Lucy Letby trial: Mum walked in on nurse as she was killing baby, court hears
A hospital nurse accused of murdering seven babies was interrupted by one of her victim’s mothers as she was fatally attacking her newborn son, prosecutors say.
Lucy Letby allegedly killed Child E by an injection of air into the bloodstream while working at the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said that on the evening of 3 August 2015, Child E’s mother visited her son in the unit.
Mr Johnson said: “We say that she interrupted Lucy Letby who was attacking (Child E), although she did not realise it at the time.”
When the mother arrived, her son was “distressed” and bleeding from the mouth, the court heard.
The mother recalled Letby tried to reassure her, he said, and told her a registrar would review the youngster’s condition and she should leave the unit.
“‘Trust me, I’m a nurse’. That’s what she told (the mother),” said Mr Johnson.
“We suggest she was fobbed off by Lucy Letby.”
Pic: Shutterstock
Child E went on to suffer significant blood loss, say the Crown, later in the evening, with a treating registrar saying he had never encountered such a large bleed in a small baby.
Following Child E’s death in the early hours of 4 August, the Crown said Letby made “fraudulent” nursing notes which were “false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks”.
Letby, 32, denies seven counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.
The second day of the prosecution opening at court also heard how Letby went on to show “very unusual interest” in Child E’s family and the families of her other alleged victims.
Mr Johnson said she carried out social media searches on Child E’s family two days after the youngster’s death and again on numerous occasions in the following months, including “even on Christmas Day”.
Jurors heard how the day after allegedly murdering Child E, Letby allegedly used insulin for the first time to poison a baby by trying to murder child E’s twin brother, child F.
Child F was prescribed a TPN (total parenteral nutrition) bag of fluids and later suffered an unexpected drop in his blood sugar levels and surge in heart rate. Checks on his insulin levels were carried out which showed, “conclusive evidence” someone had given child F insulin to poison him.
Mr Johnson said no other baby on the neo-natal unit was prescribed insulin so child F could not have received the drug intended for some other child by negligence.
Mr Johnson said the prosecution allege Letby had injected insulin into the TPN bag before it was hung up to give to the child.
He added: “You know who was in the room and you know from the records, who hung the bag.
“It can’t have been an accident.”
Prosecutors earlier alleged Letby murdered a five-day-old baby by injecting air into his stomach through a nose tube.
She allegedly killed the baby boy, Child C, just six days after murdering for the first time, when she killed another baby boy, Child A, and days later attacked Child B.
Child C died because the air injected into his stomach made him unable to breathe and he suffered a cardiac arrest, Mr Johnson told the jury.
The boy had been born prematurely at 30 weeks on 10 June 2015 weighing only 800 grams, but despite going into intensive care was in good condition.
Five days later, on the nightshift of 14 June, Letby was supposed to be looking after another, more poorly baby, in another room.
But she was the only person in the room when Child C suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed.
Mr Johnson said an independent pathologist – when reviewing the case – concluded Child C died because his breathing became compromised and he suffered a cardiac arrest.
The prosecutor told jurors: “If you are trying to murder a child in a neo-natal unit, it is a fairly effective way of doing it. It doesn’t really leave much trace.”
Lucy Letby arrives on day one of the trial
He said on the afternoon of 14 June, 2015 – hours after Child C died – the defendant searched on Facebook for the youngster’s parents.
Mr Johnson suggested from the timings that this was “one of the first things she did when waking up” after she had earlier finished her shift at about 8am.
He then moved on to detailing the death of Child D, who the Crown say was murdered by Letby with an intentional injection of air into the bloodstream.
Letby sent “many messages” to friends in the wake of Child D’s death and the preceding deaths and collapses in which she suggested they could all clearly be explained as natural causes.
The defendant later told police she could not explain why she had searched on Facebook for Child D’s parents in the aftermath of her death.
She was also asked about another message in which she had referred to an “element of fate” being involved.
Mr Johnson told the jury: “We say, tragically for (Child D) her bad luck or fate was the fact that Lucy Letby was working in the neo-natal unit that night.”
The trial continues on Wednesday.
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The parents of survivors of the Southport attack have revealed the “untold stories” of how their “hero” children escaped.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in what the chairman of the public inquiry Sir Adrian Fulford called “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”.
Eight children were injured along with two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside seaside town on 29 July last year, while 15 others escaped without physical injuries.
The surviving victims and their families have been granted anonymity during the inquiry, with one girl referred to as C3. Her father was the first to give evidence at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King were murdered in the attack
Reading a statement on behalf of him and his wife, he told how their daughter was the first girl to escape the scene by running from the Hart Space building and hiding behind a parked car before jumping through an open car door.
“Our nine-year-old daughter was stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn’t even see,” he said.
“Although she didn’t know what was happening – she knew she had to run. She ran out of the studio door, down the stairs, and out of the building.”
Read more: Southport inquiry as it happened
He said she can be seen “looking scared, confused and pained” in CCTV footage of the incident, adding: “It was troubling for us to see what she had to go through, before either of her parents had arrived at the scene.”
“We are so thankful and proud that despite being critically injured, she was able to make the decisions she did in that terrible moment,” he said.
The girl’s father said his daughter “continues to astound” them with the way she dealt with the attack and her recovery, saying: “It has been inspiring for us to witness.”
Inquiry chair Sir Adrian Fulford at Liverpool Town Hall. Pic: PA
He said she has difficulty sleeping, experiences flashbacks, looks over her shoulder scanning for potential danger when she leaves the house, has a fear of loud noises and has to turn off some songs when they come on the radio.
“Our daughter knows that she is loved,” he said.
“It is through this support and love that she will continue to thrive. We couldn’t be prouder of her. She is our hero.”
Stabbed 33 times
The parents of a girl referred to as C1 told how their “beautiful, articulate, fun-loving little girl” was stabbed 33 times.
After being attacked she escaped the building, but Rudakubana was seen dragging her back inside in CCTV footage played during his sentencing hearing, which drew gasps in court, before she was stabbed 20 more times.
“That is how she became known in this nightmare. The girl that was dragged back in,” her mother said.
Police at the scene. Pic: PA
She thanked the teachers who escaped to call police and flag down help but said: “The most painful of truths for us though, and what has been most devastating to come to terms with, is that there were no adults to help during both of her attacks.
“She was only supported by other children. The courage and strength she found leaves me crushed, but in complete awe.”
She added: “It is these untold stories of remarkable strength and bravery that are missing when we have heard other accounts of this day.”
The mother said the “hours and days that followed the attack were a living hell” and her daughter’s memories – including a concert of her “idol” Taylor Swift – have “been forfeited to make space for the trauma that she carries”.
“We tell her she was brave. How proud we are that she was able to help other girls. How her strength makes us feel strong. How important what she did that day was. She is her own hero. She may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day,” she said.
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‘We need to understand what went wrong’
Attack ‘changed everything’
The mother of a girl referred to as C8 said she was “like any other seven-year-old little girl”, “with an incredible energy” and “full of life”.
But in a statement read out by a legal representative, she said the attack last year “changed everything” when she got a “panicked phone call” from a friend’s mother, who couldn’t find the girls.
“That moment, the sound of fear in her voice and the panic I felt will never leave me,” she said.
“I rushed to the scene and what I saw is something no parent should ever see. My daughter had sustained serious physical injuries including a stab wound to her arm and a cut to her face and chin.”
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‘We don’t want Elsie forgotten’
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She said her daughter “remembers the attack vividly” and later told her “she thought it had to be fake, because she couldn’t believe something that terrible could really be happening”.
“Where she was once eager to go off with her friends, she now needs my support if it is somewhere public or unknown,” she said.
“Simple days out now need a level of safety planning that we would never have considered before.”
‘Constant flashbacks’
The mother of a girl referred to as Q, who escaped without being physically injured, told how she arrived to collect her daughter to find “children running from the building, screaming and fearing for their lives”.
In a statement read to the inquiry by a legal representative on her behalf, she said it was “the most horrific experience of my life”.
“What I saw on that day will stick with me forever, I constantly have flashbacks and relive what happened,” she said.
She said her daughter has become “very withdrawn” since the attack and has asked her parents, “How will I ever be normal again?”
Rudakubana was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January and is being investigated over an alleged attack on a prison officer at Belmarsh prison in May.
The public inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January, is looking into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer.
Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, had contact with police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services, and was referred to the government’s anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders.
A rapid review into his contact with Prevent found his case should have been kept open and that he should have been referred to Channel, another anti-terror scheme.
C1’s mother said: “She deserves the truth, she deserves accountability. She deserves an apology. Our girls deserve an apology.
“Backed up by the promise that changes will be made and this will not be allowed to happen again.”
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