The trial began on October 10 in Manchester (north). The babies were identified with letters, from A to Q, to protect the families. Parents testified, often in tears.
The defense described Letby as a “dedicated” professional. “My job was my life,” she insisted.
Prosecutor Nick Johnson painstakingly reconstituted his organization and described similar events between the deaths.
Letby would attack the newborns after their parents had left, when the head nurse was gone or at night when she was alone, the prosecutor explained.
Sometimes she joined the staff’s efforts to save the babies, or helped desperate parents.
Among the victims are twins and even triplets, two of whom died within 24 hours of each other, after returning from Ibiza on vacation in June 2016. The third was saved because his parents pleaded for him to be transferred to another hospital.
“Uncontrollable”
After having committed so many crimes without attracting attention, the nurse was “uncontrollable”, the prosecutor said. “He believed himself to be God.”
A very premature girl, attacked three times in September 2015, has been left severely disabled.
“I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I wasn’t good enough to take care of them. I’m a horrible person,” the nurse wrote in a note found at her home in 2018. In other documents, she said she was innocent.