Lucy Letby The British Nurse Who Murdered 7 Babies Despite Repeated Warnings

 

The nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others while they were in her Care at a hospital in Cheshire, making the 33-year-old the UK's worst child killer in modern times. In a statement, the families of her victims said that they were heartbroken and that Justice could not reduce the extreme hurt, anger, and distress that they have experienced. Lucy Letby was also acquitted of two counts of attempted murder and the jury was undecided on six charges of attempted murder. Well, today the government has ordered an independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding this shocking case.

 Verdicts have been delivered here at Manchester Crown Court over several hearings over the last 10 days.

It was only today that the jury indicated that they could go no further and that reporting restrictions were lifted and we are able now to report the full extent of what Lucy Letby has been found guilty of.

Now that was an emotional moment in the courtroom, particularly you can't even imagine for the families of those babies. Some of the jurors looked upset this afternoon, but conspicuous by her absence was Lucy Letby, who refused to come up from the cells, she wasn't in court and it's been fast-moving ever since. The prosecution is considering a retrial on the undecided verdicts here and there's been the announcement as you say of a government inquiry.

 Britain's most prolific baby killer was finally arrested three years after her murder spree began. 

She worked here in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, her role was to care for the most premature and vulnerable infants but that couldn't have been further from her mind.

We can't identify the families in this case so their stories are distressing. These comments are from the parents of the twin boys born prematurely in 2015.

 Their mum was taking milk to them when she heard one of her sons crying loudly. Here are the comments:

"they had blood around his mouth and Luke was there, nothing about not doing anything Lucy said I don't worry the registrar was coming and when she told me to go back to the ward".

 The baby's mum left him in this intensive care area and went to call her husband. They thought their son was in safe hands with nurse Letby, but a short time later they were told he was dangerously ill and they rushed back to find doctors trying to save him.

 

"We were taken in and we were told to talk to him and held his hand and in the conversation with the consultant and she said you know we were going to start it's not helping"

On the unit, they were typically up to three deaths a year. But in 2015 they had that number in June alone and the pattern continued with babies dying or coming close to death, and the common factor was Lucy Letby.

The Staffing sheet shows she was the only employee who was present every time there was a suspicious event.

Dr. Stephen Brewery

Dr. Stephen Brewery led a team of seven Consultants on the unit who shared joint concerns about Letby. He's now speaking publicly about their experience for the first time.

"It's something that nobody wants to consider you know that a member of Staff might be harming the babies and your care."

Things came to a head when two out of three healthy triplets died within 24 hours of each other in June 2016. Afterward, a meeting was held for staff.

"Lucy's Letby me was there, she was sitting next to me I spoke to her and said how tired and upset she must be after two days of this. And I hope that she can have a restful weekend she turned to me and said now I'm back on shift tomorrow the other staff were very traumatized by all of this but you were crumbling before your eyes almost and she was quite happy and confident to come into work."

Lucy Letby was eventually moved to a Clerical role. The doctors kept trying to get managers to investigate the suspicious deaths, and her connection to them. 

But we can now reveal that even though consultants here repeatedly made loud warnings to Senior Management, they say they were ignored and ultimately told that if they didn't stop raising questions about the nurse, there'd be consequences. And the doctors say that even after Lucy Letby came off duty on the neonatal unit. Executives tried to draw a line under the case. And it was only a year after she stopped working as a nurse, that the police became involved.

 After her arrest officers found all sorts of items in her bedroom.

Babys' medical records, her diary, and notes covered in Letby's scroll with phrases including I am evil I did this. She is a killer.

medical records, her diary, and notes

I think she's very emotionless. She doesn't respond to a typical human response that I would have expected. There was no empathy or sympathy for what was going on at all. It's an example to us all really of not judging a book by its cover. We've got to accept you know and understand the evidence in this case has been, I believe significant and has taken us to understand that Lucy Letby is a killer.

As the trial ended today, Letby refused to come into the courtroom. Prosecutors later reflected on the scale of her deceit.

"In her hands, innocuous substances like air milk or medication like insulin would become lethal she perverted her learning and weaponized her craft to inflict harm, grief, and death."

The nurse even wrote this sympathy card to the parents of one baby and searched for many of the other families on Facebook checking up on them voyeuristically months and even years after attacking their children.

Lucy Letby had many faces party girl, graduate. bright young nurse but each face was a mask for evil hiding in plain sight. And at last, her cover has slipped Lucy Letby will now be known as one of Britain's most notorious criminals.

Lucy Letby has today been convicted of seven murders but the BBC has learned that there are 13 deaths on the neonatal unit where she worked in one year. That is five times the usual rate and the nurse was on duty for all of them. Doctors on the unit were raising concerns for months about Letby but senior managers ignored their warnings and protected her. 

The story of an NHS trust, that didn't properly investigate why 13 babies died unexpectedly in one year. Instead, it turned against the very people who wanted the police to examine the deaths. There is only one serial killer of babies that's worked in that organization and the executive team was not the people who were responsible for the deaths of those babies but they had some opportunities to get to the bottom of what was happening.

 Susan Gilby joined the Countess of Chester NHS Thrusters medical director a month after Lucille Letby was arrested. Within two months she was made chief executive of upholstery held until last December. Through documents and speaking to staff she learned what the trust knew about the serial killer. The first three babies died in June 2015, the executive team held a meeting at which it was agreed that an external investigation into the deaths would be held and it never happened.

By October with seven babies now dead, a staff analysis of the incidents linked all the deaths to Lucy Letby being on shift but it was still seen as coincidental.

In February 2016, with 10 babies now dead the director of nursing Allison Kelly and Ian Harvey the medical director, were asked for an urgent meeting to discuss the deaths and Lucy Letby's links to all of them they didn't respond for three months.

The pediatricians were discussing you know the terrible nights on call that they were having. One of them said every time this is happening to me, that I'm being called in for these catastrophic events which were unexpected and unexplained. Lucy Letby is there and then somebody else said, yes I found that and then someone else had the same response. And they all realized that the common factor for each of them was Letby's presence in the unit.

In June 2016, two babies died on consecutive days 13 children had now died. Lucy Letby was on shift for all of them. The day after the second death, the nurse was due back in the unit. Pediatrician Steve Briery rang the duty manager asking politely to be replaced but the manager refused.

"I challenged her, I said well he's saying that you're making this decision against the wishes of seven consultant pediatricians and she said yes. And I said well if you're making this decision are you taking responsibility for anything that might happen tomorrow to any other of our babies? and she said yes."

 Letby went to work, and a baby unexpectedly collapsed. We were urging them to investigate our concerns appropriately and most of us felt the most appropriate way to do that would be to go to the police. The response from the medical director was unsupportive and an email to the pediatricians obtained by Panorama, Ian Harvey wrote action is being taken. 

All emails cease forth with the police were not called instead in September 2016, The Royal College of Pediatrics and child health was asked to review the neonatal unit.

 It urged the trust to investigate each death individually this didn't happen.

 I'd own this time Lucy let me launch a grievance procedure against the pediatricians. The internal process concluded that she'd been discriminated against and victimized by the doctors on the unit.

With the pediatricians wanting a police investigation in January 2017, an extraordinary board meeting was held. The medical director Ian Harvey gave a verbal report he said external reviews had not highlighted any individual as being linked to the deaths and that the trust was ready to draw a line under the issues.

The Chief Executive Tony Chamber said he'd met Lucy Letby and her parents to apologize for what had happened. A statement written by Letby was read out detailing how hard the past few months had been. The meeting decided Lucy Letby would return to the neonatal unit after the pediatricians had written a letter apologizing to her.

This is the letter they sent Lucy Letby to be signed by all Southern pediatric consultants in the unit, against their wishes they apologized for any inappropriate comments that may have been made. Going on to say we are very sorry for the stress and upset that you have experienced in the last year.

Though the pediatricians feared being reported to the regulator they kept going pressurizing Executives to call the police, something the trust eventually did in May 2017.

The reputation of the organization and protecting that reputation was a big factor in how people responded to the concerns raised. They were dragged, Kicking and Screaming the executive team to call in the police. 

Lucy Letby was arrested in July 2018, she was still working at the trust. No disciplinary action had been taken against her. The strong opinion was that there would be nothing found. There was a brief overlap of three or four days between myself and the outgoing medical director and his party words to me to my surprise were you need to refer the pediatricians to the GMC.

The former medical director denies threatening to report the doctors to the General Medical Council for misconduct.

 In a statement Tony Chambers the former Chief Executive said, all my thoughts are with the children at the heart of this case and their families and loved ones. As chief executive, my focus was on the safety of the baby unit and the well-being of patients and staff. The trial has shown the complex nature of the issues raised, which are always lessons to be learned.

 The former medical director Ian Harvey said my thoughts are with the babies whose treatment has been the focus of the trial on their parents. As medical director, I was determined to keep the baby unit safe and support our staff. I wanted the reviews and investigations carried out so we could tell the parents what had happened to their child both men say that cooperate with the upcoming inquiry.