The prison where Lucy Letby is now serving her sentence is due to give its inmates a night of opera.
Prisoners housed in HMP Bronzefield will join workshops that will lead to a performance. Letby, 35, who was found guilty in 2023 of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven more, is currently incarcerated at the prison.
She landed a life sentence for her crimes in January 2024. Opera firm and charity Pimlico Opera has been working in prisons since the 1990s, with the performance due to take place at Bronzefield, in Ashford, Surrey, on 6 March, as reported by NeedToKnow.
It will be a performance of Made in Dagenham, which follows the story of women machinists working for Ford in 1968, who launched a major strike for equal pay, which led to TUC making equal pay a key policy.
It was adapted into a movie in 2010 with Sally Hawkins and Rosamund Pike before later being performed at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End in 2014.
The charity puts on a number of workshops that culminate with the prisoners putting on a performance for an audience. On Tuesday (4 Feb), a panel of medical experts working with Letby’s defence team stated their belief that the 35-year-old did not commit the murders.
In a press conference this month, Chairman Dr Shoo Lee said “in all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care”, reports the BBC.
It is thought that the findings will be included in an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), requesting that the case be investigated as a potential miscarriage of justice.
Dr Shoo Lee said there were other explanations for all of the murder and attempted murder convictions, with the team of experts giving an “impartial evidence-based report”.
In 2019, the Prisoners’ Education Trust shared how a PhD researcher ended up bringing the works of Shakespeare to HMP Gartree. The Gallowfield Players’ 15 members included 14 who were serving time, with the group taking on Macbeth and Julius Caesar.
In 2018, the BBC explained how inmates from Her Majesty’s Young Offenders’ Institute Polmont in Scotland took part in ‘Motion’ in the Futureproof festival, with audience members asked to check their items before entering through locked doors.