The life-means-life killers due to die in custody

Dale Cregan gave himself up to police (PA)

All but five of the 49 prisoners to have been handed whole-life sentences are in prisons rather than hospitals.

The latest among them is one-eyed serial killer Dale Cregan, jailed last year for the murders of four people including policewomen Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone in Manchester.

Cregan lured Pcs Hughes, 23, and Bone, 32, to their deaths in a gun and grenade attack, ambushing them after a bogus 999 call to a house in Hattersley.

He had gone on the run days before killing David Short, 46, in August 2012, after gunning down his son Mark Short, 23, at the Cotton Tree Pub in Droylsden three months earlier.

Last year saw the addition of child-killer Mark Bridger to the "whole lifers" list.

The former slaughterhouse worker was jailed for killing five-year old April Jones, who was snatched outside her home in Machynlleth, Powys, mid Wales, in 2012.

Bridger never revealed what he did with her remains, but tiny bones were found in the fireplace of his home at Ceinws. Despite one the biggest police hunts in British history, April's body has never been found.

Mark Bridger killed five-year-old April Jones

Fellow child-killer Levi Bellfield is also on the "whole lifers" list.

Former nightclub bouncer Bellfield is a double whole-life term prisoner - having been convicted of the murder of Walton-on-Thames schoolgirl Milly Dowler, while already serving a whole-life term for the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.

Milly, 13, was snatched from the street on her way home in March 2002.

Another notorious member of the list is Steve Wright, who was given a "whole life" term for the murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich

Social outcast Wright was told his "targeted campaign of murder" warranted the harshest punishment available to the judge.

He killed Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell between October and December 2006. All five were sex workers.

Serial killer Peter Tobin will spend the rest of his life in jail, where he is serving three life sentences for the murders of Vicky Hamilton, Angelika Kluk and Dinah McNicol.

Peter Tobin was convicted in 2009 of his third murder

Tobin, from Kent, is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering Polish student Miss Kluk, 23, and hiding her body under the floor of a Glasgow church in 2006.

He has also been convicted of murdering 15-year-old schoolgirl Vicky, of Redding, near Falkirk, in 1991, and 18-year-old Dinah in the same year.

Their bodies were found 17 years later, buried in the garden of his former home in Margate.

Homeless drifter Stephen Farrow was convicted in 2012 of murdering the Rev John Suddards, 59, and pensioner Betty Yates, 77 - he is also on the "whole life" list.

Both were viciously attacked in their own homes six weeks apart by Farrow.

Farrow was told he would die in prison after being convicted of the murders of the vicar in Gloucestershire and the retired teacher in Worcestershire.

Rose West who was convicted in 1995 after a killing spree with husband Fred saw 10 young women murdered (Rex Features)

The only woman on the list is Rose West, who was convicted in 1995.

A killing spree with husband Fred saw 10 young women murdered - eight within a two-year period.

One half of Britain's notorious serial killing duo, she helped torture, rape and murder an unknown number of women over a 20-year period.

West's husband was charged with 12 murders, but committed suicide in a Birmingham prison before his trial.

PA