UK nurse who killed seven newborn babies sentenced to life in jail
Lucy Letby, a British nurse, was sentenced to life in jail on Monday for murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to murder six others while they were in her care.
Letby, 33, was found guilty of the murders of five boys and two girls, making her the UK's most prolific child serial killer in modern history.
Between June 2015 and June 2016, she was arrested following a string of baby deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit in northwest England.
During her trial, the court heard that Letby employed various methods to secretly harm a total of 13 babies in the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) presented evidence that Letby used various methods to harm babies, including injecting air and insulin into their bloodstream, infusing air into their gastrointestinal tract, force-feeding an overdose of milk or fluids, and inflicting impact-type trauma.
Letby's intention was to kill the babies while deceiving her colleagues into believing there was a natural cause, the jury was told.
"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. 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," said Pascale Jones of the CPS.
Jonathan Storer, Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Mersey-Cheshire, added: "This is an utterly horrifying case. Like everyone who followed the trial, I have been appalled by Letby's callous crimes."
Letby was found not guilty of two charges of attempted murder, and the jury was unable to reach verdicts on six further counts of attempted murder. Throughout the trial, Letby claimed that she was being falsely accused to cover hospital failings.
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- With inputs from agencies
