Former nurse Lucy Letby has denied tampering with the breathing tube of a premature baby in an attempt to kill him, although prosecutors say she was caught “virtually red-handed”.
Lucy Letby is on trial at Manchester Crown Court Attempted murder On 17 February 2016, an infant called “Baby K” died while in night care in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Letby, 34, convicted A jury convicted him last August of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others between July 2015 and June 2016. But the jury could not reach a conclusion on the charges relating to “Baby K” and a retrial was ordered.
The disgraced nurse attacked babies by injecting insulin, milk or air into their bodies, causing them to suddenly deteriorate, her first trial revealed. She was also accused of physically assaulting one child, causing liver injuries similar to a road traffic accident. In total, 17 babies – all but one premature – were killed or injured, according to Letby, Fox News Digital previously reported,
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Nurse Lucy Letby is shown in this undated leaflet issued by the Cheshire Constabulary. (Cheshire Constabulary via AP)
Letby is accused of removing the baby’s endotracheal tube less than two hours after he was born on Feb. 17, 2016. But in court Tuesday, Letby told jurors that she “didn’t do anything to harm (the baby).” Guardian The report said she was “not guilty of the offence of which she was found guilty.”
Prosecutors say a senior doctor, Dr. Ravi Jayaram, caught Letby “almost red-handed” when he barged into the nursery’s intensive care room at about 3:45 p.m. that evening. The doctor allegedly noticed that Letby did nothing to help as the baby’s blood oxygen levels dropped and alarms on the monitor stopped sounding.
Over the next few hours on the same shift, Letby allegedly attempted to interfere with the baby’s replacement tube on two more occasions.
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Letby, a former nurse at the Countess of Cheshire Hospital, was convicted on August 18, 2023, of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others in the hospital’s neonatal ward between 2015 and 2016. (Cheshire Constabulary via Getty Images)
Letby said in court that the hospital’s policy in such situations was to wait and see if the child “gets better on his own” rather than intervene immediately.
But nursing consultant Elizabeth Morgan said letting Baby K “self-correct” “would not be normal nursing policy” because she was born 15 weeks premature and weighed just over 1 pound.
When asked about Morgan’s statement, Letby said: “That’s his opinion,” The Guardian reports. “I can’t say if it’s right or wrong. I only know what the policy was in Chester.”
Prosecuting attorney Nick Johnson questioned whether the policy also applied to premature infants like Baby.
Killer paediatric nurse Lucy Letby to be retried for attempted murder
A sympathy card sent by nurse Lucy Letby to the parents of a murdered child. (Cheshire Constabulary/CPS)
“For any baby,” Letby replied. “There is no policy, but from my experience working at Liverpool Women’s (Hospital) and the Countess of Chester, you wouldn’t immediately put your hands in the incubator and start doing something because the baby often sorts itself out very quickly.”
“You are lying because Dr. Jayaram put you under anesthesia,” Johnson said.
“No,” Letby replied.
Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, 33, is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others. (Credit: SWNS)
Letby agreed that the baby had been given a morphine injection around 4 a.m. and that a portable X-ray showed the windpipe was in the correct position around 6:10 a.m.
But the baby became unconscious again 15 minutes later, about the same time prosecutors say Letby went into the nursery to take notes. After the baby was sedated for the third and final time, the breathing tube was moved a fifth of the way from where the doctor had put it, prosecutors said.
Johnson said, “That’s because you pushed it in, isn’t it?”
Letby replied, “No.”
Letby said the only thing she remembered about the baby was that she was born very premature. But Johnson said Letby’s Facebook records showed she had searched for the family’s last name two years after the baby left the neonatal unit and 10 weeks before her first police interview in July 2018.
A court sketch shows Lucy Letby appearing at Warrington Magistrates Court via video link. (SWNS)
Johnson said, “(Baby K) was a child whom, I suggest, you will remember very well.” Letby denied the allegation.
During cross-examination, Johnson asked Letby directly if she “tried to kill (the baby).”
“Next, you tried to create the impression that (the baby) was habitually desaturating her tube and overdrying it, correct?” he asked.
“No,” Letby replied.
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“Just like you tried to kill six other children,” Johnson said. “And you succeeded in killing seven other children?”
“No,” the former nurse said.
On February 17, 2016, Baby K was sent to a specialist hospital because she was born prematurely, The Independent reports. The baby died three days later. The prosecution did not allege that Letby caused her death.
Letby’s trial will resume next Monday, when the judge will begin summarizing the facts of the case to the jury of six men and six women, following closing arguments from defense lawyers and prosecutors.
