Nurse poisoned two newborn babies ‘deliberately with insulin’, court told

A nurse poisoned two newborn babies and was a “constant malevolent” presence on a hospital neonatal unit when other infants died or unexpectedly collapsed, a court has been told.

Lucy Letby, 32, is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another 10 between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester hospital, a jury heard.

Jurors at Manchester crown court were told that Ms Letby poisoned two baby boys “deliberately with insulin” two days after they were born. Both newborns, who can only be named as Baby F and Baby L, were from separate sets of twins. They both survived.

Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, told the jury: “We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 children named on the indictment were not normally occurring tragedies. They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock who we say was a constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these children.”

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Ms Letby has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of murder and 15 of attempted murder relating to the babies.

Mr Johnson told jurors that the Countess of Chester’s neonatal unit was like any other in the country, treating premature or sick babies. But at this unit, he said, “a poisoner was at work”.

He said there was a “significant rise” in the number of babies who died or suffered “serious catastrophic collapses” from June 2015, when Ms Letby allegedly began killing or attempting to kill the infants.

Consultants noticed that babies who were dying had “deteriorated unexpectedly” and that when infants seriously collapsed they could not be resuscitated.

“Some of the babies who did not die collapsed dramatically but then – equally dramatically – recovered. Their collapse and recovery defied the normal experience of treating doctors,” Mr Johnson said.

The police launched a review of the deaths and collapses after consultants noticed that the incidents had one “common denominator: the presence of one of the neonatal nurses and that nurse was Lucy Letby”.

Mr Johnson said many of the deaths or sudden collapses of babies occurred during night shifts worked by Letby. When she was moved on to day shifts, he said, “the collapses and deaths moved on to the day shift”.

He added: “The fact that there were two deliberate poisonings with insulin will help you when you are considering whether the collapses and deaths of other children on the unit were because someone was sabotaging them or whether they were tragic coincidences.”

Ms Letby listened to the prosecutor from the glass-enclosed dock, surrounded by three security officers.

Family members of some of her alleged victims sat in the public gallery. On the other side of the public gallery sat the defendant’s parents, John, 76, and Susan, 62.

The judge, Sir James Goss, told jurors that the charges against Ms Letby were “bound to provoke an instinctive reaction of horror”. Neveretheless, he told them to “put your emotion to one side” so they could consider the evidence “calmly, rationally, fairly and dispassionately”.

The trial continues. - Guardian Service