A nurse in a British hospital’s neonatal care unit was found guilty this Friday of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more.
Lucy Letby, 33, was charged with the murder of five boys and two girls and the attempted murder of five boys and five girls while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital in the North West of England between 2015 and 2016.
Letby was accused of deliberately harming newborn children in a variety of ways, including injecting air into their veins and pushing air or milk into their stomachs through nasogastric tubes.
She was also accused of poisoning babies by adding insulin to intravenous feeds and disrupting the assisted breathing intubation system.
Letby has denied all allegations.
A jury of seven women and four men deliberated for 22 days before reaching a verdict. One juror was dismissed for personal reasons when deliberations were in full swing, and the judge allowed the remaining jurors to reach a verdict by a 10-person majority instead of a unanimous vote.
The defendant was found not guilty of one charge of attempted murder and the jury failed to reach a verdict on several others.
During the lengthy trial, which began last October, prosecutors indicated that in 2015 the hospital was the scene of a significant increase in the number of premature babies who died or suddenly deteriorated in their health for no apparent reason. Some suffered “catastrophically severe failures” but survived with the help of medical personnel.
Prosecutors alleged that Lucy Letby was on duty in all cases, describing her as a “constant malevolent presence” in the neonatal ward when children passed out or died.
They needed that the nurse hurt babies in a way that left virtually no trace and in such a way that she was able to convince her colleagues that failures and deaths were normal.
The first baby reportedly victimized by Letby was a premature boy who died aged one day in June 2015. The prosecution alleged that the nurse injected air into his bloodstream.
In May 2017, the police launched an investigation into the death of babies in the hospital. Letby was arrested three times in connection with the death before being charged in November 2020.
Prosecutors reported that a post-it note was found at Letby’s home when she was arrested in 2018 – on which she wrote “I’m bad, I did this” – which was “literally a confession”.
Her lawyer, Ben Myers, insisted she was a “hard-working, dedicated and caring” nurse who loved her profession and that there was insufficient evidence that she committed any of the allegedly harmful acts.
He also argued that sudden organ failure or infant death could result from natural causes, or a combination with other factors, such as understaffing in hospitals or the failure of others to provide needed care.
Letby’s lawyer also claimed that four doctors blamed him for covering up defects in the neonatal ward.
Lucy Letby testified for 14 days and denied all allegations of intentionally harming one of the babies. “I’ve always tried my best to take care of them,” he said, adding, “I’m there to take care of them, not hurt them.”
She sometimes cried, justifying the amount of medical records she had at home on some of the babies she cared for.
However, on that green post-it shown in court, she had written: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose, because I’m not good enough to take care of them. I’m a evil and horrible person. I AM EVIL. I DID IT”.
Her lawyer argued that these were the haunted thoughts of a woman who had lost faith in herself and blamed herself for what happened in that hospital ward.
“A note says, ‘I’m not good enough,'” Myers emphasized.
Who did she write this for? It wasn’t for us, the police or this trial. It’s a note to itself. She wrote it for herself,” he insisted.
Source: DN
