youngest female murderer
LOCKED up in Bronzefield is Britain’s youngest female murderer, Sharon Carr.
Known as ‘The Devil’s Daughter’, Carr was just 12 when she murdered 18-year-old Katie Rackliff at random as she walked home from a nightclub in Camberley Surrey in 1992.
The murder initially went unsolved until June 1994, when Carr attacked and stabbed another pupil at Collingwood College Comprehensive School for no apparent reason, and then repeatedly boasted about the murder of Rackliff to friends and family and in her diary entries made in prison.
She was convicted of the murder in 1997 and ordered to serve at least 14 years, but has remained imprisoned long after this minimum tariff expired due to her disruptive behaviour.
A Restricted Status prisoner, she has continued to regularly attack and attempt to kill staff members and fellow inmates and has regularly expressed her desire to kill others.
‘No support’
An inspection report of the prison carried out in 2022 found that like all prisons in or close to London, Bronzefield struggled to recruit or hold onto officers.
The director was aiming to make the selection process stronger so that recruits had a better understanding of the job. But staff were critical of the support they had received.
Lei says during her time there many of the prison guards were young and inexperienced.
“Staffing is a major problem – some of the staff are so young, they are like children with no life experience,” she says.
“There were some good officers in there. But everything I had prepared myself for before I went in – watching Bad Girls, or speaking to people who had been to prison – I just wasn’t prepared for that.
“I didn’t think I would have to go to prison and come out and build an organisation about the injustice of the system.”
Lei, whose own daughter was just two years old when she was jailed, believes Bronzefield should be closed and the system completely overhauled so that women serving short custodial sentences are supported and rehabilitated so they can successfully reintegrate into society.
Staffing is a major problem – some of the staff are so young, they are like children with no life experience
Lei Bartley
She explains: “I would like to see it turned into something like Hope Street in Southampton, which is like an alternative home for women who commit crimes, especially those who have children.
“It has the same kind of structure – you have a regime to follow – but you also don’t have the responsibilities of your life stripped away from yourself.
“I had to remind myself every day that my daughter was like a fly on the wall to balance the fact that I was still a mum. I would write her letters all the time so that I was present in her life.”
Research has shown that if your mother goes to prison when you are a child, you are 85 per cent more likely to end up in the justice system as an adult.
Lei believes there has to be a better way to achieve more positive outcomes for women who have committed low level crimes, and their children.
She says: “Prison is not how you rehabilitate women. Prison isn’t for anyone. But women who have committed low level crimes should not be there.
“People who have committed serious crimes should absolutely be in prison. But 90 per cent of the women I encountered during my time in prison didn’t need to be there, and they experienced things that create more trauma for their children, more trauma for their community.
“My daughter is still affected by my absence. Every day when I went to work she didn’t know if I was coming back again.”
The Sun has reached out to HMP Bronzefield for comment.
Britain’s worst female paedophiles
FEMALE paedophiles Vanessa George, Tracy Lyons and Tracy Dawber, who were convicted as part of the Plymouth child abuse case in 2010, also served time at Bronzefield.
George, Britain’s worst female paedophile, was given an ‘indeterminate’ prison sentence for abusing children as young as 18 months old at the Little Teds nursery in Plymouth, where she worked.
She swapped photographs of the abuse with other paedophiles she met online.
Dawber, of Southport, was convicted of sexually assaulting a five-month-old baby girl as her boyfriend filmed the abuse. She was jailed for four years.
Lyons, a mother-of-nine from Portsmouth, Hampshire, pleaded guilty in March 2010 to assault of a child by penetration, sexual assault of a child under 13, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and three offences of distributing indecent photographs of a child. She was jailed for seven years.
All three are now free.
