- British nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven
newborn babies and attempting to kill six others. - Letby used various methods
including injecting air, overfeeding with milk, and poisoning with insulin to
harm the babies. - Letby will be sentenced on
Monday.
A British
nurse was found guilty Friday of murdering seven newborn babies and trying to
kill six others at the hospital neonatal unit where she worked, becoming the
UK’s most prolific child killer.
Lucy Letby,
33, had been on trial since October last year, accused of either injecting her
sick or premature young victims with air, overfeeding them with milk or
poisoning them with insulin.
The
victims’ families said in a joint statement read outside Manchester Crown Court
in northern England said: “Justice has been served.”
But they
cautioned: “This justice will not take away from the extreme hurt, anger
and distress we have all had.”
The jury,
some of whom were in tears after they were discharged, deliberated for 22 days,
returning their first guilty decisions on 8 August, which could not be reported
until Friday because of a court order.
Letby
fought back tears in the dock after the initial verdicts were read out. She was
not in court Friday to hear the jurors’ final determinations.
They
eventually acquitted her of two counts, and could not reach decisions on six
others. Prosecutors have asked for 28 days to consider whether to seek a
retrial on those charges.
‘Betrayal’
Letby will
be sentenced on Monday and has reportedly told her lawyers she will not attend
court to hear her fate but she faces the prospect of never being released from
prison.
The nurse
was arrested following a string of deaths at the neonatal unit of the Countess
of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016.
Described
by the prosecution as a “calculating” woman who used methods of
killing that “didn’t leave much of a trace”, Letby had repeatedly
denied harming the children.
Senior
prosecutor Pascale Jones said:
Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families.
He called
the killings “a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her”.
The court
was told that colleagues raised concerns after noticing that Letby was on shift
when each of the babies collapsed, with some of the newborns attacked just as
their parents left their cots.
The
prosecution said Letby “gaslighted” her colleagues into believing the
string of deaths were “just a run of bad luck”.
‘Playing God’
Letby’s
final victims were two triplet boys, referred to in court as babies O and P.
Child O
died shortly after Letby returned from a holiday in Ibiza in June 2016, while
child P died a day after their sibling.
Letby was
also said to have attempted to kill the third triplet, child Q, but the jury
was unable to reach a verdict on the charge.
Prosecutors
said by that time Letby was “completely out of control”, adding that
“she was in effect playing God”.
Letby was
arrested and released twice. On her third arrest in 2020 she was formally
charged and held in custody.
During
searches at her home, police found hospital paperwork and a handwritten note on
which Letby had written: “I am evil, I did this.”
Letby later tried to explain the note by saying she wrote it after being placed on clerical duties following the death of the two triplets.
An undated handout image released by Cheshire Constabulary police force in Manchester on 17 August 2023, shows a handwritten note alongside the 2016 Diary of nurse Lucy Letby.
Defence
lawyer Ben Myers told the court Letby was “hardworking, deeply
committed” and “loved her work”.
Letby also
suggested that a “gang” of four senior doctors pinned blame on her to
cover for the hospital’s failings.
When she
gave evidence at the trial, she insisted she “always wanted to work with
children” and said it was “devastating” to find out she was
blamed for the deaths.
Police probe
Police are
investigating Letby’s entire tenure at the Countess of Chester and at the
Liverpool Women’s Hospital where she also previously worked, sifting through
more than 4,000 neo-natal unit admissions between 2012 and 2016.
Nigel
Scawn, medical director at the Countess of Chester, said the case had a
“profound impact” on the hospital’s patients but “significant
changes” have been made since Letby worked there.
The
government meanwhile announced an independent inquiry into Letby’s case, and
will look at how concerns by clinicians were dealt with by hospital management.
UK Health
Secretary Steve Barclay said it would help the victims’ parents and families
“get the answers they need” and “help… identify where and how
patient safety standards failed to be met”.
Her case
revived memories of two of Britain’s infamous medical murderers, doctor Harold
Shipman and nurse Beverley Allitt.
Shipman, a
general practitioner, hanged himself in prison in 2004, four years after being
convicted of killing 15 of his patients.
A later
public inquiry concluded he killed about 250 patients with lethal morphine
injections between 1971 and 1998.
Allitt – a
nurse dubbed the “angel of death” – was jailed for life in 1993 after
being convicted of murdering four young children in her care, attempting to
murder three others and other offences.
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