Eight years after her murder spree began, nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of seven murders and six attempted murders.
No one would have believed that an ordinary, nice young nurse would kill.
But eight years after the start of his murderous campaign Lucy Letby received a life sentence for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of six babies. He tried to murder one baby twice. He committed his crime in 2015-2016 at the Countess Of Chester Hospital.
33-year-old Lucy Letby is Britain’s worst serial killer of children today. He will never be released from prison, he will serve 14 of his life sentences in prison until his death.
– Because the seriousness of your crime is exceptionally high, … you will spend the rest of your life in prison, announced the judge James Goss.
Lucy Letby’s actions in the maternity ward of a children’s hospital have shocked the whole of Britain.
– You killed seven fragile babies and tried to kill six others. Some of your victims were only a day or two old. All were extremely vulnerable, Judge Goss said.
He described the incident as a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of infanticide in an environment that should have been safe for babies. Letby had chosen exceptionally fragile children as his victims, especially twins and triplets.
– In his hands, harmless substances such as air, milk, IV or insulin became deadly. He misused his teachings and caused hurt, grief and death with his skills, Judge Goss said.
Letby had poisoned the babies’ IV with insulin. He injected air into the children’s veins and overdosed on milk.
The doctors’ suspicions were not confirmed
In Britain, there has been a lot of discussion about how the nurse was able to continue killing children in the same ward for a whole year. Doctors at the hospital began to doubt him when the children’s health always collapsed just at the time of his night shift.
A leading pediatrician Stephen Brearey reported his suspicions to the hospital to the management already in the summer of 2015, when the first unexplained Deaths had occurred. Usually, no more than two children died in the hospital during the whole year.
The hospital’s management refused to transfer Letby from his job in the intensive care unit for babies. Instead, the doctors were ordered to apologize to the upset Letby for their suspicions. When the nurse was finally transferred to office work in the department responsible for patient safety, the deaths stopped.
The real investigation didn’t start until two years later, when the hospital finally reported the matter to the police. Letby was first arrested in 2018.
The parents gave heartbreaking statements in court before Judge Goss handed down the sentence.
– We will never get over the fact that our daughter was tortured for so long that she couldn’t fight anymore. Everything he went through in his short life was deliberately done by the person who was supposed to protect him and help him get home where he belonged, wrote the grieving mother, whose statement was read out in court.
The actions of the hospital’s management will be investigated
Many of the parents said they had lost trust in the hospital and public health authorities.
The British government has promised a thorough investigation into the activities of the hospital’s management. The opposition Labor Party and numerous other parties demand that the investigation be led by a judge so that everything can be found out for sure.
In Britain, the managers of the hospital are now also being held accountable as complicit in the murders. In the Observer magazine the prosecution’s medical expert has insisted charges of manslaughter against the hospital’s management.
In the media, public healthcare leaders are also being demanded to take even more responsibility for errors and crimes that occur in hospitals.
Letby himself refused to come from his cell to hear the sentence. Minister of Justice Alex Chalk says that the law is going to be changed so that from now on the accused will have to come to hear his sentence.
The police are still investigating dozens of other suspicious cases where Letby has been taking care of babies. In addition, all four thousand patient reports, according to which Letby has been caring for babies, are going to be gutted.