Lucy Letby told police she couldn’t recall the details of a baby’s fatal collapse even though at the time she had messaged a colleague about the infant’s father ‘screaming’ in distress, a jury heard today.
The 33-year-old nurse is accused of murdering five boys and two girls and trying to kill ten others at the Countess of Chester Hospital from June 2015 to June 2016.
Prosecutors say she injected the infants with air, poisoned them with insulin, overfed them with milk and physically assaulted them. She denies the charges.
Manchester Crown Court today heard how the alleged killer broke the news of Baby D’s death in a WhatsApp to an off-duty friend on the neonatal unit of the hospital, telling her: ‘We lost D.’
The friend commiserated with her, saying: ‘I can’t believe you were on again. You’re having such a tough time.’
Court sketch of Nicholas Johnson KC cross-examining nurse Lucy Letby in the dock at Manchester Crown Court where she is charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of ten others
Alleged killer Lucy Letby broke the news of Baby D’s death in a WhatsApp to an off-duty friend on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital, telling her: ‘We lost D,’ the court heard
Letby responded with a term that nurses on the unit used to describe a baby’s collapse. ‘Messed about a couple of times,’ she wrote. ‘She came out in this weird rash… looking like overwhelming sepsis’.
She went on to explain that doctors and nurses trying to save Baby D’s life on June 22, 2015, had moved to a state of full resuscitation, adding: ‘So upsetting for everyone. Parents absolutely distraught, dad screaming.’
Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting at Manchester Crown Court, reminded Letby that when interviewed by police three years later she had told detectives she could not remember much about Baby D or the circumstances of her collapse.
He put it to her: ‘This was a dramatic and shocking incident, wasn’t it? In reality, you remembered it very well when you spoke to the police, didn’t you?’
‘No,’ replied Letby, whose parents John and Susan were watching from the public gallery.
The barrister then asked: ‘You were enjoying all of this, weren’t you Lucy Letby?’
‘No,’ the defendant again insisted.
Letby disputed that she was the nurse who had rung an on-call consultant and then held the phone to a doctor’s ear while he made desperate attempts to resuscitate Baby D.
‘I agree it happened, but I can’t say it was me that made the phone call.’
Later, the 33-year-old told jurors that mistakes by hospital colleagues led to the death of one of her alleged victims.
She said a delay in giving antibiotics to a newborn girl’s mother after her waters broke early ‘may have had an impact’.
John and Susan Letby, parents of the defendant, arrive at Manchester Crown Court today to watch their daughter giving evidence
Letby told jurors that mistakes by hospital colleagues led to the death of one of her alleged victims
The former nurse allegedly administered air to the infant via an intravenous line while she worked a night shift on the neonatal unit.
Baby D, a full-term baby, died in the early hours of June 22 2015, two days after her birth.
The prosecution say the baby was stable and progressing well when Letby went on duty to care for two other babies in the same nursery.
Giving her seventh day of evidence today, Letby told the court she did not think staffing levels contributed to Baby D’s death.
Mr Johnson said: ‘Is it your case that medical competency contributed?’
Letby said: ‘Yes. I believe she didn’t have appropriate treatment at the start of her life.’
The prosecutor asked: ‘The delay with antibiotics?’
Letby said: ‘Yes. It may have had an impact.’
The jury of eight women and four men previously heard from Baby D’s designated nurse that she was on a break when the infant first collapsed.
Mr Johnson said: ‘Did you take the opportunity because she was absent to sabotage (Baby D)?’
‘No,’ Letby said.
Two further deteriorations followed as medics were unable to resuscitate Baby D. Mr Johnson continued: ‘[Baby D] died because you injected her with air?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Letby said.
The 33-year-old previously claimed that consultants at the Countess of Chester tried to pin the blame on her for a number of baby deaths
The barrister asked: ‘They [antibiotics] don’t guard against air embolus do they?’ She agreed they did not.
Letby said she ‘didn’t know’ whether she had been standing over Baby D’s cot when the alarms went off.
Mr Johnson then suggested to her that Baby D had died at a time she was ‘babysitting’ her ‘because you injected her with air…just like Baby A and Baby C’.
Letby replied: ‘I did not give her air.’
She denied having decided at her first police interview ‘just to say “I don’t remember”‘.
She told Mr Johnson: ‘I tried to be as cooperative as I could be.’
As the barrister prepared to question her about Baby E, Letby asked: ‘Can I have a break please?’
The trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, agreed and adjourned the court for lunch. When the jury returned the judge told them the case would not now resume until Wednesday. The adjournment was for reasons that should not concern them, he said.
The defendant, from Hereford, denies murdering seven babies and trying to murder ten others between June 2015 and June 2016.
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