The parents of the babies British nurse Lucy Letby murdered made their victim statements in court on Monday. "You thought it was your right to play God with our children's lives," the mother of a twin boy and girl - Baby A and Baby B - who were attacked in June 2015 said in an emotional statement read to the Manchester Crown Court. The baby boy was murdered while his elder sister survived.
Lucy Letby, 33, was convicted of killing five baby boys and two baby girls, making her the UK's most prolific child serial killer in modern history.
She was arrested following a string of baby deaths at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016. She was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no chance of release.
Letby sickened babies by injecting intravenous lines with air, poisoning some with insulin and force-feeding others milk, often during night shifts. After killing them, she sometimes sobbed in grief, made keepsakes for parents and bathed the little bodies and dressed them for burial.
Some of the affected families suffered multiple tragedies since Letby targeted three sets of twins and a set of triplets.
BBC reported that the mother of Baby D held a toy rabbit while speaking from the witness box on Monday. She said her marriage suffered since the murder of her child.
The mother of Baby C said she started wearing her deceased child's hand and footprints around her neck. She reportedly felt "conflicted" as it was the nurse who had taken those prints.
Letby refused to attend the hearing on Monday. This meant she did not hear the families' victim impact statements. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was "cowardly that people who commit such horrendous crimes do not face their victims".
Judge James Goss said, addressing Letby in her absence, said there was "premeditation, calculation and cunning" in her actions, with a "deep malevolence bordering on sadism".
“During the course of this trial, you have coldly denied any responsibility for your wrongdoing. You have no remorse. There are no mitigating factors.”
He also said that no one but Letby knows what drove her, though some parents ventured theories: she wanted to play god; she needed attention, drama and sympathy in her life; or she wanted to be remembered.
"We struggled with trust"
The mother of Baby I said she had to take medication over the past six years to cope with her daughter's death, BBC reported. "We have been in some very dark places mentally."
The mother said she gave birth to another daughter after the loss of her first one. She was born prematurely and with sepsis and had to be in a neonatal unit for a while. The mother said that she stayed by her side the whole time as she had trust issues now. "We struggle with trust. I won't leave my kids in a hospital. We will never give anyone that type of trust with our kids again."
"Lucy has destroyed our lives"
The father of two brothers - Baby O and Baby P - killed by the nurse, who were part of a set of triplets, sobbed uncontrollably. Others were left in tears listening to him.
He said watching Baby O deteriorate and die "is an image that I'll never forget."
"The anger and the hatred I have towards Lucy Letby will never go away," he said in a pre-recorded video statement.
He said he had suffered alcohol issues and suicidal feelings and is "long-term sick."
The mother of the triplets, as quoted by BBC, said in her statement that she had initially blamed herself for the deaths of Baby O and Baby P. "I thought I'd passed on an illness to all three of the boys - an infection."
Children who survived nurse's attacks have disabilities
Some of the surviving babies have disabilities caused by the attacks on them, their parents told the court.
The father of Baby G said she is now blind, has cerebral palsy and progressive scoliosis. The nurse was found guilty of attempting to murder Baby G twice, in September 2015.
Her father in his statement, as reported by BBC, said God saved his child "but the devil found her."
Baby F's mother said he "has been left with complex needs" after Letby attacked him. He now has learning deficiencies which his mother attributes to insulin poisoning. His twin brother Baby E was murdered by her on 4 August 2015.
She had conceived her twin boys through in vitro fertilization said there were “no children in the world more wanted than them” and didn’t know if she would have others.
After the death of the two triplets in June 2016, Letby was removed from the neonatal unit and placed on clerical duties.
She was arrested for the first time in July 2018. On her third arrest in November 2020, Letby was formally charged and placed in custody.
During the trial, the prosecution said Letby "gaslighted" her colleagues into believing the rise in baby deaths was "just a run of bad luck".
Police found records she had taken home from the hospital on babies who had collapsed. Investigators learned Letby had performed thousands of searches online for information about the parents after the killings.
Letby also sent a sympathy card to the grieving parents of a child she was later found guilty of murdering.
Handwritten notes found during police searches at Letby's home were among the evidence seen by the court, one of which had "I am evil I did this" written in capital letters.
The government has announced an independent inquiry into the case and will look at how the concerns of clinicians were dealt with by hospital management.
The hospital's executives have come under fire for failing to act sooner on concerns about Letby, which were reportedly raised by senior doctors as early as 2015.
Dr Stephen Brearey, the head consultant at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit, told the Guardian that deaths could arguably have been avoided as early as February 2016 if executives had “responded appropriately” to an urgent meeting request from concerned doctors.
(With additional inputs from AP and AFP)
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