Lucy Letby trial day three: Nurse ‘killed two out of three triplets’ – and ‘smiled after killing another premature baby girl at fourth attempt’
A neonatal nurse killed two out of three triplet boys and smiled after killing another premature baby girl on the fourth attempt, a court has heard.
Lucy Letby is charged with 22 counts of murder and attempted murder, involving 17 babies, and is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
Letby, of Arran Avenue, Hereford, has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
See the latest updates from court
She denies murdering five boys and two girls and attempting to murder another five boys and five girls.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of newborn and infant deaths, which some readers may find distressing
During the third day of the trial at Manchester Crown Court, jurors were told about eight babies who, the prosecution says, were attacked by Letby.
Pic: Shutterstock
Letby ‘killed two triplet boys’
Prosecutors told the court about Children O and P – two of three triplet boys who Letby allegedly murdered.
Child O died within a few minutes of Letby entering the neonatal unit, at a time when Letby was alone in his room.
Following his death, he was found to have severe liver damage beyond that expected from the CPR he had undergone.
Nick Johnson KC told the court that independent medical experts concluded the damage was “likely the result of some impact trauma”.
“In brutal terms, an assault,” the prosecutor said.
A consultant at the hospital said he was “particularly concerned” about Child O’s death because he had been “clinically stable” beforehand.
What happened on day two of the Lucy Letby trial
Nurse ‘smiled’ after death – and sent sympathy card to victim’s family
“Cold-blooded” Lucy Letby tried to kill one “resilient” newborn girl four times “before succeeding”, the court was told.
Letby was also questioned by police about why she had sent a sympathy card to the baby’s parents.
She had said this was the only time she had done it, “but it is not often the nurses got to know a family as well as they had known Child I’s.”
She accepted to officers that she had kept an image of the card on her phone.
Following Child I’s death on 23 October, Letby asked her parents if they wanted to bathe their baby daughter.
Mr Johnson told the court as the baby’s mother “bathed her recently departed child, Lucy Letby came into the room and in the words of the mother was ‘smiling and kept going on about how she was present at Child I’s first bath and how much Child I had loved it’.”
An independent medical expert concluded the “constellation of findings would strongly indicate Child I died due to unnatural causes”.
Letby is charged with 22 counts of murder and attempted murder
Consultants at hospital had grown suspicious of Letby
By the time Child L was attacked, in April 2016, doctors at the hospital had grown suspicious of Letby.
“By this time Letby was supposed only to be working day shifts because the consultants were concerned about the correlation between her presence and unexpected deaths/life-threatening episodes on the night shifts,” the prosecution told the court.
One consultant walked in on Letby trying to kill Child K after he had grown concerned about the baby being left alone with her, the prosecution said.
The consultant began to feel “uncomfortable” when he realised Letby was alone with the child “because he was beginning to notice the coincidence between the unexplained deaths/serious collapses and the presence of Lucy Letby”.
When he walked into the room, he noted that the infant’s breathing tube was dislodged.
“We alleged she was trying to kill Child K when the paediatric consultant walked in on her,” Mr Johnson told the court.
Pre-term baby ‘screamed’ for 30 minutes
Letby allegedly used the haemophilia of one child – known as Child N – as a cover under which to attack him.
The disease, which causes bleeding for no reason, was attributed to many of the episodes involving the infant boy.
In one instance, the infant’s throat was so swollen and covered with “fresh blood” that a consultant was unable to get a breathing tube down.
There were more attempts made to reintubate Child N, as he was so unwell, but doctors were “unable to see down Child N’s throat because the view was obscured by fresh blood” and a specialist team had to be called in.
“Something – somebody, we say – had caused Child N to bleed again,” the prosecution said.
Child N experienced a “sudden deterioration” which was consistent with some kind of “inflicted injury which caused severe pain, distress and destabilised him”, the court heard.
Independent medical experts said this was “consistent with inflicted injury or having received an injection of air”, jurors were told.
One of the medical experts wrote: “This is life-threatening. He was also noted to be… ‘screaming’ and apparently cried for 30 minutes.
“This is most unusual.
“I have never observed a premature neonate to scream.”
The trial continues.
It started with a strong espresso in a simple cafe on a side street in north London.
Several Algerian men were inside, a few others were outside on the pavement, smoking.
I’d been told the wanted prisoner might be in Finsbury Park, so I ordered a coffee and asked if they’d seen him.
Spotting a man resembling the suspect, Tom and camera operator Josh Masters gave chase
They were happy to tell me that some of them knew Brahim Kaddour-Cherif – the 24-year-old offender who was on the run.
One of the customers revealed to me that he’d actually seen him the night before.
“He wants to hand himself to police,” the friend said candidly.
This was the beginning of the end of a high-profile manhunt.
The Algerian convicted sex offender had been at large since 29 October, after he was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth in south London.
Within an hour of meeting the friend in the cafe, he had followed myself and camera operator Josh Masters to a nearby street.
Kaddour-Cherif was accidentally freed five days after the wrongful release of convicted sex offender Hadush Kebatu (pictured). They were both arrested separately in Finsbury Park. Pic: Crown Prosecution Service/PA
We weren’t yet filming – he didn’t want any attention or fuss surrounding him.
“Follow me, he’s in the park,” the man told me.
“Follow – but not too close.”
We did.
I was in the same park a few weeks ago after fugitive Hadush Kebatu, the Ethiopian sex offender – also wrongly released from prison – was arrested in Finsbury Park.
It was odd to be back in the same spot in such similar circumstances.
Read more on Tom’s story:
Wrongly released prisoner’s angry reaction
‘I’m glad he’s been arrested‘
As he led us through the park past joggers, young families and people playing tennis, the man headed for the gates near Finsbury Park station.
All of a sudden, two police officers ran past us.
The Met had received a tip-off from a member of the public.
It was frantic. Undercover officers, uniformed cops, screeching tyres and blaring sirens. We were in the middle of the manhunt.
As they scoured the streets at speed, we walked by some of the Algerian men I’d seen in the cafe.
Kaddour-Cherif walked up to a nearby police van as Tom continued to question him
One man near the group was wearing green tracksuit bottoms, a beanie hat and had glasses on.
“It’s him, it’s him,” one of the other men said to me, gesturing towards him.
The man in the beanie then quickly turned on his heel and walked off.
“It’s him, it’s him,” another guy agreed.
The suspect was walking off while the police were still searching the nearby streets.
Josh and I caught up with him and I asked directly: “Are you Brahim?”
You may have watched the exchange in the Sky News video – he was in denial, evasive and pretended the suspect had pedalled off on a Lime bike.
I can only guess he knew the game was up, but for whatever reason, he was keeping up the lie.
Police moved in to handcuff him and used their phones to check an image of the wanted man from one of Sky News’ online platforms
Once his identity was confirmed, Kaddour-Cherif was put into the back of the police van
Moments later, one of the bystanders told me “it is him” – with added urgency.
Only the prisoner knows why he then walked up to the nearby police van – officers quickly moved to handcuff him and tell him why he was being arrested.
Over the next 10 minutes, he became agitated. His story changed as I repeatedly asked if he had been the man inside HMP Wandsworth.
Officers needed confirmation too – one quickly pulled out a smartphone and checked an image of the wanted man from one of Sky News’ online platforms.
Read more from Sky News:
Teen speeding after passing driving test caused friend’s death
DNA pioneer censured for offensive race remarks dies
Did Putin’s right-hand man make him look weak?
When Tom first caught up with him, Kaddour-Cherif claimed the culprit had left on a Lime bike
“It’s not my f****** fault, they release me!” he yelled at me.
The search was over, the prisoner cage in the back of the van was opened and he was guided in.
I then spoke to another Algerian man who had tipped off the police – he told me he hated sex offenders and the shame he felt over the whole episode.
The community had done the right thing – there were two tip-offs – one to me, one to the police.
The farce of this manhunt had gone on long enough.
UK
Nadjib, who tipped off police over released prisoner Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, tells Sky News he’s ‘happy to see him arrested’
“It’s him, it’s him, it’s him”, the man told me urgently.
While police were frantically searching in Finsbury Park for wanted sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, locals were telling me where he was.
Immediately after the dramatic arrest, filmed exclusively by Sky News we spoke to the North African man who tipped off the police.
Sky News filmed Brahim Kaddour-Cherif’s rearrest
Nadjib had been on the lookout for the convicted sex offender, who had been spending time in different parts of north London since his release from HMP Wandsworth.
He even had a folded-up newspaper clipping in his pocket so that he could check the picture himself.
He told Sky News he was “very happy when he got arrested”.
“I don’t like the sex offenders,” he said.
“I know him from the community. He has been around here every night since he was released from prison.”
Nadjib (L) told Sky’s Tom Parmenter he had been looking out for the offender
Not only did he tip the police off about the prisoner’s whereabouts, but he also witnessed the other high-profile manhunt that ended in the same park last month.
Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was also arrested in Finsbury Park after a 48-hour manhunt in the capital. He was then deported to Ethiopia.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif
“When he [Kebatu] got arrested in the park I was there,” Nadjib said.
I asked him why both men ended up in the same park in north London.
“Because the community, he came here for the community of Algerians,” he said.
Several Algerian people that I spoke to on Friday told me how shameful they thought it was that this sex offender was still on the run.
“Job done,” Nadjib said, before walking off.
UK
Alice Figueiredo: NHS trust and ward manager to be sentenced – over a decade after young patient’s death
An NHS trust and a ward manager will be sentenced next week for health and safety failings – more than a decade after a young woman died in a secure mental health hospital.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide.
Earlier this year, a jury found the North East London NHS Foundation Trust and ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa did not do enough to prevent Alice Figueiredo from killing herself.
The decisions were reached after the joint-longest jury deliberation in English legal history.
Alice was 22 years old when she took her own life at London’s Goodmayes Hospital in July 2015.
Her parents sat through seven months of difficult and graphic evidence – and told Sky News the experience retraumatised them.
Mother Jane Figueiredo
Jane Figueiredo said: “It’s very distressing, because you know that she’s been failed at every point all the way along, and you’re also reliving the suffering that she went through.
“It’s adding trauma on top of the wound that you’ve already got, the worst wound you can imagine, of losing your child.”
Step-father Max Figueiredo
Alice’s stepfather Max said he remains “appalled” that she died in a place they thought would care for her.
“The fact we have these repeated deaths of very young people in secure mental health units shocks me to the core. How can society look at that event and portray it as something that happens as a matter of course?”
Ms Figueiredo said Alice had predicted her own death.
“She said to us – out of fear really: ‘The only way I’m going to leave this ward is in a body bag.’
“It’s because she did not feel safe.”
Read more from Sky News:
Joey Barton found guilty over social media posts
Six police officers facing misconduct probe
Alice had predicted her own death, her mother says
In a statement, the North East London NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are deeply sorry for Alice’s death, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones.
“We have taken significant steps to continually improve the physical and social environment, deliberately designed to support recovery, safety, wellbeing, and assist our workforce in delivering compassionate care.”
For Alice’s family, the convictions have brought some justice, but they will never have complete closure.
“As a mum your bereavement doesn’t ever end, it changes over years as you go on, but it’s unending. The thought I won’t even hear her voice is unbearable and I still miss it. I still miss her voice,” Ms Figueiredo said.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
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