Joanne Dennehy has become the first woman ordered to die behind bars by a judge, who told the murderer of three men she was "a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer".

Mr Justice Spencer decided on Friday that Dennehy's crimes were so exceptionally serious, that he became the first judge to sentence a woman to serve a whole-life term, following a dramatic hearing at the Old Bailey in central London.

But during the hearing Dennehy smiled and chatted to some of the three accomplices sat in the dock with her who were also sentenced.

The judge revealed the 31-year-old had told a psychiatrist that she killed "to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for it".

The mother of two was driven by a "sadistic lust" for blood, stabbing three men she knew to death within 10 days in Peterborough last March, before travelling to Hereford where she knifed two men at random in broad daylight within nine minutes of one another as they walked their dogs .

Dennehy, from Peterborough, had pleaded guilty to the three murders and two attempted murders.

Her first victim was a Polish man, Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, who was lured to a property in Peterborough via suggestive texts and then stabbed through the heart. He had come to believe Dennehy was his girlfriend, which led him to send a text to a friend that read: 'Life is beautiful.'

His body was dumped in a wheelie bin after he was stabbed through the heart, with Dennehy at one point opening the lid to show a 14-year-old girl the corpse.

Within ten days Dennehy used a pocket knife to kill her housemate John Chapman, 56, stabbing him once in the neck, twice in the heart and three times in the chest. Afterwards she told an accomplice: "Oops, I've done it again."

The third victim was her landlord and boss, Kevin Lee, 48, who Dennehy lured with the promise of sexual favours.

Lee was found in a ditch dressed in a black sequinned dress with his backside exposed. The judge, who said he had studied pictures of the corpse, said the body had been posed in this position in a ditch in a "final humiliation" and added: "The way in which his body was dumped was part of the playing out of your sexual and sadistic motivation."

The judge said Dennehy had written him a letter showing no remorse for the murders but claiming some for the attempted murders, which she blamed on "drunken cruelty" and "lack of respect for human life".

In Hereford on 2 April at 3.42pm she stabbed Robin Bereza from behind, who condemned her as "evil" after she was caught.

Nine minutes later she stabbed John Rogers, leaving him for dead and stealing his dog.

The court also heard that Dennehy became excited at reports that police were hunting for her.

She is only the third woman in English criminal history to be assessed to be so dangerous she can never be released.

The other two were condemned to die in jail by a home secretary – Jack Straw – rather than a judge. The first was Moors murderer Myra Hindley, who is now deceased. The second was Rosemary West, for her part in a campaign of at least 10 murders with her husband Fred.

The judge on Friday said the whole life term was merited because each of the three murders involved substantial degrees of premeditation or planning.

Spencer said Dennehy had a personality disorder and had been diagnosed as suffering from paraphilia sadomasochism, a condition in which sexual excitement is derived from pain and humiliation. He said she also lacked the normal range of human emotions.

Her accomplice Gary Stretch was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 19 years, for helping Dennehy dump all three bodies and for his role in the two attempted murders. He drove Dennehy as she scoured Hereford looking for men to attack.

Leslie Layton was sentenced to 14 years, and a third accomplice, Robert Moore, 55, who admitted assisting an offender, received three years.

Lee's wife Christina said: "We feel Joanne Dennehy brainwashed Kevin, causing him to make a bad decision, and he has paid for that with his life."

Bereza said he had been left a changed man by Dennehy's random attack. The retired firefighter said: "I'm not as confident as I used to be – I'm quieter and not my normal self."

Dennehy is the second person to receive a whole life term this week, and the second since the court of appeal cleared any doubt that ordering people to be jailed until they die is lawful.

On Wednesday Michael Adebolajo, the ringleader of the terrorist attack in which the soldier Lee Rigby was murdered, was ordered never to be released. That case was also heard in court two at the Old Bailey.