LONDON. A neonatal nurse working at a British hospital was declared guilty on Friday of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others during a year-long period of deception. She preyed on the vulnerabilities of premature and sick newborns, as well as their anxious parents.
After 22 days of deliberation, the jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted 33-year-old Lucy Letby of killing the infants in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between 2015 and 2016.
Lead prosecutor Pascale Jones stated, “Parents were exposed to her morbid curiosity and her fake compassion. Too many of them returned home to empty baby rooms. Many surviving children live with permanent consequences of her assaults upon their lives.”
Jones further emphasized that Letby’s actions constituted “a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her.”
Letby was accused of deliberately harming the newborn infants in various ways, including injecting air into their bloodstreams and administering air or milk into their stomachs through nasogastric tubes. She was also accused of poisoning infants by adding insulin to intravenous feeds and interfering with breathing tubes.
Families of the victims expressed gratitude towards the jurors who had to endure 145 days of “grueling” evidence. In a joint statement read outside the court, they also thanked medical experts, consultants, doctors, and nursing staff who provided testimony during the “extremely harrowing and distressing” trial.
A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Monday. The jury, consisting of seven women and four men, deliberated for 22 days before reaching the verdict. One juror was excused for personal reasons during deliberations, and the judge later allowed the remaining 11 jurors to reach a verdict with a majority agreement of 10 people instead of a unanimous decision.
Letby denied all the charges. She was found guilty of seven murders and seven charges of attempted murder relating to six children. She was acquitted of one charge of attempted murder, and the jury could not reach a verdict on several others.
Some of the verdicts were announced earlier in the month but were subject to a reporting ban until deliberations concluded. Letby had shown visible emotions during earlier verdicts and left the courtroom crying when found guilty of two counts of attempted murder.
Throughout the lengthy trial, which began in October, prosecutors alleged that Letby was a “constant malevolent presence” in the neonatal unit when the infants collapsed or died. The prosecution asserted that she harmed the babies in ways that left minimal evidence and convinced her colleagues that the incidents were normal.
Police initiated an investigation into the baby deaths at the hospital in May 2017. Letby was arrested multiple times before being charged in November 2020. Prosecutors highlighted a note found at her home in 2018 where she had written “I am evil, I did this,” which they described as a “literal confession.”
While Letby testified for 14 days, denying intentional harm, her defense lawyer portrayed her as a “hard-working, dedicated, and caring” nurse who loved her job. He argued that there was insufficient evidence to support the harmful acts alleged.
Letby’s lawyer also claimed that four senior doctors implicated her to divert attention from failings in the neonatal unit.
Letby sobbed during her testimony and defended the medical records she kept at home for some of the babies she cared for. Her lawyer characterized her notes as the anguished writings of a woman who had lost confidence in herself and blamed herself for the ward’s events.
Gary P Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
