Accused nurse tells court she was in a different nursery when baby collapsed
A murder-accused nurse has told jurors she was in a different nursery when a doctor alleged he saw her “doing nothing” when a baby girl collapsed.
Lucy Letby, 33, is said to have deliberately dislodged the infant’s breathing tube shortly before a consultant walked into nursery one at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.
Giving evidence at Manchester Crown Court earlier this year, Dr Ravi Jayaram said he saw Letby standing by the incubator of Child K as her blood oxygen levels plummeted.
No alarms were sounding, he said, and he recalled the nurse was “doing nothing”.
On Tuesday, Letby, from Hereford, said she was feeding another baby in nursery two at or shortly before 3.50am on February 2015.
Her barrister Ben Myer KC asked: “Did you interfere with (Child K’s) tube?
“No,” replied Letby.
Mr Myers said: “Was there a time when you were in the nursery and Ravi Jayaram came in and he found you to be standing there close to (Child K)?”
Letby said: “No.”
Mr Myers said: “Do you recall any incident when you were present while (Child K) deteriorated and Ravi Jayaram was involved at about 3.50am?”
Letby said: “No I don’t.”
Mr Myers said: “Or at any other time?”
Letby said: “No.”
Mr Myers said: “Did Ravi Jayaram ever say to you what is going on here?
The defendant repeated: “No.”
Mr Myers said: “Did he say to you why the alarm is not going?”
Letby said: “No, I don’t recall any conversation with Dr Jayaram that night at all.”
The defendant told the court she was feeding another baby at “roughly” 3.30am, which involved changing a nappy and giving 55ml of milk via a nasogastric tube.
Mr Myers asked: “How long would that take?”
Letby said: “Around half an hour potentially.”
Mr Myers said: “What’s the quickest it could be?”
Letby said: “Depending on the baby, 20 minutes maybe.”
Mr Myers said: “The longest?”
Letby said: “Anything up to an hour.”
Mr Myers said: “How long would it be in the case of this baby?”
Letby said: “I can’t put a definitive time on it, but I would say 15 to 20 minutes.”
Mr Myers said: “If that is ongoing do you have any reason to be in nursery one at or shortly before 3.50am?”
Letby replied: “No, I was with this baby.”
The Crown say Letby struck less than two hours after the extremely premature youngster was born weighing 692 grammes.
The infant’s designated nurse Joanne Williams said she left a “stable” Child K to update her parents on the labour ward, the court has heard.
Dr Jayaram said Ms Williams had told him that Letby was keeping an eye on Child K while she was away.
He told the court that he felt “uncomfortable” because of Letby’s “association” to a “number of unexpected and unusual events” by this point and decided to check the room.
Dr Jayaram said he could not understand why Child K’s breathing tube had dislodged.
Letby told the court it was not unusual for such a tube to move with an active baby.
She said: “It does happen.”
Letby said she had no recollection of Child K being on the unit, apart from noting it was “unusual” for a baby to be born at the Countess of Chester at just 25 weeks gestation.
The court has heard Letby made a Facebook search for Child K’s surname in April 2018.
Mr Myers said: “Can you help us with why it is that two years later you are looking at this on Facebook?”
Letby said: “You still think of patients that you cared for.”
Mr Myers said: “Any particular reason here?”
Letby said: “Not that I can recall now.”
Child K was transferred later that day on February 17 to Wirral’s Arrowe Park Hospital, where she died three days later.
The prosecution does not allege Letby caused her death. The defendant denies the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others, including Child K, between June 2015 and June 2016.