Lucy Letby, The Neonatal Nurse Who Killed 7 Babies In Her Care
Lucy Letby was awarded 'whole life order', harshest punishment under UK law, for killing 7 infants and trying to murder six more in the neonatal unit of Chester Hospital.
In June 2015, something really unusual was happening at the Countess of Chester Hospital in the England city. Before that month, there were about two or three baby deaths a year in its neonatal unit, but in June alone, three babies died within two weeks. Internal investigations began, and a common link was found — a neonatal nurse. But it was not before July 2018 that Lucy Letby was arrested, for the first time. By then, she had killed more, as investigation by the police would reveal. Charged in 2020, Letby's trial began in October 2022, and the UK’s Manchester Crown Court convicted her of killing seven babies in all and trying to murder 6 more between June 2015 and June 2016, UK media reported.
Justice James Goss imposed a ‘whole-life order’ on the 33-year-old. Considered the most severe sentence under British law, ‘Whole Life Order’ means there is no prospect of release, unless on most exceptional grounds. It differs from a life sentence, which gives the convicts a chance for parole after a minimum term has been served. Before Letby, only three women were awarded the sentence.
The Trial And Total Number Of Charges
Letby refrained from appearing in court to avoid facing the grieving parents. She was found guilty of the murders of infants after 10 months of trial, starting in October 2022. She faced a total of 22 charges pertaining to those killings as well as the attempted murders, and was eventually convicted of 14 of them, as per people.com. Several of her colleagues testified in court that they observed unusual behaviour on her part.
"This was a cruel, calculated, and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children," said Judge James Goss, who awarded her the sentence, as quoted by news agency Reuters. "There was a deep malevolence bordering on sadism in your actions... You have no remorse. There are no mitigating factors... You will spend the rest of your life in prison." The prosecution labelled Letby as a "calculating and devious" opportunist who "gaslighted" colleagues to cover her "murderous assaults", as per a BBC report.
How Lucy Letby Killed
Letby reportedly used to sicken the infants by injecting intravenous lines with air. She even poisoned some with insulin and force-fed others' milk, according to an AP report. In the case documents, the victims were given anonymity and listed only by letters, for instance Child A and Child B.
The parents of the babies narrated their ordeal in court. The mother of twins A and B, who were attacked by Letby in June 2015, said it was traumatic to difficult to recall the night when their baby boy was killed. Baby A died on June 8, and Letby tried to kill his sister 28 hours later. "Our minds are so traumatised it won't let us remember the night you killed our child," the mother of the twins was quoted as saying in the BBC report.
"After losing (Baby A) we were riddled with fear for his sister (Baby B). We are so thankful that we had that fear for her, as it saved her life... there was always a member of our family at her side watching," she added. "Little did we know you were waiting for us to leave so you could attack," she stated.
The unforgiving mother wished Letby lived a "very long life and spend every day suffering". The mother of child D, a premature baby, said the funeral was held a day before the due date, and that the organs of the baby were not donated because a postmortem had to be performed, according to Sky News.
As per the AP report, Letby murdered Child E and left Child F with learning deficiencies. The mother of a girl identified as Child I said in a statement read out in court: "I don’t think we will ever get over the fact that our daughter was tortured till she had no fight left in her and everything she went through over her short life was deliberately done by someone who was supposed to protect her and help her come home where she belonged."
Baby G was also left severely disabled by Letby. According to the BBC, the nurse was found guilty of trying to murder her twice, in September 2015. "I would pray for God to save her. He did. He saved her, but the devil found her," her father said, as quoted by BBC. Baby G is now registered blind, has cerebral palsy and progressive scoliosis.
How Lucy Letby Was Caught
In June 2015, after three babies died within two weeks, Dr. Stephen Brearey, the lead consultant at the neonatal unit of Chester Hospital, held a meeting with the unit manager, Eirian Powell, and the hospital's director of nursing, Alison Kelly. In October 2015, BBC reported, Brearey raised concerns regarding Letby, but no action was taken against her as the hospital management had no proof against her. She went on to attack five more babies, killing two of them, as per BBC.
A doctor who worked in the department told Channel 4 News that there had been "resistance on the senior management side to involving the police, but I don’t know quite why". A consultant of Indian origin, Dr. Ravi Jayaram, who played a key role in unfolding Letby's crimes, said that in February 2016 he saw the nurse standing and watching when Baby K seemed to have stopped breathing, as per the BBC report.
Dr. Jayaram had noticed a pattern between the deaths and Letby's presence. He repeatedly called for action, but was consistently ignored. Letby filed a grievance against her employers after she was taken away from the neonatal ward in the hospital, as per Nine News. The doctors were asked to apologise to her in writing.
In June 2016, yet another baby collapsed. Towards the end of the month, two of the three premature triplets died unexpectedly within 24 hours. Letby was the common link to all the deaths since she was on shift when it all happened. The hospital management removed her from clinical duties, and have her a clerical role in its risk and patient safety office.
Letby's Arrest And Police Probe
In March 2017, by then Letby was set to return to the neonatal department, the hospital trust approached the police and an investigation was launched against her. After her initial arrest in July 2018, Letby was arrested two more times by the police — in June 2019, and again in November 2020, Nine News reported.
During investigation, the police recovered records taken home by Letby from the hospital on the babies she targetted. Detectives also found out that the nurse had performed thousands of searches online to find information about the parents after the murders, as per Nine News.
While Letby's motive remained unclear, it was her diary notes that helped the 11-member jury come to their decision. The court was shown images of the diary that contained the initials of the deceased infants, People reported. There was also a document with the babies' names alongside texts that read "kill me" and "I don't know if I killed them. Maybe I did..." — words that were claimed to be Letby's.
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