Lucy Letby may have been waiting for baby to ‘self-correct’, trial told

A nurse accused of multiple attacks on babies told police she may have been waiting to see if an infant “self-corrected” before intervening, a court heard.

Lucy Letby, 33, is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others while she worked as a neo-natal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

One of her alleged victims was Child K, who was born in February 2016 at 25 weeks weighing just 692 grams.

The Crown says Letby, from Hereford, attempted to murder the baby girl within two hours of her birth by deliberately dislodging her breathing tube during a night shift.

The youngster was briefly left in the care of Letby by her designated nurse, who had gone to update her parents on the labour ward, Manchester Crown Court has heard.

Consultant Dr Ravi Jayaram told the jury that Letby was doing “nothing” when he walked into nursery room 1.

He said he saw her standing beside Child K’s incubator and then he looked up at the monitor and saw her saturations (blood oxygen levels) were in the 80s and falling.

Monitors were set to alarm when saturations dropped below 90% but they were silent at the cot, he added.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC read to jurors a summary of Letby’s police interviews about the incident, in which she denied any wrongdoing.

Letby told detectives at Cheshire Police she only recalled Child K because she was a “tiny baby” and the Countess of Chester did not usually take babies of her gestation and weight.

She said she had no recollection of the tube slipping and agreed that designated nurse Joanne Williams would not have left Child K unless she was stable and her ET (endotracheal tube) was correctly positioned.

Mr Johnson said: “She stated she would have raised the alarm if Dr Jayaram had not walked in and if she had seen the saturations dropping or that the tube had slipped.

“Miss Letby thought it possible that she was waiting to see if (Child K) self-corrected. She explained that nurses don’t always intervene straightaway if levels were not ‘dangerously low’.”

Following further questions from police, she suggested that maybe the tube had not been secured properly, he said. She denied that had been done deliberately.

Child K was transferred later that day to Wirral’s Arrowe Park Hospital where she died three days later.

The Crown does not allege Letby caused her death.

Mr Johnson explained to the jury he was not calling medical experts Dr Dewi Evans and Dr Sandie Bohin.

He said the prosecution and defence had agreed there was nothing they could add to the evidence already heard about Child K.

Letby denies all the offences said to have taken place between June 2015 and June 2016.

The trial continues on Thursday.

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