Nurse Lucy Letby faces spending the rest of her life behind bars after being convicted of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others during a horrific year-long poisoning spree, Metro News UK reports.
Nurse Lucy Letby, 33, targeted vulnerable infants while working on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.
Nurse Lucy Letby used various methods of attack, including injecting them with air to cause a fatal embolism, overfeeding milk, interfering with breathing tubes, or physically assaulting them.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court heard the seven babies who died would all have been well enough to go home had they not been attacked by Letby.
Detectives are now investigating whether Letby – now confirmed as the UK’s worst serial baby killer – may have harmed any more over the course of her five-year career.
Chester MP Samantha Dixon backed calls from the parents of two victims for a public inquiry into the case.
A lawyer representing two of the families said the trial’s conclusion ‘is not the end of our search for answers’.
The hospital’s medical director, Dr Nigel Scawn, insisted the trust is committed to ensuring that ‘lessons continue to be learned’.
But he walked away without answering as a journalist asked: ‘Why did hospital managers try to stop Lucy Letby from being investigated?’
Opening his case back in October, Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said Nurse Lucy Letby was an ‘opportunist’ who became ‘persistent, calculated and cold-blooded’ in her determination to kill.
The verdicts were revealed after jurors spent more than 100 hours deliberating over the course of 22 days following a trial which lasted a mammoth 10 months.
Some were in tears as trial judge Mr Justice Goss thanked them from their service. After spending 145 days listening to the harrowing evidence they were excused from jury service for life.
After they confirmed they could not reach verdicts in relation to four babies, the relatives of one of the infants stormed out of court.
In a joint statement, the victims’ families described feeling ‘heartbroken, devasted, angry and numb’.
They said: ‘Today justice has been served and the nurse who should have been caring for our babies has been found guilty of harming them.
‘But this justice will not take away from the extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experience.
‘Some families did not receive the verdict that they expected and therefore it is a bittersweet result.
‘We are heartbroken, devastated, angry, and feel numb. We may never truly know why this happened.’
It went on: ‘Words cannot effectively explain how we are feeling at this moment in time. We are quite simply stunned.
‘To lose a baby is a heartbreaking experience that no parent should ever have to go through, but to lose a baby or to have a baby harmed in these particular circumstances is unimaginable.
‘Over the past seven to eight years we have had to go through a long, torturous and emotional journey.
‘From losing our precious newborns and grieving their loss, seeing our children who survived, some of whom are still suffering today, to being told years later that their death or collapse might be suspicious, nothing can prepare you for that news.’
Nurse Lucy Letby was not present on Friday when her trial ended, having burst out crying as she left the courtroom with prison officers after being convicted of the first two murders on August 8.
Her mother Susan, 63, shielded her face as she wept on the opposite side of the public gallery and was comforted by husband John, 77, who later leaned forward with his head in his hands.
Mrs Letby could be heard whispering ‘you can’t be serious, this can’t be right’.
Opening his case back in October last year, Mr Johnson said the Countess of Chester was a ‘busy general hospital’ with a neonatal unit caring for vulnerable premature and sick babies.
But he told jurors: ‘Unlike many other hospitals in the UK and unlike many other neonatal units in the UK, within the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work.’