Letby Lucie (Lucy Letby)

Letby Lucie (Lucy Letby)

Biography

2023: Sentence - life in prison for killing babies

In mid-August 2023, a British jury found nurse Lucy Letby guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more newborns. She is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

According to the Air Force, 33-year-old Letby committed a series of violent crimes in 2015-2016 while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital (the main hospital of the National Health Service in Chester County). According to the case file, the nurse used different methods of murder: she injected oxygen into the bloodstream of babies, overfed them with milk, poisoned them with insulin and pushed pipes into the body.

It was established that Letby attempted the life of at least 13 newborns. It is forbidden for the court to disclose their names, but it is known that five boys and two girls were killed. In fact, the number of children affected may be higher. In one episode, a nurse killed the boy by injecting air into his bloodstream. The next day, she tried to kill his twin brother by poisoning him with insulin.

In her hands, harmless substances such as air, milk and drugs could become deadly. She twisted her knowledge and turned it into a weapon to cause harm, grief and death, "said prosecutor Pascale Jones.

The inquest heard the health facility failed to respond properly to the neonatal deaths within its walls. In particular, reports of deaths were compiled in such a way that the structures of the British National Health System (NHS) could not pay attention to the unusually high mortality rate in the hospital. Moreover, the head of the medical institution demanded that the doctors apologize in writing to Letby and stop bringing charges against her. The killer nurse now faces a life prison sentence.^[1]

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