According to the indictment, the nurse had just inserted a medical device all the way down the baby’s throat. She had also injected him with air. The newborn died a few hours later.
Letby attacked babies after their parents had left, when the charge nurse was away, or at night when she was left alone.
Sometimes he participated in the collective efforts to save newborns and even helped desperate parents. He also wrote letters to bereaved parents.
“You thought it was your right to play God with the lives of our children,” the mother of twins attacked in June 2015 testified in court. The boy was killed while his older sister survived.
“Lucy Letby destroyed our lives,” said the father of two brothers killed by the nurse. “The hatred I have for her will never go away,” he continued, in a pre-recorded video played in court.
Transferred to an administrative service in June 2016, Letby was first arrested in 2018, and then in 2019. She was finally imprisoned in November 2020.
Why did you do it?
After ten months of trial, there are still shadows about his motivations. Investigators found written notes at his home. On one of them, she had written: “I’m devilish, I did it.” But in others she claimed her innocence.
The ruling “will not prevent the extreme pain, anger and suffering that we have all felt,” the families of the victims reacted in a statement. “Perhaps we will never know why this happened,” they added.
One of the questions that remain unresolved is why Letby was not arrested before, when the British press indicates that a group of doctors issued alerts since 2015.
The hospital management, concerned about the center’s reputation, would not have listened to them or would have decided not to act, according to the press.
The government, for its part, announced the opening of an independent investigation to clarify “the circumstances behind the horrible murders and assassination attempts.”
The police also continue to analyze thousands of cases with the aim of identifying other possible victims.
With information from AFP and EFE