Lucy Letby she was found guilty of killing seven infants, five girls and two boys by injecting them with air. She happened at Chester Hospital, between June 2015 and June 2016. The 33-year-old woman was also found guilty by Manchester court of attempting to murder six other newborns by methods including the deliberate injection of air, overfeeding, and poisoning with insulin. The ruling will come Monday morning at 10am London time.
Nurse convicted of murdering seven babies in UK, time of arrest
The nurse was working in the intensive care unit of the neonatal unit at Chester hospital in 2015. “In her hands, harmless substances such as air, milk or drugs such as insulin have become lethal. She used her craft as a weapon to inflict harm, pain and death,” prosecutor Pascale Jones said. “You have harmed the children over and over again, in an environment that should have been safe for them and their families,” she added, stating that “the parents have been exposed to her morbid curiosity and feigned pity for her.’
Opening the case, attorney Nick Johnson explained that neonatal mortality in the hospital had been comparable to that of other units across the country but in 18 months, starting in January 2015, there was a “significant” increase in the number of deaths and of serious illnesses among newborns. After looking for a cause for this increase, the consultants noticed that they all had a common denominator: the presence of one of the neonatal nurses. “The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn – said the prosecution lawyer at the beginning of the trial – is that all this was done deliberately. It wasn’t a coincidence.”
In a diary he kept the initials and dates of death of the newborns
The jury was also shown images of handwritten notes recovered from the nurse’s home, including an A4 document in which she had written ‘kill me’ in bold letters next to a crossed out box which contained the words: ‘I don’t know if I killed them. Maybe I did. Maybe it’s all up to me.”
The diary found in the nurse’s house
(afp)
The items were recovered from Letby’s bedroom following his first arrest, at his home in Chester, in the early hours of 3 July 2018. Jurors were shown post-it notes stating he was innocent and others including the words: “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to take care of them.”
The British government opens an investigation
The British government has announced the launch of an independent investigation into the facts: it will examine the circumstances of what happened in the English public health structure to guarantee the families of the victims “the answers they need”.