Lucy Letby's mum screamed 'I did it, take me instead' as baby-killer arrested
Serial baby killer Lucy Letby's mum screamed "I did it, take me instead" as her evil daughter was arrested, it has been claimed.
The 33-year-old neonatal nurse has today (Friday, August 18) been found guilty of murdering and attempting to murder premature babies. Following a 10-month trial at Manchester Crown Court, Letby was convicted of seven murders and attempting to murder six others in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital. She was not present as the verdicts were delivered.
Parents John, 77, and Susan, 63, were a constant presence during her trial - attending every day. They were so determined to hear all the evidence against their daughter that they relocated to Manchester from the cathedral city of Hereford, on the England-Wales border.
John and Susan Letby attended court regularly throughout the murder trial (PA)
Susan Letby was heard shouting in court as her daughter was found guilty of murder for the first time (PA)A source told the Daily Mail Letby's mum was distraught when she was arrested – wailing, crying and even telling police: "I did it, take me instead," in a desperate bid to protect her.
Investigators suspect Letby had told them very little details of her horrific crimes before they were laid out in front of them in court. As the guilty verdicts were returned, Mrs Letby broke out into tears which continued even after she had left the court. At one point she cried out: "You can't be serious. This cannot be right."
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Prosecutors alleged Letby was a ‘constant malevolent’ presence at all the deaths and collapses between June 2015 and June 2016. Opening the case in October last year, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said: “Prior to January 2015, the statistics in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester for the mortality of the babies in the UK were comparable to other like units,” Mr Johnson KC said. “However, over the next 18 months or so, there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses. These rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause.”
Prosecutors said the concern was due to the fact that the babies had deteriorated ‘unexpectedly’. Some of the babies who ‘seriously collapsed’ didn’t respond to ‘appropriate and timely resuscitation’, others ‘collapsed dramatically and then equally dramatically recovered’, and some who collapsed and recovered ‘defied normal experience’ of the treating doctors.
Mr Johnson said that babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly deteriorated, and sometimes a baby who had been sick but then was on the mend quickly became unwell for no apparent reason. The consultants searched for a cause, but noticed they all had one ‘common denominator’ - the presence of neonatal nurse Letby.
Lucy Letby's mugshot after her arrest (Cheshire Constabulary/AFP via Ge)Mr Johnson said the collapses and deaths of all 17 children were not ‘naturally-occurring tragedies’. He told jurors: “They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these 17 children.”
She was found guilty of deliberately harming the infants, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in various ways including by injecting air intravenously and administering air and/or milk into the stomach via nasogastric tubes. Letby denied all the allegations as she gave evidence in the witness box at Manchester Crown Court for 14 days during the trial, which began last October.
She denied doing anything harmful to any child and that the sudden collapses and deaths could have been due to natural causes, or for some unascertained reason, or from failure by others to provide appropriate care. The defence also said she was a “hard-working, dedicated and caring” nurse who loved her job.
Addressing the jury, Justice Goss said: “This has been a most distressing and upsetting case. The obvious care, diligence and sense of responsibility you have shown to your duties has been of the highest orders.” Letby, of Arran Avenue, Hereford, will be sentenced on Monday (August 21). Prosecutors have been allowed 28 days to decide a retrial on the remaining counts.
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