A nurse accused of murdering seven babies at the UK hospital where she works was disturbed by the mother of one of her victims as she tried to kill him, a court heard on Tuesday.
The woman arrived at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, north-west England on the evening of August 4, 2015 to find her son “distraught” and bleeding from the mouth.
But Lucy Letby said “trust me I’m a nurse” and asked her to leave, prosecutor Nick Johnson told Manchester Crown Court.
The boy died the following day, allegedly from an injection of air into the bloodstream.
Johnson told a jury the unsuspecting mother was “fobbed off” by Letby, 32, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges and attempted to kill 10 other babies, including some more than once.
The solicitor said Letby, who is originally from Hereford in western England, made “fraudulent” grooming notes to cover her tracks after the incident.
She also searched social media for the family of the boy, who was referred to as “Child E” in court in the days and months that followed, including on Christmas Day.
Hours after “Child E” died on Aug. 5, 2015, Letby allegedly tried to kill his twin brother “Child F” by injecting insulin into a bag of nutritional fluid.
Johnson said negligence was ruled out because no other babies on the ward were prescribed insulin and Letby hung the bag and was in the room at the time of the boy’s poisoning.
“The only credible candidate” for the poisoner was Letby, he said, “the same person who was present in the neonatal unit at all the unexplained collapses and deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital.”
The murders of five boys and two girls, and the attempted murders of five boys and five girls are believed to have taken place between June 2015 and June 2016.
– ‘Intentionally’ –
The court was told that the first victim – “Child A” – was born prematurely and was only one day old when she died on June 8, 2015, again as a result of an injection of air into the bloodstream.
His twin sister – “Child B” – survived an attempt hours later, while “Child C” – a five-day-old baby boy – was killed six days later when air was injected into his stomach.
Letby was on shift on all three occasions.
Her next victim — a preterm baby girl, “Child D” — died on June 22, 2015, again by the same method it said.
Prosecutors said Letby messaged friends afterwards, stating that the cases could be explained by natural causes.
She also searched Facebook again for the child’s parents.
In September of that year, Letby allegedly tried three times to kill a baby girl who had been born four months earlier and weighed just over 500 grams (1.1 pounds).
Prosecutors said the baby – dubbed “Child G” – was overfed with milk and likely injected with air, causing vomiting.
The third time she stopped breathing.
But Johnson said a monitor measuring oxygen saturation and heart rate had been turned off and Letby, who “discovered” the unresponsive child, was trying to revive him.
The child was left “severely disabled,” he added.
Johnson said all deaths and collapses were “not naturally occurring or random events”.
“It was deliberate attempted killings, using slightly different methods, that Lucy Letby used to make the appearance of random events,” he added.
