Baby-killer Lucy Letby told one worried mum 'Trust me, I’m a nurse'

18 August 2023 , 12:14

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Lucy Letby told a worried mum 'Trust me, I'm a nurse' (Image: MEN Media)

Lucy Letby told one worried mum “Trust me, I’m a nurse”. But she was a serial killer “playing God” on a neonatal ward, attacking defenceless premature babies.

Prosecutors described her as “cold, calculating, cruel and relentless” and “a poisoner at work”. They accused her of injecting air and insulin into the bodies of the tiny infants and over-feeding their delicate stomachs with milk. . On Friday, August 18, Letby was convicted of murdering seven helpless babies in her care, and trying to kill six more. She was also found not guilty on two further attempted murder charges.

Her year-long murder spree started in June 2015. She struck most often on night shifts, hovering alone on the ward over sleeping babies. She faced a total of 22 charges, accused of murdering seven babies and trying to kill ten more at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

They included three sets of twins and two of three triplets. It was claimed she attacked some infants on multiple occasions. When investigators later looked at staff shift patterns, it became clear she was the only nurse working when all 17 children were harmed.Letby was said to have targeted her final three victims in June 2016 after returning to work from a holiday in Ibiza.

Letby's year-long murder spree started in June 2015 (Chester Standard / SWNS.com)

Earlier she had texted a friend saying: "Probably be back in with a bang lol”. Within 72 hours of that message, two babies were dead, a third survived. It was claimed by that point in time she had "got away with so much" she was "completely out of control”. She believed “she could pretty much do whatever she wanted”.

Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him

The jury heard she had tracked the parents of her victims on social media (PA)

The jury heard she had tracked the parents of her victims on social media. And she was said to have kept souvenirs of her crimes, including children’s medical notes. Also found at her home after her arrest in 2018 was a post-it note filled with scrawled handwritten phrases including: “I am evil, I did this” and “I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough. I am a horrible evil person”.

The word “hate” was circled in black ink. Her defence barrister Ben Myers KC said the note was not a confession but the "anguished outpouring of a young woman in fear and despair”. Suspicions about Letby were first raised as early as June 2015, after the death of a third child, Baby D. But it was another year before she was removed from the ward, by which time seven babies were dead.

It took a further 11 months before the police were called in and Letby was later arrested at her house in Chester in July 2018. After moving back to her parents home in Hereford, she was arrested twice more, in June 2019 and finally in November 2020, after which she was charged. For the first seven months of the trial at Manchester Crown Court she sat in the glass panelled dock, listening and making notes. When she gave her evidence in the witness box, she sobbed as she recalled being arrested at dawn and led away in handcuffs.

She denied harming any of the children, saying: “I only ever did my best to care for them - I am there to help and to care, not to hurt.” And she said she became suicidal and was diagnosed with PTSD after being accused.

The corridor within the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit (PA)

The nurse said just because she was on shift when all the babies collapsed “doesn’t mean I have done anything.” She told the jury the neonatal unit was a potentially unsafe environment as it was plagued with plumbing problems that led to raw sewage flowing from sinks.

And Letby blamed what the prosecution called a “gang of four” doctors for pointing the finger of suspicion at her. She referred to the medics, who included TV doctor Ravi Jayaram, as “bastards” in a hand-written note. Her defence team claimed the case against her was "fuelled and riddled by the presumption of guilt”.

Ben Myers KC told the jury to approach the case with “the presumption of innocence” and said there was “no direct evidence of her doing any of the acts alleged against her.” But prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said Letby was “cold, calculating, cruel and relentless”. He said she “gaslighted” medics, persuading them “what they knew, in their heart of hearts, to be utterly abnormal was just a run of bad luck”.

“You are a very calculating woman, aren't you, Lucy Letby?” he said. "The reason you tell lies is to try and get sympathy from people, isn't it?’ Killing these children got you quite a lot of attention, didn't it?”

Paul Byrne