LUCY LETBY IS FOUND GUILTY OF TRYING TO MURDER BABY GIRL
Serial child killer Lucy Letby showed no emotion today as she was found guilty of attempting to murder a premature baby girl by dislodging her breathing tube.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court took three and a half hours to return their unanimous verdict at the end of a 13-day retrial on a single count of attempted murder.
The most prolific child killer in modern British history was 26 when she deliberately dislodged the breathing tube of Baby K – an infant so tiny she would have fitted in the killer's open palm – in the first hours of her life. She tried a further two times in the following hours.
The killer showed no emotion in the glass-panelled dock as the male foreman delivered the verdict. Baby K's father held his head in his hands as other relatives cried in the public gallery.
Following the verdict, the child's relatives said knowing the nurse who had been meant to be looking after their daughter had tried to kill her had caused them 'unimaginable pain'.
The verdict takes Letby's tally of convictions to seven murders and seven attempted murders. She is already serving 14 whole life terms following her original 10-month trial that ended in the same courtroom in August.
After the first trial the killer refused to come to the dock to hear the judge read out his sentencing verdicts, but these were read out by the prosecutor at the start of the latest proceedings as she watched on in court.
Letby, now 34, denied the latest charge, and still maintains her innocence of the crimes she had previously been found guilty of. She insists she has never harmed any baby in her care.
The jury in her original trial were unable to reach a verdict in the case of Baby K and were discharged. This time a new jury found her guilty.
The family of Baby K said today in a statement read out by a family liaison officer: 'Words cannot effectively explain how we are feeling at this time. To lose a baby is a heartbreaking experience that no parent should ever go through, but to lose a baby then hear of the harm that was inflicted under these circumstances is unimaginable.
'Over the past seven to eight years we have had to go through a long, torturous and emotional journey twice, from losing our precious newborn and grieving her loss, to being told years later that her death or collapse could be suspicious. Nothing could prepare you for that news.
'Today justice has been served and a nurse who should have been caring for our daughter has been found guilty of harming her, but that will not take away the extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experience.
'It also does not provide us with an explanation for why these crimes have taken place. We are heartbroken, devastated, angry and feel numb. We may never know why this happened.'
The family further thanked the jury, police, prosecutors and the medical witnesses who appeared at the trial.
Letby was caught 'virtually red-handed' trying to murder Baby K by the lead consultant on her neonatal unit, Dr Ravi Jayaram, in the early hours of February 17, 2016.
He felt uncomfortable when the infant's designated nurse, Joanne Williams, briefly left Nursery 1 to tell her parents she was being transferred to a higher-level hospital. Realising that Letby was alone with Baby K, he walked into the nursery.
He saw the killer stood beside her victim's ventilator, doing nothing to help her as the monitors showed a catastrophic drop in saturation levels.
Dr Jayaram told the court that he and a number of colleagues already had concerns about Letby before Baby K's near-fatal collapse.
'I was sitting at a desk close to the nurses' station, with my back to the wall,' he recalled.
'Joanne told me she was going to update K's parents.
'I'd probably just spoken to the transport team, so she would have been going to update them about where K was going to be. She said Lucy Letby was babysitting.
'At this time, February 2016, we had had a number of unusual incidents with babies and a number of colleagues and myself had noticed the association with Lucy Letby being present at these things. We'd had a thematic review and not found any other factors.
'I was sitting there and – I'll be very honest – I felt very uncomfortable. Obviously you can say that's completely irrational, and my internal dialogue was very much 'Stop being stupid, get on with your work'. But I needed to go in just to reassure myself that everything was okay.
'It was around two-and-a-half to three minutes, maybe, from Joanne telling me she was going to K's parents that I stood up and walked into the nursery. I went in the doorway closest to the nurses' station.
'I came around the wall and walked towards the incubator. As I was walking towards it the first thing I looked at was the monitors above the incubator. So as I walked in that direction I could see the screens in front of my. The oxygen saturations were dropping – in the low 80s and going downwards.
'Lucy Letby was standing next to the incubator. She was looking at me. She didn't have hands in the incubator. She was definitely facing in my direction. I can't remember whether she was directly facing or slightly angled towards the monitor.
'I asked something like 'What's happening?'
He would have heard any alarm if it was sounding, and had any been activated he would have gone into Nursery 1 earlier.
In reaching their verdict, the jury of six men and six women rejected the claim by Letby's barrister, Ben Myers KC, that Dr Jayaram's account was so 'incredible' it could not be believed.
He said that if the prosecution's 'star witness' had really caught the neonatal nurse 'almost red-handed' in the act of attempted murder, he would have taken immediate action rather than being 'rendered silent' for the next 14 months.
'If he had really seen what he said he saw, and believed someone was 'killing babies' on the unit he would have 'told the management, and if they had dragged their heels he would have told the police'.
He added: 'You don't need to be a paediatric consultant to do that…A child would know what to do.
'We say it's an insult to the collective intelligence of this courtroom to say that Dr Jayaram saw what he says he saw and did absolutely nothing. It is ridiculous and it is unbelievable'.
The killer's repeated denials have helped spark a wave of conspiracy theories among people convinced of her innocence. At times during the re-trial Letby supporters were queuing to get into both Court 7 and the overspill annex in Court 16.
Letby's parents, John and Susan, attended virtually every day of her original trial. This time they appear to have taken the deliberate decision to stay away. Instead, one of their daughter's close friends, fellow nurse Janet Cox, had been prominent in the public gallery.
Once the verdict had been delivered, the trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, looked up and told the killer: 'Lucy Letby, would you stand. Having been convicted of this offence of attempted murder you will obviously have to be sentenced.
'That will take place on Friday morning and you will be here for that hearing...Would you take her down, please'.
Dr Nigel Scawn, medical director at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: 'Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of Baby K. We are extremely sorry that these awful crimes happened at our hospital. Since Lucy Letby worked at our hospital, we have made significant changes to our services and remain committed to providing high quality safe care to our local communities.
'We want to acknowledge the impact this continues to have on everyone involved in this case and restate our commitment to do everything we can to help families get the answers they deserve. We remain grateful for the unwavering co-operation and professionalism of our staff, some of whom returned to court to repeat evidence and relive events. We will continue to ensure our staff receive the care and support they need and we remain committed to fully and openly supporting the ongoing legal processes.'
Senior Crown Prosecutor Nicola Wyn Williams, of CPS Mersey-Cheshire's Complex Casework Unit, said: 'Lucy Letby has continually denied that she tried to kill this baby or any of the babies that she has been convicted of murdering or attempting to murder. The jury has heard all of the detailed evidence including from her in her own defence and formed its own view.
'Our case included direct evidence from a doctor who walked into the nursery to find a very premature baby desaturating with Letby standing by, taking no action to help or to raise the alarm. She had deliberately dislodged the breathing tube in an attempt to kill her.
'Staff at the unit had to think the unthinkable – that one of their own was deliberately harming and killing babies in their care.
'Letby dislodged the tube a further two times over the following few hours in an attempt to cover her tracks and suggest that the first dislodgment was accidental. These were the actions of a cold-blooded, calculated killer.
'The grief that the family of Baby K have felt is unimaginable. Our thoughts remain with them and all those affected by this case at this time.'