Doctors Were Forced To Apologize to Serial Baby Killer Nurse

Colleagues of ex-British neonatal nurse Lucy Letby raised concerns that she was responsible for a spike in unexplained newborn deaths nearly a year before she was removed from the ward, according to a report.

On Friday, a Manchester Crown Court jury in northern England found Letby guilty of murdering seven babies – five premature boys and two newborn girls – in the neonatal unit where she worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in an online statement. Letby was also convicted of attempting to kill six other newborns in her care. She will be sentenced on Monday.

The guilty verdicts have made Letby the most prolific serial killer of children in modern British history. Prosecutors said the former nurse used a variety of methods to secretly attack a total of 13 babies in the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016, CPS said.

Newsweek reached out via email to officials with the Countess of Chester Hospital for comment.

The 33-year-old former nurse harmed babies in her care by injecting air into their blood, overfeeding them with milk, and poisoning them with insulin, according to CPS.

During the trial, which began in October 2022, Manchester Crown Court heard that doctors at the hospital started to notice a "significant rise" in the number of babies who were dying or were unexpectedly collapsing while Letby was on duty, CPS said.

When they were unable to find a medical explanation for the spike in newborn deaths in the unit, police were contacted and an investigation ensued, CPS said. Letby was arrested in July 2018 and subsequently charged in November 2020.

Investigators uncovered evidence that Letby used various methods to attack babies, including the injection of air and insulin into their bloodstream, the infusion of air into their gastrointestinal tract, force feeding an overdose of milk or fluids and impact-type trauma, according to the statement.

"Her intention was to kill the babies while deceiving her colleagues into believing there was a natural cause," CPS said.

In one incident, Letby killed a baby boy, identified as Child E in court documents, by administering air into his bloodstream, according to media reports. The next day, she tried to kill his twin brother, Child F, by poisoning him with insulin.

During the trial, prosecutors highlighted key evidence against the former neonatal nurse, which included the medical records of Letby's young victims, her text messages and social media activity and handwritten notes and journals.

Investigators said that Letby's handwritten documents included phrases such as: "I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them" and "I am evil I did this."

Letby, prosecutors said, deceived her colleagues into believing that the inexplicable decline in health were simply a "natural worsening" of the babies' underlying conditions. Her social media activity revealed an "intrusive curiosity" about the parents of newborns she had harmed, CPS said.

"Lucy Letby sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby's existing vulnerability," CPS Senior Crown Prosecutor Pascale Jones said. "In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids - or medication like insulin - would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponized her craft to inflict harm, grief and death."

Jones said the attacks on the 13 newborns were a "betrayal of the trust placed in her," adding that Letby was the one common denominator in the series of deaths and sudden collapses in the neonatal unit.

"Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families," Jones said.

Several of Letby's colleagues allege that some of those deaths could have been prevented had hospital officials listened to their concerns, The Guardian reports.

Senior doctors issued warnings that Letby was the only staff member present when babies in the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit would suddenly deteriorate or die.

Several people who reported Letby were ordered to apologize by hospital management after "repeatedly raising concerns" that she may have been involved in the spike in unexplained baby deaths, according to an investigation by The Guardian.

Letby went on to work in the unit for a year after the first doctor voiced concerns about her to hospital executives. Management ordered a formal review into the increase in newborn deaths in June 2016, a year after the Letby began attacking babies in the unit. She was removed in July, but police weren't contacted for nearly a year later, the outlet reports.

Hospital officials are facing mounting scrutiny over how they responded to the red flags raised about Letby, and whether they should have acted sooner, according to The Guardian.

Dr. Steve Brearey and Dr. John Gibbs said they were among those who reported Letby to hospital officials, they told The Guardian. The pediatric consultants said they had raised patient safety concerns with management in February 2016, several months before Letby was removed, but were forced to apologize after hospital executives said reviews of the unit cleared the nurse.

Gibbs, who testified numerous times at Letby's trial, told The Guardian that doctors had started to "think the unthinkable" in suspecting foul play but said "I don't think the management could accept that."

Brearey told the outlet that on one occasion, one of the hospital's directors said that contacting law enforcement would be "terrible" for the hospital's reputation and would turn the neonatal unit into a crime scene.

The Countess of Chester hospital NHS foundation trust told The Guardian that it was committed to ensuring lessons were learned from the Letby case.

Dr. Nigel Scawn, executive medical director, told the outlet that since Letby was employed by the hospital, "significant" changes have been made.

"I want to provide reassurance that every patient who accesses our services can have confidence in the care they will receive," Scawn said.

CPS Chief Crown Prosecutor Jonathan Storer said he hopes the "unimaginable suffering" of victims' families is eased by the Letby's guilty verdicts.

"This is an utterly horrifying case," Storer said in the online statement. "Like everyone who followed the trial, I have been appalled by Letby's callous crimes."