Serial child killer Lucy Letby offers proof in tried homicide trial

Serial baby killer Lucy Letby gave evidence in a packed courtroom today and flatly denied ever harming a baby in her care.

Letby, 34, is currently serving 14 whole life orders after being convicted last August of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder a further six while working as a neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Today she sat at a desk in a crowded Court 7 of Manchester Crown Court and gave repeated denials about the death of Baby K, a 25-week-old baby the prosecution say she tried to kill.

Answering questions from her barrister Ben Myers, she went on to deny any responsibility for the deaths or near-deaths of infants for which she has been convicted.

Letby, originally from Hereford, is currently on trial accused of the attempted murder of Baby K and has pleaded not guilty. 

The jury in her original trial could not reach a verdict on the case.

The former nurse moved from the glass-panelled dock to take a seat in the well of the court. A ring-bound file was opened out in front of her. To her left sat a woman prison officer.

Letby, who was 26 at the time the alleged murder attempt in February 2016, was wearing a black jacket over a turquoise blouse. Her blonde-brown hair hung down below her shoulders and she wore no make-up.

Her voice remained firm throughout the 76 minutes she gave evidence. 

She answered ‘no’ both times when Mr Myers asked ‘Did you attempt to kill Baby K?’ and ‘Did you intend to do her any harm at all?’

The barrister then referred to the convictions that make his client the most prolific baby killer in UK criminal history.

He asked, ‘Do you accept that you have ever intended to hurt any baby in your care?’, and she replied: ‘No, I don’t.’

She also said ‘no’ when he asked: ‘Do you accept that you have ever tried to harm any baby in your care?’

The killer told the jury she did not recall particular events around the time she is alleged to have attacked Baby K by dislodging her breathing tube. 

She remembered seeing the infant in Nursery 1, but could not be specific about timings.

Mr Myers said the case against her was based around the evidence of Dr Ravi Jayaram, the lead consultant on the neonatal uni. 

Dr Jayaram had said he had walked into Nursery 1 to find Baby K desaturating and Letby doing nothing and the alarms not sounding.

‘Do you remember any occasion when something like that was happening,’ he asked her. ‘No,’ she replied.

Letby insisted there had been no incident that morning where she was trying to hurt K, nor one where she was not giving her any help she needed.

She again said ‘no’ when Mr Myers asked: ‘When you say you don’t recall any incident like that, are you accepting that it happened?’

The barrister referred the killer to her first interview with police on July 5, 2018, when an officer asked about her contact with Baby K at the time of her desaturation at 3.50am on February 17, 2016. 

She had said: ‘Okay, so I don’t recall why I was in the nursery with K. I’d have to look back through the notes.’

Letby today said detectives had provided her with a selection of charts and medical notes, and only knew from the notes of her nursing colleague Melanie Taylor that the baby’s tube had slipped.

‘I was relying on the document in front of me that was written by Melanie Taylor,’ she added.

Letby claimed she only remembered K because she was a 25-week gestation baby, ‘which is unusual for us to have on the unit. I did remember her being on the unit at some point’.

In a police interview on June 12, 2019, Letby was asked about Dr Jayaram feeling ‘uncomfortable’ about finding her alone with Baby K in Nursery 1. 

She replied at the time: ‘He didn’t raise any concern with me.’

In cross-examination, prosecutor Nick Johnson asked what would happen if a nurse deliberately displaced a baby’s ET tube. She said the infant would be unable to breathe.

Mr Johnson suggested that effectively meant that the baby would be killed, and she responded: ‘Yes.’

But she answered ‘no’ when he then put to her: ‘That is what you did, isn’t it?’ 

When Mr Johnson told her, ‘You actually did it three times’, she said: ‘No, I didn’t. No. I know my actions and I know that I didn’t displace the tube’.

She was asked if she was Dr Jayaram was ‘not telling the truth’, to which Letby said: ‘I don’t think I can comment on whether he’s telling the truth. I just know that that did not happen.’

When Mr Johnson came to a third incident at which a shift leader had been present, Letby again said she could not comment. S

he had no recollection, she said, but accepted what her colleague had said about her Neopuffing the infant – adding that would have been the standard procedure in such a situation.

Letby rejected Mr Johnson’s suggestion that she was ‘just that sort of person’ who killed babies.

The barrister then put it to her that ‘You have killed seven babies and tried to kill six others, one on two separate occasions,’ to which she said: ‘No, I haven’t.’

The convicted killer agreed that at the time she submitted a grievance procedure over the allegations being made against her by consultants, she had not accepted ‘the good faith’ of either Dr Jayaram or his colleague Stephen Brearey.

She told the court: ‘I didn’t accept any of the things they were saying at that point. I didn’t accept Dr Jayaram’s good faith because of the comments he was making and the way he was conducting himself with those allegations.’

The case continues. 

Listen to The Trial of Lucy Letby: Baby K, wherever you get your podcasts now.