The serial killer nurse, Lucy Letby has been hauled behind bars for the rest of her life for the murders of seven babies.
Letby, who has been identified as Britain’s most heinous child serial killer, declined to vacate the court cells while the parents of her infant victims recounted the ghastly repercussions of her actions. A grieving mother deemed Letby’s nonappearance “a final act of malice from a craven individual.”
Meanwhile, a father, overcome with emotion, expressed how the murder of his two identical triplet sons shattered his family, driving him to contemplate suicide and eroding their confidence in healthcare practitioners.
“It has destroyed me as a man and as a father,” he said. The 33-year-old health practitioner has been sentenced to a whole-life jail term, making her only the third living woman to receive such a sentence. This comes after she was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others.
The Manchester Crown Court was informed that several of her surviving victims have been left with life-altering disabilities. One of the victims, a seven-year-old girl, is blind and has been diagnosed with quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
She is unable to consume food and requires major spinal surgery. The girl’s father recounted how she was born 15 weeks premature, weighing only 535g (1lb 3oz), and was given a mere 5% chance of survival. He stated that while “God saved her,” “the devil found her.”
The Honorable James Justice Goss KC, the presiding judge, characterized Letby’s actions as a “cruel, calculated, and cynical campaign of child murder” that targeted the most vulnerable and defenseless of children.
He added: “There was a deep malevolence bordering on sadism in your actions. During the course of this trial you have coldly denied any responsibility for your wrongdoing and sought to attribute some fault to others. You have shown no remorse. There are no mitigating factors.”
During Letby’s 10-month trial, evidence was presented that revealed her tendency to attack infants shortly after their parents or nurses had left their sides. She was found to have fatally injected seven babies with air, attempted to kill two others by lacing their feeding bags with insulin, and tried to murder one by forcing a nasogastric tube down his throat.
The presiding judge noted that Letby exhibited a “detached enthusiasm” for resuscitating the babies she had harmed and made inappropriate comments to parents and colleagues during or after a death. Additionally, she kept hundreds of medical documents as “morbid records” of her victims and their circumstances.
The motive behind Letby’s actions remains unclear and may never be fully understood. The prosecutor, Nicholas Johnson KC, suggested during the trial that Letby enjoyed “playing God” and was “excited” by the drama that ensued when doctors rushed to save the babies she had attacked. Letby appeared to have a particular interest in twins, as three pairs of twins and one set of triplets were among her 13 victims. She also targeted babies who were born with vulnerabilities.
The mother of twin boys, one of whom was murdered and the other Letby poisoned with insulin, told the court Letby was a coward for failing to attend the sentencing hearing.
She said their world had been “shattered when we encountered evil disguised as a caring nurse,” and she added: “We have attended court day in and day out, yet she decides she has had enough, and stays in her cell – just one final act of wickedness from a coward.”
A law firm representing the families of seven of Letby’s victims described her refusal to appear in court as “the final insult”.
“By not facing the consequences of her actions, it speaks of her complete disregard not only for the damage she’s caused, but also to our judicial system,” said Tamlin Bolton, a solicitor for law firm Switalskis.
Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, said Letby had taken “the coward’s approach” by refusing to appear in the dock on Monday.
