LONDON: A neonatal nurse in a British hospital was found guilty Friday of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others during a yearlong campaign of deception that saw her prey on the vulnerabilities of sick newborns and their anxious parents.
Following 22 days of deliberation, the jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted 33-year-old Lucy Letby of killing the babies, including two triplet boys, in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016. She will be sentenced on Monday.
“Parents were exposed to her morbid curiosity and her fake compassion,” said senior prosecutor Pascale Jones. “Too many of them returned home to empty baby rooms. Many surviving children live with permanent consequences of her assaults upon their lives.”
Her attacks, Jones said, were “a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her.”
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Lucy Letby was accused of injecting air into their bloodstreams and administering air or milk into their stomachs via nasogastric tubes.
Families of the victims said they will “forever be grateful” to jurors who since last October had to sit through 145 days of “grueling” evidence.
In a joint statement read outside court, they also expressed their gratitude to all those who came to give evidence during the trial, which they described as “extremely harrowing and distressing” to listen to.
“To lose a baby is a heart-breaking experience that no parent should ever have to go through, but to lose a baby or to have a baby harmed in these particular circumstances is unimaginable,” they said.
Letby’s motives remain unclear, but the scale of her crimes points to intricate planning.
She was accused of deliberately harming the babies in various ways, including by injecting air into their bloodstreams and administering air or milk into their stomachs via nasogastric tubes. She was also accused of poisoning infants by adding insulin to intravenous feeds and interfering with breathing tubes.
The British government launched an independent inquiry soon after the verdicts that will look into the wider circumstances around what happened at the hospital, including the handling of concerns raised by staff.
“This inquiry will seek to ensure the parents and families impacted get the answers they need,” Health Secretary Steve Barclay said. “I am determined their voices are heard, and they are involved in shaping the scope of the inquiry should they wish to do so.”
One of the senior doctors at the Countess of Chester Hospital told the BBC he had repeatedly tried to raise the alarm about Letby but hospital executives failed to investigate the allegations.
Dr Stephen Brearley, the lead doctor in the neonatal unit, said the hospital tried to silence doctors who complained about Letby and delayed calling the police.
The jury of seven women and four men deliberated for 22 days before reaching the verdict. One juror was excused well into deliberations for personal reasons, and the judge later gave the remaining 11 jurors the option of reaching a verdict with 10 people in agreement instead of a unanimous decision.
Letby was found guilty of the seven murders and of seven charges of attempted murder relating to six children. She was cleared of two charges of attempted murder and the jury could not reach a verdict on several others.
