British nurse Lucy Letby, 32, is on trial at Manchester Crown Court, accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another 10 by fatally injecting them with insulin, air or milk during night shifts, UK media reported.
Letby, who had trained to look after the most seriously ill babies, was the only “common denominator” connecting the deaths of seven infants and the “catastrophic” collapses of 10 others at the Countess of Chester hospital, in Liverpool Road, Chester, between June 2015 and June 2016, the jury was told on the first day of the trial.
“We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 children named on the indictment were not normally occurring tragedies. They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock who we say was a constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these children,” Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, told the jury.
‘A Poisoner at Work’
Letby, of Arran Avenue, Hereford, is charged with attacking, and in some instances murdering, sets of twins.
The pediatric nurse is also accused of attempting to murder the same children more than once, using various methods.
Sometimes the new-borns were allegedly injected with air down a tube. On other occasions they were reportedly injected with insulin through a feeding bag, or given too much milk.
Most of the alleged victims, named Child A to Q in evidence, were premature and receiving treatment on the intensive care or high-dependency units.
After the infant mortality rate saw a "significant rise", consultants noticed that Letby was always on shift at the time these “serious catastrophic collapses” occurred.
“Some of the babies who did not die collapsed dramatically but then - equally dramatically - recovered. Their collapse and recovery defied the normal experience of treating doctors,” Johnson said.
A prison van, believed to contain Lucy Letby, a British nurse charged with the murder of eight babies at a hospital in Chester.
© OLI SCARFF
Police were called in by the Countess of Chester Hospital to launch an investigation into the deaths and collapses, with the nurse arrested in 2018 and again in 2019. Letby had originally been questioned by detectives and her home was searched, but she was released without charge. The woman was rearrested after further information was gathered by detectives during what they called an “extremely challenging” investigation.
Letby has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of murder and 15 of attempted murder relating to 10 babies.