France - World | English nurse found guilty of murders of 7 newborn babies

2023-08-18 12:55:00

After several weeks of deliberations, a 33-year-old English nurse was found guilty on Friday of the murders of seven newborn babies and the attempted murders of six others, a case that horrified the British.

“Cold, calculating, cruel and tenacious” according to the prosecution, Lucy Letby, worked in the intensive care unit of the Countess of Chester hospital, in the city of the same name (north-west of England).

Seven premature babies who died between 2015 and 2016

Between June 2015 and June 2016, seven premature babies suddenly died there, for no obvious reason, sometimes within hours of each other. Ten other babies had been close to death, again for no obvious reason, but had been saved.

The young woman, who said she was innocent, will know her sentence at a later date. She was accused of injecting air intravenously into newborn babies, using their nasogastric tubes to send air, or an overdose of milk, into their stomachs.

She would have added insulin to pockets of food solution, dislodged the breathing tube of a very premature baby, overfed a small victim by tube. Sometimes she combined several attacks. She was then 25 years old.

She was the only member of the medical staff still on duty during the brutal deterioration of the newborn babies, Judge James Goss had pointed out, before the 12 jurors began to deliberate on July 10.

She was accused of having tried to kill some of them on several occasions, and 22 charges were brought against her, seven for murder and 15 for attempted murder on 10 babies. The trial started on October 10 in Manchester (north). The babies were only identified by letters, from A to Q, to protect the families. Parents testified, sometimes in tears.

She attacked babies after their parents left

The defense described Lucy Letby as a professional”dedicated“. “My job was my life” she insisted.

Prosecutor Nick Johnson painstakingly pieced together his schedule and the similarities between the deaths. He explained that Lucy Letby would attack babies after their parents left, when the charge nurse walked away, or at night when she was alone.

She would then sometimes join collective efforts to save newborn babies, or even assist desperate parents.

Among the victims, twins and even triplets, two of whom will die within 24 hours of each other after returning from vacation in June 2016. The third will be spared, his parents having begged that he be transferred to another hospital.

“Uncontrollable”

At the time, having killed without attracting attention, she had become “uncontrollable“, asserted the prosecutor. “She thought she was God“. A very premature baby, attacked three times in September 2015, remains severely handicapped.

“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 horrible person“, wrote the nurse on a post-it found at her home in 2018. In other documents, however, she proclaimed her innocence.

His lawyer Ben Myers argued that the neonatology department had in 2015-2016 “welcomed more babies than normal, with greater care needs“, and had “failed” to answer it. He had denounced the absence of evidence against his client, affirming that incompetent doctors had made him take the blame.

In his final argument, he denounced a “presumption of guilt“. According to the prosecutor, Lucy Letby had also falsified certain medical notes, to cover the tracks.

During the trial, a mother recounted how, returning to bring milk to one of her premature twins at 9 p.m. in August 2015, she heard him screaming and found he had blood around his mouth. She had been reassured by Lucy Letby who had advised her to go up to her room.

According to the prosecution, the nurse had just pushed medical equipment down the tiny baby’s throat, and also injected him with air. He was dead a few hours later, having lost a quarter of his blood.

Transferred in June 2016 to an administrative service, arrested for the first time in 2018, then in 2019, Lucy Letby was finally imprisoned in November 2020.