In Day Two Of Lucy Letby’s Murder Trial, The Court Learned That A Mother Walked In On Lucy While The Nurse Was Allegedly Attacking Her Baby Boy
Lucy Letby, a thirty-two-year-old nurse from the UK, is facing twenty-two charges after allegedly murdering five baby boys and two baby girls and attempting to murder ten additional babies.
Lucy worked in the neonatal care unit of Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016, when seventeen babies were mysteriously harmed or died.
And at first, the smiley and eager nurse flew under the radar while hospital staff struggled to pinpoint the cause of various unexplainable instances of deteriorating infant conditions and even death.
But, in 2017, Lucy became a prime suspect after an investigation revealed that she was present during all of the events.
She was later arrested three separate times before being formally charged and taken into custody in 2020. And as of Monday, October 10, Lucy’s trial has officially begun.
Today, Tuesday, October 11, marks the second day of Lucy’s trial– in which the prosecution continued its opening.
For privacy purposes, all of the children will be referred to as letters A through Q throughout the trial.
A Play-By-Play Of Trial Day Two – October 11, 2022
Facebook; pictured above is Lucy
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This morning, Lucy arrived at Manchester Crown Court wearing a blue t-shirt and black jacket at about 5:30 a.m. EST. Then, the prosecution– led by Nick Johnson KC– resumed its opening.
On day one, Johnson detailed the circumstances surrounding Child A’s death and Child B’s incidence of harm. Today, he began by describing Child C– who the prosecution claim was murdered by Lucy on June 14, 2015.
Like many other children involved in the case, Child C was born prematurely. The baby boy was born weighing less than two pounds, although he was expected to thrive and was deemed “in good condition” by his medical team.
Then, on the evening of June 13, Child C was assigned to a different nurse at Countess of Chester Hospital. At the same time, Lucy was assigned to care for another child– who is not included in the indictment and is known only by the initials JE.
According to Johnson, the nurses’ shift leader told Lucy that she needed to watch JE closely since the child was considered to be in a deteriorating condition.
“This was a message that [the shift leader] had to reinforce later in the shift when it became clear that Letby was ignoring her,” Johnson added.
Then, when Child C’s designated nurse left to visit the nursing station, the baby boy’s alarm began to sound. And when Child C’s nurse returned to the room, she found Lucy standing next to the baby boy’s cot.
By that point, Child C was experiencing rapidly dropping oxygen levels and heart rate. And Johnson claims that Lucy had “no business” for being in the boy’s room.
“There again at the bedside, or the incubator side, was Lucy Letby,” Johnson said.
Other staff members were able to assist Child C using a device to help him breathe, known as a “neopuff.” However, after Child C recovered shortly afterward, the boy still suffered a prolonged period of low oxygen saturation and heart rate.
During this damage control period, the shift leader assigned Lucy to another child’s room. And according to Johnson, texts sent by Lucy that day revealed her discontent with the reassignment.
“She texted an off-duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room one. She said it would be cathartic for her; it would help her wellbeing to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby– Child A– a baby who had died a few days earlier,” Johnson told the court.
“But the shift leader had put her in room three. So she did not like it.”
And sadly, Child C did not make it. Instead, the baby boy was pronounced dead at about 6:00 a.m. the following morning on June 14.
The hospital’s consultant pathologist had declared Child C’s cause of death to be “widespread hypoxic/ischaemic damage to the heart/myocardium due to lung disease” at the time.
However, Johnson detailed how Child C’s vocal cords were “swollen” and how the independent medical experts who reviewed Child C’s case found that infection did not “adequately explain” the boy’s collapse.
Rather, one doctor stated that the “only feasible mechanism” for the amount of excess air in the gut of Child C was the intentional injection of air through the nasal gastric tube.
“This was a variation– or refinement– of a theme Lucy Letby had started with Children A and B,” Johnson said.
The jury was then shown a diagram that explained how inflating an infant’s stomach with excess milk or air could cause them to stop breathing.
“If you are trying to murder a child in a neonatal unit, it’s a fairly effective way of doing it since it does not really leave much of a trace,” Johnson noted.
However, when Lucy was interviewed in 2018 regarding Child C’s death, she claimed she had nothing to do with any of Child C’s care aside from his resuscitation. Lucy also denied ever being the staff member who discovered Child C’s deteriorating condition– even though her texts placed her by Child C’s bedside.
Then, one year later, Lucy went back on her previous statement and agreed that she had, in fact, been the nurse in the room when Child C collapsed.
Moreover, less than twenty-four hours after the baby boy died, Lucy searched on Facebook for the child’s parents’ names at 3:52 p.m. And since she had only ended her shift at 8:00 a.m. that morning, Johnson suggested that Lucy’s Facebook search may have been “one of the first things she did having woken up.”
The court also learned about Child D– a baby who was allegedly murdered just eight days after Child C on June 22.
“The prosecution says that this was another case of injecting a child with air into the bloodstream. Three children had died, and one had had a life-threatening episode in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in a two-week period. Lucy Letby was the only constant presence,” Johnson stated.
And finally, the prosecution addressed Child E– Lucy’s alleged fourth murder victim who was a twin baby boy– who was found bleeding from his mouth on August 3, 2015.
That evening, at about 9:00 p.m., Child E was feeding well, and his mother decided to visit him in the neonatal unit. There, Child E was in the care of Lucy, along with his twin brother, Child F.
According to Johnson, the boy’s mother “interrupted Lucy Letby, who was in the process of attacking Child E.”
However, the mother did not realize it at the time. All she found was her son acutely distressed and bleeding from his mouth.
The baby’s mother was understandably jolted and claimed that Lucy tried to reassure her. Lucy allegedly stated that the blood was the result of a feeding tube-irritated throat.
Johnson also claimed that Lucy told Child E’s mother to return to the postnatal ward and stated, “Trust me, I’m a nurse.”
“We suggest she [Child E’s mother] was fobbed off by Lucy Letby. However, the mother was so concerned by what she had seen that she telephoned her husband when she got back to the labor ward,” Johnson said.
Sadly, Child E ultimately died early the following morning of August 4. And according to the prosecution, Lucy had made “fraudulent” nursing notes– calling them “false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks.”
Child E was also found left with a “striking” purple and white rash on his abdomen– a characteristic present on Lucy’s other alleged victims that medical professionals claimed was consistent with air injection.
Tomorrow, the trial– which is expected to last up to six months– will continue.
A Play-By-Play Of Trial Day One – October 10, 2022
Lucy’s parents, John and Susan Letby, arrived at Manchester Crown Court at about 5:30 a.m. this morning. And just a few minutes later, a prison van transporting Lucy also arrived.
Lucy donned a dark blue suit and black blouse while being arraigned on twenty-two charges; meanwhile, loved ones of Lucy’s alleged victims sat in the public gallery.
The nurse pled not guilty to each charge against her. Then, a jury was selected and sworn in– consisting of eight women and four men– before the trial kicked off.
Nick Johnson KC opened for the prosecution and began by describing Countess of Chester hospital as a care facility much like the thousands of others throughout the UK.
“But, unlike many other hospitals in the UK and unlike many other neonatal units in the UK, within the neonatal unit in the Countess of Chester, a poisoner was at work,” Johnson said.
The prosecutor then acknowledged the skyrocketing infant mortality rate at Countess of Chester during Lucy’s time at the hospital– a rate fraught with cases of unexpected and unexplainable death.
“Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly severely deteriorated. Sometimes, babies who had been sick and then on the mend deteriorated for no apparent reason,” Johnson noted.
“The consultants found the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator. The presence of one neonatal unit nurse. That nurse was Lucy Letby.”
Following Johnson’s chilling opening, the jury learned more about Lucy’s alleged crimes. Most of the incidents happened during the night shift when guardians and parents were less likely to be present at the hospital.
And Lucy’s time spent on the night shift corresponded with the rise in deaths; meanwhile, when Lucy was moved to the day shift, there was a rise then, too.
Additionally, the prosecution shockingly revealed that Lucy allegedly poisoned two infants– known as Child F and Child L– with insulin.
Apparently, both of the children– who were boys– experienced blood sugar levels that “inexplicably dropped to dangerous levels.” Thankfully, though, they did survive after other staff members in the neonatal unit intervened.
And at first, the drop in blood sugar was attributed to natural causes– because, according to Johnson, the idea that a hospital staff member would intentionally harm a child never came to mind.
“Nobody would think in the neonatal unit of a hospital someone was trying to kill babies,” Johnson explained.
Then, the prosecution detailed how Child E and Child M were harmed– followed by the death of Child E after air was fatally injected into their bloodstream.
The term “harmed” varied from child to child. For some, that meant injected with air; for others, injection with insulin. However, Johnson believes that the different means all point back to Lucy.
“The constant presence when they were fatally attacked, or collapsed, was Lucy Letby,” he noted.
It also came to light that Lucy allegedly made as many as three attempts before killing some of the children and then searched for the victims’ families on Facebook afterward.
“We suggest it is an unusual interest, and we will see that on occasions, she searched in quick succession for several of the families of children’s names who appear on this indictment,” Johnson said.
The prosecution also described in-depth the circumstances surrounding Child A’s death and Child B’s incidence of harm.
Child A reportedly “most likely” died after being injected with air via an umbilical venous catheter or a long line. Then, Child B experienced rapidly falling oxygen levels just twenty-eight hours after Child A died.
Lucy was not Child B’s designated nurse. However, Lucy still took the child’s blood gases. Then, about thirty minutes later, Child B was no longer breathing. Their oxygen saturation level had fallen to fifty percent, and the child was turning blue.
Thankfully, Child B was resuscitated and able to “recover quickly.” However, a doctor concluded that the child had been “subjected to some form of sabotage before or after midnight on the night of June 9-10, 2015.”
Finally, the court was adjourned for the day at 11:00 a.m. this morning following Johnson’s claim that Lucy’s involvement is the “obvious conclusion.”
“You might be tempted to draw what we suggest is the obvious conclusion. Taking a step back, it is easy to get sucked in by the detail in this case but important always to keep a sense of perspective,” Johnson finished.
The prosecution opening will resume tomorrow, October 12th, at 10:30 a.m.– beginning with Child C’s case.
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