Guilty of seven murders, but did Letby kill more?
AFTER being convicted of murdering seven babies, Lucy Letby becomes the most prolific child killer of modern times.
Her crimes put her at the top of a terrifying list of serial child murderers – ahead of some of the country’s most notorious offenders, including the Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, paedophile child killer Robert Black and fellow nurse Beverley Allitt.
Letby is also the second-worst female serial killer ever behind Rose West, who, with her husband Fred, murdered ten young women, including her eight-yearold step-daughter, in Gloucester. But just how many children did Letby attack and could more babies have been murdered at her hand?
Police confirmed their inquiries were ongoing and expected other charges to follow. They said they were reviewing the care of all 4,000 babies admitted to the neo-natal units of the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital – where Letby also completed two periods of training in 2012 and 2015 – during her fiveyear career. According to the BBC, Letby was on duty for another six baby deaths at the Countess, not included in the trial, and two babies also died while she was working at Liverpool Women’s.
Letby learned about her favourite method of murder – air embolus or air bubbles in the bloodstream – on a training course just weeks before killing her first victim, Baby A, in June 2015. Detectives believe she grew in confidence and got better at killing because she carried out her attacks under the noses of her unsuspecting colleagues for another 12 months.
Yesterday Cheshire Police pledged to examine the entire ‘footprint’ of her career, from when she started working at the Countess as a student in 2011.
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, who led the inquiry, confirmed some baby deaths were included in that 4,000 figure. He described Letby as a ‘monster’ but when asked whether she could have killed as many patients as Harold Shipman, the GP suspected of murdering more than 250, he said: ‘There are lots of cases to be reviewed but I wouldn’t say so.’
initial suspicions, they could have stopped any more babies being attacked. It would have prevented multiple deaths.’
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Rob Behrens also called for ‘significant improvements to culture and leadership’ following the guilty verdict.
He added: ‘Those who lost their children deserve to know whether Letby could have been stopped and how it was that doctors were not listened to and their concerns not addressed for so long.’ Police said their inquiries were ongoing and Letby could be charged with more crimes.
According to the BBC, Letby was on duty for another six baby deaths at the Countess, not included in
‘Murderer in their midst’
the trial, and two babies also died while she was working at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. One source close to the investigation told the Mail: ‘We don’t believe that Baby
A, the first victim in the charges, was the first child attacked.’
The trial, which ran for more than ten months, is thought to be the longest murder trial in British criminal history. The jury heard that, over the course of 12 months, between June 2015 and June 2016, at least ten chances were missed to stop Letby’s killing spree.
Crucially, doctors failed to appreciate the significance of blood test results from two baby boys – treated eight months apart – which proved beyond doubt that someone on the ward was poisoning children with insulin.
Letby denied killing or attacking any children. She said it was just an ‘innocent coincidence’ that she was on duty each time a baby collapsed or died and claimed a ‘gang of four’ senior consultants, including Dr Brearey and Dr Jayaram, conspired to blame her to cover up for failings at the NHS Trust.
But the jury of seven women and four men disagreed. They took more than 110 hours to convict her. Their verdicts were delivered over a period of ten days, but the trial judge imposed reporting restrictions, meaning they could only be reported yesterday.
Cowardly Letby, an only child, was not in the dock when the final verdicts were revealed, having refused to come up from the cells. However, she previously broke down in tears and sobbed when the foreman delivered the first guilty verdicts on August 8.
She later stared at the floor, while her mother, Susan, 63, cried and wailed ‘You can’t be serious’ and ‘this can’t be right’, when more guilty verdicts, including the first murder conviction, were returned three days later. Letby’s retired retail manager father, John, 77, comforted his wife, then held his head in his hands.
Yesterday it emerged ministers plan to introduce new laws forcing offenders to be present in court for their sentencing after Letby indicated to her legal team that she would also not be in the dock to hear Mr Justice Goss deliver her fate on Monday. Her absence also means she will avoid hearing the victim impact statements from the babies’ parents, who are expected to explain how her crimes have destroyed their lives.
In a joint statement, read on their behalf yesterday by Janet Moore, a police family liaison officer, the parents said they were ‘heartbroken, devastated, angry and numb’. ‘To lose a baby is a heart-breaking experience no parent should ever have to go through, but to lose a baby or to have a baby harmed in these particular circumstances is unimaginable.’
Calculating Letby covered her tracks by altering nursing notes.
She also gaslighted her colleagues, feigning upset in text messages when babies died, or suggesting medical reasons for their collapse to deflect the blame.
She also took home souvenirs of her killing spree. A treasure trove of more than 250 confidential nursing handover sheets and handwritten notes of resuscitations were found stashed under her bed when police searched her house.
Officers also discovered a ‘confession’ on a green Post-it note, which said: ‘I am evil, I did this,’ and ‘I will never have children or marry or know what it’s like to have a family’. Photographs of a sympathy card she sent to the parents of a three-month-old baby girl she murdered, and a thank you card from the mother and father of another twin boy she killed, were also found by investigators – years after the babies died – on her mobile phone.
During the trial the jury was shown a chart highlighting the 38 nurses who worked on the unit, correlated with 25 ‘events’ – significant collapses or deaths of babies. It showed a long column of ‘x’s’ below Letby’s name, indicating she was the only one on duty for all 25 incidents. By comparison, no other nurse was present on more than seven occasions.
The number of deaths on the unit fell back to normal or average levels when Letby was shifted into an administration role, ironically in the risk and patient safety office, in July 2016.
In total, Letby, of Hereford, was convicted of 14 charges – seven of murder and seven of attempted murder – against 13 victims. She was cleared of two attempted murder charges, relating to two different baby girls, Baby G and Baby H. And the jury failed to reach verdicts on another six attempted murder charges relating to four babies. None of the babies or their parents can be named for legal reasons.
Detective Superintendent Simon Blackwell, of Cheshire police, said what Letby had done was ‘beyond comprehension’ and ‘pure evil’.
Pascale Jones, a senior lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service, said Letby ‘weaponised’ her nursing skills to repeatedly attack and kill. She ‘betrayed’ the trust of the children’s parents and deceived her hospital colleagues, who had no idea there was a ‘murderer in their midst’.
Dr Nigel Scawn, medical director at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said: ‘We are extremely sorry that these crimes were committed at our hospital and our thoughts continue to be with all the families and loved ones of the babies who came to harm or died.’
‘Weaponised her nursing skills’
For any parent to lose a baby not long after birth is a truly shattering experience.
To have one murdered by a nurse entrusted with the child’s care so soon after entering the world must be agonising beyond comprehension.
Which makes the actions of Lucy Letby, who killed seven premature babies and attempted to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital during a yearlong spree between June 2015 and June 2016, as sickening as they are shocking.
How a vivacious, church-going young girl, who enjoyed salsa lessons with friends and partying in Ibiza, could attack and poison vulnerable young innocents, sometimes while their worried parents slept just yards away, will doubtless occupy criminologists for years to come.
Yet now that the appalling facts of the case have been settled, and the families attempt to find some peace, urgent questions must be asked of NHS bosses as to how on earth this evil monster wasn’t stopped sooner.
over the course of a gruelling ten-month trial, it became clear that almost anyone who worked alongside Letby became suspicious about her behaviour when babies began dying in the hospital in mysterious circumstances.
Concerns were raised, with numerous complaints filed by doctors to senior management. With numerous warning klaxons going off at once, one would assume any responsible manager would step in immediately.
Yet rather than act upon these concerns, hospital bosses bafflingly chose to dismiss them. Some doctors were ignored, some silenced, some astonishingly were even told to write to Letby and apologise for making their accusations.
Meanwhile, as Letby targeted more victims, her neglectful managers were out collecting awards, one, ironically, picking up a gong for ‘creating a safe experience for patients’.
We now know such shameful inaction cost lives. Dr ravi Jayaram, a consultant paediatrician at the Countess of Chester, claims he first raised concerns about Letby after she killed her first three victims in June 2015. Heartbreakingly, had management acted on his complaints, four children would still be alive today.
Even when Letby was finally removed from the ward and placed in an office job, bosses were still reluctant to involve the police. It’s as though it was more convenient to just bury their heads in the sand.
That Britain’s worst child killer was able to carry out her despicable crimes unimpeded for so long on a neo-natal ward – which ought to be a place of safety – must rank as one the worst failings in the health service’s history.
Sadly, this culture of NHS management turning a blind eye to inconvenient truths is nothing new.
As we have seen with the Mid Staffordshire and Shrewsbury and Telford scandals, where needless deaths occurred through neglect or maltreatment, too often there is a worrying pattern when things go wrong at the NHS: Mistakes are ignored, staff who complain are simply told to shut up and go away.
Last night, Health Secretary Steve Barclay ordered an independent inquiry into the events at Chester, surely the very least which is required. Mr Barclay must also ensure those bosses who ignored what was going on under their noses are identified and brought to account.
For if the parents of the murdered children can muster any form of consolation from their torturous ordeal, other than that their children’s killer will almost certainly never be set free, it is that vital lessons are learned for the future.
The pain and loss these families have endured is immeasurable. Such an appalling tragedy must never be repeated.