Lucy Letby: Mother fears killer nurse harmed her baby in act of revenge
A mother has told Sky News she fears her newborn baby was harmed by child murderer Lucy Letby the day after she made a complaint about the nurse.
Lynsey Artell gave birth to her son Asa in March 2016 as Letby was attacking babies and stalking the corridors of the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six other infants.
Ms Artell says she and her husband were discussing how their premature son was making good progress on the unit when the couple noticed Letby eavesdropping on their conversation.
She says, out of the blue, Letby told them: “I don’t like parents getting their hopes up because we never know what could happen at this stage.”
Read more: Follow live reaction from court
Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Pic: Shutterstock
Ms Artell, who was herself a nurse at the hospital and had suffered numerous miscarriages, made a complaint to senior staff on the ward.
Speaking exclusively to Sky News, she said: “As a parent, I absolutely erupted and was furious. How dare you take that hope away from me?
“This was my seventh pregnancy… she needed to know that that was inappropriate.”
Mother fears killer nurse harmed her baby
Ms Artell now fears her actions could have prompted Letby to attack little Asa as he lay helpless in his ventilator.
The next day, the mother briefly left her two-day-old son’s bedside to get a coffee. When she returned, nurses and doctors were gathered around him, drawing the screens.
He’d had a huge spike in his insulin levels and was receiving urgent treatment.
During her trial, the court heard one of Letby’s favoured methods of attack was injecting her tiny victims with insulin.
The new mother watched as medics worked on her son.
“I just thought I don’t want to lose another one,” she said. “I hadn’t even held him yet.”
Mercifully, doctors managed to bring Asa back around, and eventually he was discharged from hospital.
Asa was saved by doctors
Chilling conversations of Letby’s suspicious colleagues
Ms Artell had concerns and still has not received a satisfactory answer into why her son’s insulin levels shot up with no warning.
After Letby was arrested, Ms Artell contacted police who investigated twice but did not bring charges in relation to Asa.
“I would have liked them to have spoken to us,” she said.
“It’s frustrating… because they haven’t got the whole facts. You think ‘oh my god, I was so close’.”
Having worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital, she also recalls chilling conversations from suspicious colleagues when there was a medical emergency.
She said: “When alarms would go off, during the night especially, there would be a phrase that people would use, colleagues that I know. They would say: ‘I wonder if Lucy’s working tonight?’.”
Following the verdicts, Ms Artell now hopes police will reinvestigate her case and others, and that more charges may be brought.
She also wants a public inquiry so lessons can be learned, and Letby’s horrific crimes can never be repeated.
“A guilty verdict is brilliant for some people, they get justice,” Ms Artell said.
“It doesn’t bring anyone back, but it gives some people some answers. But it also leaves many people who haven’t had answers, like me.”
Read more:
More families told their children could be victims
Inside court and the trial of a baby killer
Parents of boys Letby tried to kill criticise hospital
Video shows moment of Letby arrest
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, of Cheshire Police, told Sky News: “We’re obviously committed to looking at the entire time that Lucy has been employed as a nurse, whether it’s at the unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital or the Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
“That’s to make sure that at the end of Operation Hummingbird we can say, with a degree of confidence, that we’ve investigated every baby who has been in the neonatal unit and we’re confident that there are, or are not, further cases.”
Sky News has contacted the Countess of Chester Hospital for comment.
A 15-year-old boy has died after “getting into difficulty” in a lake in southeast London, police say.
Officers and paramedics were called shortly after 3pm on Friday to Beckenham Place Park in Lewisham.
The Metropolitan Police said a boy “was recovered from the lake” at around 10.42pm the same day.
“He was taken to hospital where he was sadly pronounced dead. His death is being treated as unexpected but not believed to be suspicious,” according to the force.
The boy’s family has been told and are being supported by specialist officers.
The force originally said the child was 16 years old, but has since confirmed his age as 15.
In the earlier statement, officers said emergency services carried out a search and the park was evacuated.
Emergency teams were called to Beckenham Place Park on Friday afternoon
Beckenham Place Park, which borders the London borough of Bromley, covers around 240 acres, according to the park’s website.
The lake is described as 285 metres long, reaching depths of up to 3.5 metres.
It is designed as a swimming lake for open-water swimming and paddle boarding.
A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said on Friday: “We were called at 3.02pm this afternoon to reports of a person in the water.
“We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and members of our hazardous area response team.”
Emergency teams have not explained how the boy entered the water, or whether he was accompanied by others.
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