Lucy Letby

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Lucy Letby
Born (1990-01-04) 4 January 1990 (age 34)
Hereford, England
Alma materUniversity of Chester
OccupationRegistered nurse (currently suspended)[1]
Known forConvicted of the Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders
MotiveInconclusive
Conviction(s)Murder (7 counts)
Attempted murder (7 counts)
Details
Victims13
Span of crimes
2015–2016
CountryUnited Kingdom
Killed7

Lucy Letby (born 4 January 1990) is a British serial killer and former neonatal nurse. From 2015 to 2016, she killed, or attempted to kill, infants in her care.

Letby was arrested in July 2018 in connection with a series of unusually frequent infant deaths between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, where she had worked as a neonatal nurse since 2011. After being released on bail, she was rearrested in June 2019 and again in November 2020 in connection with additional infant deaths at the hospital. The day following her final arrest, she was charged with eight counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder. At the conclusion of her trial, which lasted from October 2022 to August 2023, she was found guilty of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder six others during the twelve-month period. She is scheduled to be sentenced on 21 August.

Early life and education

Letby was born in Hereford, England, on 4 January 1990, and was educated at schools in the city, including at Hereford Sixth Form College. She pursued her education in nursing at the University of Chester, where she also worked as a student nurse during her three years of training, carrying out placements at Liverpool Women's Hospital and the Countess of Chester Hospital. An only child, Letby was the first member of her family to study at university, and graduated in September 2011.[2][3]

Career

Letby began her career as a registered nurse in 2011 at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital. In a 2013 profile she said that she was responsible for "caring for a wide range of babies requiring various levels of support", and that she enjoyed "seeing them progress and supporting their families."[4] Letby also took part in a campaign to raise funds for a new neonatal unit at the hospital.[5] In June 2016, consultants asked management to remove Letby from clinical duties pending an investigation into her conduct. Letby was transferred to the patient experience team in July 2016 and later the risk and patient safety office and worked there until her arrest in 2018.[6]

Initial investigation

In February 2016, consultants at the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital undertook a review after five unexplained deaths and concluded the only common factor was Letby's presence on the ward. In the same month, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited the hospital and staff report highlighting the high mortality rate at the unit and challenges faced by consultants in raising concerns with managers. The CQC commented that they discussed the alleged challenges in raising concerns with the trust's medical director Ian Harvey but denied that the high mortality rate had been highlighted to them during the visit. The regulator's report raised "short-staffing" and "skill-mix" issues on the unit but praised the trust's "very positive culture" where "Staff felt well supported, able to raise concerns and develop professionally".[6]

In July 2016, the unit stopped accepting premature infants born before 32 weeks, partially due to an unexplained high mortality rate in 2015 and 2016, instead diverting them to other hospitals in the North West of England, such as Alder Hey.[7] The MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquires across the UK) report had found a neonatal death rate at least 10% higher than expected in the period from June 2015 to June 2016.[8][9]

A series of investigations was initiated to ascertain the reasons for the sharp rise in mortalities, with an independent review being carried out by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in November 2016. Despite this report finding some staffing levels "inadequate", the Foundation Trust were unable to identify the fundamental cause(s) of the high mortality rate, with the independent report similarly finding "no single cause or factor identified to explain the increase.. seen in [the] mortality numbers".[10][11]

In March 2017, consultants at the trust asked management to involve the police after receiving advice from the regional neonatal lead who suggested further investigation was needed. The management brought in Cheshire Police to assist with the review in May 2017 through the child death overview panel, stating this was to "seek assurances that enable us to rule out unnatural causes of death."[6][12]

Possible motives

The prosecution raised possible motives in the killings, such as boredom, thrill and attention seeking (particularly that of a married doctor). At the trial, they also argued that Letby enjoyed "playing God", telling jurors that "[s]he was controlling things. She was enjoying what was going on. She was predicting things that she knew was going to happen." Evidence of Letby's Post-it Note confession also suggested a frustration in "not [being] good enough" to care for the babies.[13]

Legal proceedings

Arrest and charges

On 3 July 2018, Letby was arrested by police on suspicion of eight counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder, following a year-long investigation into the high infant mortality rates at the Countess of Chester Hospital.[14] Letby's home at Chester was searched by police following her arrest.[15] After Letby's arrest, the investigation was subsequently widened to include Liverpool Women's Hospital, another location at which Letby had worked. No evidence that patients at the hospital came to any harm was found during the initial investigation, though police have begun looking into Letby's entire career, including at Liverpool Women's Hospital, since her conviction.[11][16][17]

Letby was bailed on 6 July 2018 as the police continued their enquiries.[18] She was rearrested on 10 June 2019 in connection with eight said murders and nine said attempted murders of babies,[19] and again on 10 November 2020.[20][21] On 11 November 2020, Letby was charged with eight counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder.[21] She was denied bail and remanded in police custody.[22]

Trial

Letby's trial began at Manchester Crown Court on 10 October 2022, before Mr Justice Goss, and was due to conclude after six months.[23][24] She pleaded not guilty to seven counts of murder, and fifteen counts of attempted murder relating to ten babies.[25] The families of the victims and Letby's parents attended the trial.[26][27]

The children to whom the charges related could not be named in reports and were referred to as Child A to Child Q.[28] According to Helen Pidd of The Guardian, the press secrecy around the identities of the 17 babies and nine colleagues who gave evidence was "rarely seen outside proceedings involving matters of national security". Mrs Justice Steyn, two years before the criminal trial, banned the identification of the living children until their 18th birthdays. Parents wanted their identifying information including occupation to be protected, though Steyn ruled that one parent's profession as a physician was relevant due to his medical expertise, and would not make that parent identifiable to the public. Several colleagues felt that they could not testify without anonymity, including a doctor with whom Letby was reportedly infatuated. The judge ruled that getting testimony from the colleagues was more important than them being publicly identifiable.[29]

The prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said that Letby was a "constant malevolent presence" in the hospital's neonatal unit,[25] and that Letby had searched for the parents of several babies on Facebook – two of whom were the parents of a victim – as well as sending one family a sympathy card.[30] It was said by the prosecutor that Letby had injected air into the bloodstream of two of the victims and had used insulin to murder others. A mother of one of the victims said she had walked in on Letby trying to kill her baby, with Letby saying "Trust me, I'm a nurse" when interrupted.[31] It was also revealed during the trial that Letby had to be told more than once to not enter a room where the parents of one of the babies she is accused of murdering were grieving.[32]

Letby's defence lawyer, Benjamin Myers KC, alleged Letby was "a dedicated nurse in a system which has failed," claimed that the prosecution's case was, "driven by the assumption that someone was doing deliberate harm combined with the coincidence on certain occasions of Miss Letby's presence," and alleged that there had been a "massive failure of care in a busy hospital neonatal unit – far too great to blame on one person".[33] It was alleged that "extraordinary bleeding" in a baby boy murdered by Letby could have been caused by a rigid wire or tube, and that one of the babies who survived had an "extremely high" dose of insulin.[34][35] The use of insulin at the hospital was denied by Letby's colleagues.[36]

The court was shown texts sent by Letby to her friends, one of which discussed the baby deaths, which Letby described as "sad and cruel" and "heartbreaking", later adding "It's not about me or anyone else, it's those poor parents who have to walk away without their baby. It's so unbelievably sad." Letby had also told a colleague that taking Child A to the mortuary was "the hardest thing she ever had to do".[37][38] Ravi Jayaram, a paediatrician at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said during the trial that he and other clinicians had previously raised concerns over Letby, but were told by hospital bosses that they "should not really be saying such things" and "not to make a fuss". Another doctor attending the trial said that Letby, in relation to one of the premature babies, told the doctor "he's not leaving here alive, is he?" an hour before the child died.[39][40][41]

On the fourth day of the trial, the prosecution showed the court a handwritten note from Letby, which said "I am evil, I did this" and that she "killed them on purpose" because she "couldn't take care of them".[42] The defence argued that the note was "the anguished outpouring of a young woman in fear and despair when she realises the enormity of what's being said about her, in the moment to herself", and said that Letby had written it when she was dealing with employment issues, including a grievance procedure with the NHS trust. Several other notes from Letby were shown in court, two of which respectively said "Why/how has this happened – what process has led to this current situation? What allegations have been made and by who? Do they have written evidence to support their comments?" and "I haven't done anything wrong and they have no evidence so why have I had to hide away?", both of which were Letby expressing frustration at the fact that she was not being allowed back on the neonatal unit.[43]

Letby herself gave evidence to the court in May 2023, and claimed she was made to feel as if she was incompetent but "meant no harm".[44] When asked why she wrote the "I am evil, I did this" note, Letby said "I felt at the time that if I'd done something wrong I must be such an evil, awful person. I'd somehow been incompetent and had done something wrong which had affected those babies."[45] Letby said that the allegations had negatively impacted her mental health, saying "I don't think you can be accused of anything worse than that. I just changed as a person, my mental health deteriorated, I felt isolated from my friends on the unit. From a self-confidence point of view, it made me question everything about myself." Letby also broke down in tears during her testimony.[45]

On 10 July 2023, after a trial lasting nine months, the jury were sent to consider verdicts, after trial judge Mr Justice Goss concluded his summing up.[46] Verdicts were returned by the jury on several days starting on 8 August, but it was not until the final verdicts were returned on 18 August that the details of the verdicts were made public.[47] Letby was found guilty of seven murders and six attempted murders.[48] Letby was found not guilty of two attempted murders and the jury was unable to agree a verdict on the remaining six counts of attempted murder.[49]

Verdicts

Letby was found guilty of seven counts of murder in relation to the deaths in 2015 and 2016 of seven babies by injecting them with air, over feeding them, poisoning them with insulin or assaulting them with medical tools. She is the most prolific child serial killer in modern British history.[50][51]

In addition to the seven murders, Letby was found guilty of seven counts of attempted murder (relating to six babies) during the same time period. The jury was undecided on the attempted murder of four more babies, and she was found not guilty on two counts of attempted murder. She denied all 22 charges against her, blaming the deaths on hospital hygiene and staffing levels. Letby is scheduled to be sentenced in Manchester on the morning of 21 August 2023.[48]

Public inquiry

Following Letby's conviction, the government ordered an independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the murders.[52] The Department of Health and Social Care said the inquiry would examine "the circumstances surrounding the deaths and incidents, including how concerns raised by clinicians were dealt with".[53]

See also

UK precedents

  • Barbara Salisbury – UK nurse convicted in 2004 of attempting to murder patients to "free up beds"
  • Beverley Allitt – UK nurse convicted of murdering, attempting to murder and grievous bodily harm of infants and children in 1993
  • Colin Norris – UK nurse convicted of murdering four patients with insulin in 2008

References

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  2. ^ Hirst, Lauren (18 August 2023). Who is baby serial killer Lucy Letby?. BBC News. Archived from the original on 18 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  3. ^ "The quiet cul-de-sac in Hereford where killer nurse Lucy Letby grew up". ITV News. 18 August 2023. Archived from the original on 18 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  4. ^ "Staff Profile – Lucy Letby" (PDF). 28 March 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 December 2022. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  5. ^ "Home searched after baby murder arrest belongs to Chester children's nurse". The Standard. 4 July 2018. Archived from the original on 27 October 2022. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
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  7. ^ "Information about neonatal services at The Countess | Countess of Chester Hospital". 12 October 2016. Archived from the original on 12 October 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
  8. ^ Gleeson, Bill (25 June 2017). "Death rate at Countess of Chester maternity unit among highest in country". CheshireLive. Archived from the original on 12 September 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
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  53. ^ "Lucy Letby: Government orders inquiry into nurse who murdered babies at hospital". ITV News. 18 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
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