Serial killer Lucy Letby gets further whole life order over bid to kill another baby
Mr Justice Goss tells Letby she will never be released from jail.
Child serial killer nurse Lucy Letby has been ordered to serve a another whole life sentence for the attempted murder of a newborn baby girl.
Letby, 34, was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of the attack on the newborn infant during a night shift at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit in February 2016.
In August 2023, she was convicted at the same court by another jury of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others at the unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
She is already serving a whole life order, including 14 whole life terms for the offences, with two bids to kill one child.
Sentencing Letby, Mr Justice Goss told her: “It was another shocking act of calculated, callous cruelty.
“During the course of this trial you have coldly denied any responsibility for any offences and sought to attribute wrongdoing to others.You have no remorse.”
After he reiterated to Letby that she would spend the rest of her life in prison, she turned round as she was led from the dock and said: “I’m innocent".
In a statement released after the hearing, Deputy Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Evans, said: “This sentence once again reflects the true scale and gravity of her horrific crimes.
“It also highlights the torturous journey that Baby K’s parents have had to endure at court – sitting and listening to extremely upsetting and distressing evidence about their newborn daughter – against constant denials from Letby.
"They have had to do this not once, but twice."
A retrial was ordered on a single allegation concerning the baby girl, known as Child K, after the first jury could not reach a verdict.
It took a second jury took just three and a half hours to convict Letby of the offence.
Letby, of Hereford, targeted the “very premature” baby after she was moved from the delivery room to the unit’s intensive care room in the early hours of 17 February.
The youngster, born at 25 weeks’ gestation and weighing just 692g, was said by the prosecution to be the “epitome of fragility”.
About 90 minutes after her birth, Letby dislodged the breathing tube through which she was being ventilated with air and oxygen.
Consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram caught her “virtually red-handed” as he entered nursery one at about 3.45am and he then went on to intervene and resuscitate Child K.
Dr Jayaram told jurors he saw “no evidence” that she had done anything to help the deteriorating baby as he walked in and saw her standing next to the infant’s incubator.
He said he heard no call for help from Letby or alarms sounding as Child K’s blood oxygen levels dropped.
From the witness box, Letby told the jury of six women and six men she had no recollection of the event described by Dr Jayaram and did not accept it had taken place.
She denied she did anything harmful to Child K and added that she had not committed any of the offences she had been convicted of.
Letby also denied the prosecution’s claims that she interfered with the infant’s breathing tube on two more occasions during the same shift to create the impression it was accidentally displaced.
Child K was transferred to a specialist hospital later on 17 February because of her extreme prematurity and died there three days later.
More than two years later on a late Friday night in April 2018, Letby searched on Facebook for Child K’s surname.
The Crown said it was part of a pattern of similar Facebook searches which showed Letby’s “fascination” with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families.
Letby was initially charged with the murder of Child K but the charge was dropped in June 2022 as the prosecution offered no evidence.
In May, Letby lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions.
Cheshire Constabulary said its review of the care of some 4,000 babies admitted to hospital while Letby was working as a neonatal nurse remains ongoing.
The period covers her spell at the Countess of Chester from January 2012 to the end of June 2016, and includes two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital in 2012 and 2015.
A separate corporate manslaughter investigation at the hospital by Cheshire Constabulary also remains ongoing.
The public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes on the unit is set to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on 10 September.
A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children involved in the case.
Gamal Fahnbulleh joins Mel Barham and Emma Sweeney on the thisepisode of From the North to look at how Lucy Letby managed to slip under the radar for so long, carrying out her attacks unchallenged for a year.