Nurse Lucy Letby says she found it ‘harrowing’ to witness deaths of two triplets, trial hears

One of the babies neonatal nurse Lucy Letby is accused of murdering died on her first shift back following a week’s holiday to Ibiza with two friends.

The youngster – known as Baby O – lost his life despite desperate attempts to resuscitate him.

Manchester Crown Court heard today Letby had messaged a colleague about her return to work and claimed she would ‘probably be back in with a bang lol’.

Letby denied today that is meant anything other than it would be a ‘busy shift’.

Earlier she told the jury she found it ‘harrowing’ to witness the deaths of the two triplets – Baby P and Baby O – within 24 hours of each other.

Letby said the entire team at the Countess of Chester Hospital felt ‘shocked and devastated’ by their failure to save the life of Baby P on June 24, 2016.

She told the court in Manchester: ‘You could just tell that the whole unit was flat. It wasn’t the normal positive atmosphere we would normally have.

‘I was really upset to have it two days in a row. What the parents had gone through to lose two of their babies, it was just harrowing’.

Baby P had been on the verge of being taken to the tertiary centre at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside, when the Chester gave up the struggle and handed him to his parents.

In the minutes that followed the couple begged the lead paediatrician sent to collect him to take their surviving triplet instead. The medic, Dr Oliver Rackham, agreed. The infant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is now aged seven.

Letby, originally from Hereford, denies murdering seven babies at the Chester hospital and attempting to kill a further ten.

During her fourth day of giving evidence, was asked by her barrister, Ben Myers KC, why she had searched for Baby O’s parents on the first anniversary of his death.

She replied: ‘It was such a harrowing experience seeing the parents lose two of their children. For that to happen two days running, you don’t forget something like that’.

Sitting at a desk, and flanked by two women prison officers, Letby read out part of a yellow post-it note found by police when they first arrested her in July 2018.

Part of the note read: ‘Today is your birthday, but you are not here and I am so sorry for that. I’m sorry you can’t have the chance at life you should have and for the pain that your parents must experience every day.

‘We tried our best and it wasn’t enough. I don’t know if many people will think of you today or any day but I will and I hope I always will’.

Lucy Letby, 33, (pictured) originally from Hereford, is accused of carrying out a spree of murders between June 2015 and 2016. She denies all the charges against her

Reading out the next segment of her note, Letby said: ‘I can’t do this anymore. I want someone to help me but they can’t.’

Letby said Baby P suffered a series of desaturations on June 24, with medics having to intervene more and more as they tried to help him.

They eventually realised that he needed to go for more specialised care at a tertiary centre.

She said: ‘There was an increasing sense of anxiety on the unit, and a sense of relief when the transport team arrived from Arrowe Park’.

The alleged killer recalled a woman paediatrician on the unit becoming increasingly agitated as the infant’s condition deteriorated.

‘She kept leaving to go outside and have a cigarette, which she often does when she’s distressed,’ Letby added.

‘I felt the same, particularly in view of what had happened with (Baby) O before. There didn’t seem to be a clear plan by the doctors.

‘They just very much wanted the transport team to come because the things we were offering were not working. They were beyond our level of care’.

The woman doctor said in evidence that at one point Letby had said of the baby: ‘He’s not leaving here alive, is he?’

Asked today whether she had said anything to the doctor about ‘concerns that he would not make it out’, Letby replied: ‘I can’t recall. Potentially. I have no recollection’.

The trial continues.