Killer nurse Lucy Letby found guilty of attempted murder of premature baby by dislodging her breathing tube

The verdict was delivered at Manchester Crown Court, where last August, Letby, 34, had already been convicted by another jury for her crimes at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neo-natal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

The earlier trial could not reach a verdict regarding the allegation involving a baby girl known as Child K, leading to a retrial. On Tuesday, Letby was convicted by a new jury of trying to murder the “very premature” infant by dislodging her breathing tube on February 17, 2016.

Child K, born at 25 weeks’ gestation and weighing just 692 grams, was moved to the neo-natal unit shortly after birth. The prosecution described her as the “epitome of fragility.” About 90 minutes after her birth, Letby deliberately dislodged Child K’s breathing tube, through which she was being ventilated with air and oxygen.

Consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram caught her “virtually red-handed” in the unit’s intensive care room around 3:45 am. He intervened and resuscitated Child K, telling jurors he saw “no evidence” that Letby had done anything to help the deteriorating baby.

Dr Jayaram said he heard no call for help from Letby, nor did he hear any alarms as Child K’s blood oxygen levels dropped suddenly. Letby told the jury she had no recollection of the event and denied doing anything harmful to Child K or committing any of the offences she was convicted of.

She also refuted the prosecution’s claims that she interfered with Child K’s breathing tube on two more occasions during the same shift to create the impression that the infant was habitually displacing her own tube.

Child K was transferred to a specialist hospital later on February 17 due to her extreme prematurity and died three days later. No post-mortem examination was conducted, and her cause of death was certified as extreme prematurity and severe respiratory distress syndrome. More than two years later, in April 2018, Letby searched for Child K’s surname on Facebook.

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC argued that this was part of a pattern of similar Facebook searches. He told the jury: “The truth is that Lucy Letby had a fascination with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families. She took pleasure in her murderous handiwork.”

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Letby was initially charged with the murder of Child K, but the charge was dropped in June 2022 as the prosecution offered no evidence. In May, Letby lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions.

A public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes on the neo-natal unit is scheduled to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on September 10. A court order prohibits reporting the identities of the surviving and deceased children involved in the case.