Inside courtroom seven: The trial of Lucy Letby and the moment she was found guilty
For 10 months, the nondescript courtroom has been home to endless discussion, accusations and speculation, as lawyers sought to answer why seven young babies had suddenly collapsed and died in the place they should have been safest.
But in the moments before nurse Lucy Letby was found guilty of their murders, there was only a thick silence in courtroom seven.
For the jury of 11 – seven women and four men – the weight on their shoulders was enormous. But after deliberating for more than 100 hours, the foreman quietly and steadily delivered its rulings.
For her victims’ parents, it has been an agonising and unimaginable wait. Many have stood at the court every day during jurors’ deliberations, waiting to learn if their children – who by now would have been approaching their final years of primary school – were among those targeted by Letby.
They have sat through graphic descriptions of their babies’ final moments, as the prosecution tried to prove Letby poisoned them, pumped them with excessive gas or milk, or violently assaulted them.
One of her victims, Child C, was found with an unexplained amount of air in his gut.
As Letby was found guilty of the baby boy’s murder, his mother sobbed and was comforted by those around her. His father stayed still, staring straight ahead.
Another parent clutched a stuffed rabbit to her face as she tried to hold back tears.
Read more: Follow live reaction from court
Lucy Letby’s mugshot has now been released. Pic: Cheshire Constabulary
How the verdicts unfolded
Letby was found guilty of seven murders and the attempted murder of six others at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
She was also found not guilty of two charges of attempted murder.
Sky News is one of just five news organisations that have been given a seat inside the trial, with the rest of the world’s media required to watch from the magistrates’ court across the road via a televised link.
All of the children and their parents have been granted anonymity, although their names were read out in the courtroom during the nine-month trial.
Strict reporting restrictions were put in place, which meant the media could not publish any of the verdicts until the jury had found on all counts.
First, after 76 hours of discussions, the jury unanimously found her guilty of the attempted murders of Children F and L.
They agreed with the prosecution that Letby had poisoned their IV drip bags with insulin on separate occasions, eight months apart.
Seated in the glass-fronted dock, Letby is now a shadow of the smiling, ordinary-looking woman pictured in media reports. She was in her mid-20s when she attacked her victims. She is now 33 and spent almost three years behind bars awaiting this trial.
Her once shiny blonde hair hung long and limp around her face, which is now gaunt and angular. Flanked by guards, as the first verdicts were read out, she bowed her head and wiped away tears.
Susan Letby, the mother of Lucy Letby
Her mother, Susan, sobbed as her daughter was taken back to the custody area.
After the first two verdicts, the jury was ordered by the judge, Mr Justice Goss, to try to reach a majority decision on all other counts.
Three days later, the jury returned again and this time, quiet gasps accompanied each guilty verdict in the courtroom.
Letby was found guilty of murdering four of the infants and attempting to murder two more.
She remained emotionless, but as she stood to be taken back down to the cells her shoulders began to shake.
Susan broke down again – whispering “you can’t be serious, this can’t be right” into her husband’s arms – before howling as her only child was led out of court.
John and Susan Letby, the parents of nurse Lucy Letby, outside Manchester Crown Court
Letby refused to come up from cells
A third set of verdicts came after the jury had been discussing the case for 99 hours and 38 minutes.
But this time, the dock was empty as Letby refused to leave the cells. In her absence, she was found guilty of a further three murders and three more attempts. With this, she surpassed Beverley Allitt and became the UK’s most prolific child murderer.
She was also found not guilty of one of the attacks on Child G, a baby girl.
One mother put her head in her hands and sobbed silently as Letby was found guilty of her child’s murder. Another gasped and then cheered quietly. Their relief was visible – like 15 people had just let go of one collective breath.
This time, John and Susan Letby were silent, resigned, and leant on each other with their eyes closed.
Exclusive: Mother fears Letby attacked her baby too
Pic: Shutterstock
The final verdicts
Five hours of deliberation later, Letby was cleared of another attempted murder, again in her absence, and made it clear, via her defence barrister, she would not be returning to the courtroom under any circumstances – including for sentencing.
The following day, family members who had already received a verdict for their child returned to court, in a show of solidarity for those who had not.
But on six counts, the jury could not reach a decision.
The father of one child stormed out of the room, and several members of the jury cried, while others put their heads in their hands and looked down.
The jury was discharged from its service and sentencing was scheduled for Monday morning at 10am.
Both Letby and her parents were absent from court.
Court artist Elizabeth Cook drawing outside Manchester Crown Court
The trial
The high-profile case against Letby contrasted with the unremarkable surroundings of courtroom seven at Manchester Crown Court, where the trial sat over for almost a year.
Unlike in the movies, there was no grand wooden interior – instead a small and fairly clinical space where defence barrister Ben Myers KC and Nick Johnson KC, for the prosecution, pored over medical notes, texts, photos and other evidence to make their arguments.
For most of the trial, Letby sat in a dock in front of prison guards, watching as her former friends gave evidence against her, her WhatsApp messages were read out, her Facebook searches revealed and the details of her horrendous crimes made public.
To the right of the dock sat the public gallery which was always filled with the parents of the victims, often teary-eyed but always stoic in their dedication to find out what had happened to their children.
Read more:
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Inside court and the trial of a baby killer
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Video shows moment of Letby arrest
![Lucy Letby Still 1 [IB1706]. Forensics shorthand](https://e3.365dm.com/23/07/768x432/2372307100192179707_6214678.jpg?20230710170721)
Letby’s parents were positioned in the gallery opposite, frequently making eye contact with their daughter as she was led from the room at the end of each day.
When she was called to give evidence in May, some seven months after the trial started, Letby sat at a small table with two guards on either side of her.
She mostly answered questions calmly but became emotional when photographs of her bedroom after a police search were shown to the court. She spoke quietly and was repeatedly told to raise her voice.
As she was cross-examined she repeatedly contradicted herself, muddling her story, and grew frustrated with the prosecution’s questions. She was accused of only crying for herself – something she denied.
![J124 [IB1210]. Forensics shorthand](https://e3.365dm.com/23/07/768x432/2372307100191848307_6214306.jpg?20230710121223)
Justice at last for families changed forever
Letby’s fate rested in the hands of 12 ordinary men and women. Partway through deliberations, one had to be discharged for “good personal reasons”, reducing the number to 11.
For 10 months they have listened closely to everything that has been said, studiously making notes, the importance of this job not lost on any of them.
During one set of verdicts, a female member of the jury put her head down and cried, while her fellow jurors looked down at their desks.
No motive has ever been established, and perhaps it will never be known why the “evil” nurse chose to target defenceless infants.
Lucy Letby
Families have been changed forever, and may never truly be able to come to terms with the loss of lives that had only just begun.
And now, Letby could likely face a record-breaking sentence.
For her victims’ families, her imprisonment may finally bring some small justice that has been eight years in the making.
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
Read more:
Who is Yang Tenbo?
Virginia Giuffre says she has days to live
Emails between Andrew and Epstein revealed
He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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