A British nurse has been found guilty of murdering seven newborn babies and trying to kill six others at the hospital neonatal unit where she worked, becoming the UK’s most prolific child killer.
Lucy Letby, 33, had been on trial since October last year, accused of injecting her sick or premature young victims with air, overfeeding with milk and poisoning them with insulin.
The victims’ families on Friday said in a joint statement read outside Manchester Crown Court in Northern England that they had been “quite simply stunned” by what had happened.
“Justice has been served,” they added, but cautioned, “This justice will not take away from the extreme hurt, anger and distress we have all had.”
The jury, some of whom were in tears after they were discharged, deliberated for 22 days, returning their first guilty decisions on August 8, which could not be reported because of a Court order.
Letby fought back tears in the dock after the initial verdicts were read out. She was not in Court on Friday to hear the jurors’ final determinations. They eventually acquitted her of two counts, and could not reach decisions on six others. Prosecutors have asked for 28 days to consider whether to seek a retrial on those charges.
Letby will be sentenced on Monday and has reportedly told her lawyers she will not attend Court to hear her fate but she faces the prospect of never being released from prison.
The nurse was arrested following a string of baby deaths at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016. Described by the prosecution as a “calculating” woman who used methods of killing that “didn’t leave much of a trace”, Letby had repeatedly denied harming the children.
“Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families,” said senior prosecutor Pascale Jones, calling the killings “a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her”.
The court was told that colleagues raised concerns after noticing that Letby was on shift when each of the babies collapsed, with some of the newborns attacked just as their parents left their cots.The prosecution said Letby “gaslighted” her colleagues into believing the string of deaths were “just a run of bad luck”. (Aljazeera)
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