Lucy Letby cries she’s ‘innocent’ after judge forces her to court for whole life order sentence
Lucy Letby has been sentenced to another life order for the attempted murder of a baby girl at the Countess of Chester hospital.
The child serial killer, 34, was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of the murder of baby known as Child K after the newborn was attacked at the hospital in February 2016.
It comes after another jury failed to reach a verdict on the allegation concerning the baby girl.
But the second jury took less than four hours to convict the nurse.
She is already serving 14 whole life terms for the seven murder and seven attempted murders, with two bids to kill one child, at the neo-natal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
Letby denied she had harmed Child K, adding that she had not committed any of the offences she had been convicted of.
Baby K’s mother speaks at the sentencing
At the sentencing, the devastated mother of Child K read her victim impact statement.
She told the court their world ‘fell apart’ the day their baby girl died, changing their lives ‘forever,’ the local Chester Standard reports from court.
She said it was ‘unthinkable’ someone could hurt Child K and that the pain of losing a child ‘never stops hurting.’
The mother said that going through the retrial was ‘heart-wrenching’ but the family had to do it so that their ‘little girl had a voice.’
She told the killer nurse: ‘You, Lucy Letby, will never hurt another child.’
The mum added that the death of their baby stripped them of a ‘happy-go-lucky and positive’ look at life.
Mr Justice James Goss told the court as he sentenced Letby that the attempted murder was a ‘shocking act of callous cruelty.’
As Letby was let down to the cells, she turned to the judge briefly and said ‘I’m innocent,’ the outlet reports.
How Letby was caught ‘virtually red-handed’
The court heard how Letby, from Hereford, targeted the ‘very premature’ baby after she was moved from the delivery room to the unit’s intensive care room in the early hours of February 17.
Child K was born at 25 weeks’ gestation and weighed just 692g and she was described as the ‘epitome of fragility.’
About 90 minutes after her birth, Letby dislodged the breathing tube through which she was being ventilated with air and oxygen.
Consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram caught her ‘virtually red-handed’ as he entered nursery one at about 3.45am and he then went on to intervene and resuscitate Child K.
Dr Jayaram told jurors he saw ‘no evidence’ that she had done anything to help the deteriorating baby as he walked in and saw her standing next to the infant’s incubator.
He said he heard no call for help from Letby or alarms sounding as Child K’s blood oxygen levels dropped.
From the witness box, Letby told the jury of six women and six men she had no recollection of the event described by Dr Jayaram and did not accept it had taken place, and denied the convictions.
Letby also denied the prosecution’s claims that she interfered with the infant’s breathing tube on two more occasions during the same shift to create the impression it was accidentally displaced.
Child K was transferred to a specialist hospital later on February 17 because of her extreme prematurity and died there three days later.
More than two years later on a late Friday night in April 2018, Letby searched on Facebook for Child K’s surname.
The Crown said it was part of a pattern of similar Facebook searches which showed Letby’s ‘fascination’ with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families.
Letby was initially charged with the murder of Child K but the charge was dropped in June 2022 as the prosecution offered no evidence.
In May, Letby lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions from last year.
Cheshire Constabulary said its review of the care of some 4,000 babies admitted to hospital while Letby was working as a neonatal nurse remains ongoing.
The period covers her spell at the Countess of Chester from January 2012 to the end of June 2016, and includes two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital in 2012 and 2015.
A separate corporate manslaughter investigation at the hospital by Cheshire Constabulary also remains ongoing.
The public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes on the unit is set to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on September 10.
A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children involved in the case.
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