Nurse Lucy Letby 'gaslighted colleagues' and said baby deaths were 'bad luck'
A nurse “gaslighted” her hospital colleagues to persuade them that a rise in baby collapses was “just a run of bad luck”, her murder trial has heard.
Letby, 33, is alleged to have murdered seven children and attempted to murder 10 others on the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.
In his closing speech to jurors at Manchester Crown Court, Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said: “We want to point out the evolution of Lucy Letby’s murderous assaults on these children and we want to point out how calculated and devious she has been.
“We suggest Lucy Letby has gaslighted the staff at the Countess of Chester Hospital – doctors and nurses alike, professional people with many, many years of combined experience.
“She persuaded them what they knew in their heart of hearts to be utterly abnormal was just a run of bad luck.
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“Lucy Letby got away with her campaign of violence for so long because people didn’t contemplate the remotest possibility of a nurse trying to kill tiny babies.”
Mr Johnson said the “similarities” of many of the cases involved showed a single person was sabotaging the children.
Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Lucy Letby (PA)The prosecutor said: “Lucy Letby had used ways of killing babies and trying to kill them that didn’t leave much of a trace. Certainly nothing was spotted at the time as being significant and her behaviour persuaded many colleagues that the collapses and deaths were normal.
“Many of them simply couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
“Several post-mortem examinations in isolation didn’t raise the alarm because no-one – no-one – was contemplating the possibility of foul play.”
Prosecutors early told the trial the 33 year old attacked nine babies shortly after their parents had left their cotsides including when one mum left to pick her children up from school, a court heard.
The crown says the nurse twice attacked one of the infants, Child H, a baby girl, not long after her father left her nursery to go home.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court were told today Letby intended to "sabotage" Child H, an allegation the nurse refuted.
It was also claimed Letby had intentionally overfed a baby boy to get the attention of the male registrar on duty she reportedly had a crush on.
She is accused of murdering the newborn triplet, Child O, on her first shift back following a holiday in Ibiza with friends in June 2016.
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The court previously heard from Letby as she gave evidence during the trial.
She told jurors her "whole world just stopped" when she suspended from her role amid the allegations.
Letby is on trial for murder (Chester Standard / SWNS.com)At Manchester Crown Court her lawyer Ben Myers KC asked her about a note written on a green Post-it after the babies' deaths.
It stated: "I am evil, I did this".
When asked why he wrote that, Letby said: "I felt at the time that if I'd done something wrong I must be such an evil, awful person... I'd somehow been incompetent and had done something wrong which had affected those babies."
Mr Myers asked why she wrote "I did this," to which Letby replied: "I felt I must be responsible in some way. I think looking back on it now, I was really struggling, and this was a way of me expressing what I wasn't able to say to anyone else."
Letby also told the jury "everything" has "completely changed" in her life since the allegations emerged.
The defendant, who is a qualified Band 5 nurse, recalled the moment she received a letter from the Royal College of Nursing to inform her she was being held responsible for the deaths of babies on the neonatal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital.
"I don't think you can be accused of anything worse than that," Letby said.
"I just changed as a person, my mental health deteriorated, I felt isolated...from my friends on the unit.
"From a self-confidence point of view, it made me question everything about myself."
In closing speeches today Mr Johnson went on: “We suggest Lucy Letby is an opportunist. Some of the children she targeted were sick but they would have recovered. She used their vulnerabilities to camouflage her acts.”
Letby, from Hereford, denies all the offences said to have been committed between June 2015 and June 2016.
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