Killer nurse Lucy Letby to appeal against all her convictions as court date set

23 February 2024 , 09:03

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Killer nurse Lucy Letby (Image: PA)

Child serial killer and former nurse Lucy Letby's desperate bid to challenge her convictions will be considered by the Court of Appeal at a hearing in April.

Lawyers for Letby, who was convicted of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others, will ask senior judges for permission to bring an appeal against all her convictions at the hearing in London provisionally listed for April 25, a judiciary spokeswoman has confirmed.

In August last year she was sentenced to 14 whole life orders. The 34-year-old from Hereford had an initial application to take forward her challenge refused by a single judge without a hearing last month. She will now try again to appeal and the bid will be heard by a panel of three judges at the hearing in nine weeks’ time. If judges again decline to give permission, it will mark the end of the appeal process.

Letby's offences took place at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit, where she worked as a nurse, between June 2015 and June 2016. The jury at Manchester Crown Court was unable to reach verdicts on six counts of attempted murder in relation to five children. She will face a retrial at the same court in June this year, on a single count that she attempted to murder a baby girl, known as Child K, in February 2016.

Letby posing with a newborn (Countess of Chester Hospital)

She was convicted of murdering babies

A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children who were the subject of the allegations.

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When she was due to be sentenced for her crimes back in August, Letby was branded "evil" and a "coward" by her victims' parents for refusing to appear in court. But judge Mr Justice Goss said he'd pass sentence at Manchester Crown Court as if she were present before him, and he'd send her a copy of his address.

In his sentencing remarks, which will be printed and given to Letby, the judge told her: "You acted in a way that was completely contrary to the normal human instincts of nurturing and caring for babies and in gross breach of the trust that all citizens place in those who work in the medical and caring professions."

Letby's arrest at her home (PA)

She joins the list of the UK's most twisted child killers, including the Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and the so-called Angel of Death paediatric nurse Beverley Allitt. Her trial heard dhe deliberately harmed the infants in various ways, including by injecting air intravenously and administering air and/or milk into the stomach via nasogastric tubes. It was also claimed by the prosecution she added insulin as a poison to intravenous feeds, interfered with breathing tubes, and inflicted trauma in some cases.

Kelly-Ann Mills