October 10th 2022
Nurse Lucy Letby poisoned babies with insulin, trial told
by bbc news
A "poisoner was at work" at a hospital where there was a "significant rise" in the number of healthy babies dying, a court has heard.
Lucy Letby has been accused of murdering five baby boys and two girls, and attempting to murder 10 other babies at Countess of Chester hospital.
Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said she was a "constant malevolent presence" in the hospital's neonatal unit.
Ms Letby, 32, of Hereford, denies 22 charges at Manchester Crown Court.
Opening the prosecution case, Mr Johnson said the Chester institution was a "busy general hospital like so many others in the UK".
However, he said that "unlike many other hospitals, within the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, a poisoner was at work".
"Prior to January 2015, the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units," he said.
"However, over the next 18 months or so, there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses."
He said the increases were noticed by hospital consultants, who were concerned that "babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly".
Medics also noted that babies who had collapsed "did not respond to appropriate and timely resuscitation" and that others "collapsed dramatically, but then, equally dramatically, recovered".
"Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants noticed that the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator," he said.
"The presence of one of the neonatal nurses and that nurse was Lucy Letby."
Mr Johnson told the court that as medics could not account for the collapses and deaths, police were called in and conducted a "painstaking review".
