British nurse Lucy Letby labelled “Evil Nurse” has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others.
Lucy Letby, 33 was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others left under her care in a neonatal ward in the English city of Chester.
The judge, Justice James Goss levelled the most severe sentence possible under British law by imposing a whole-life order to ensure that Letby spend the rest of her life behind bars.
The penalty should have been more severe but the UK does not have a death penalty.
Letby was convicted earlier this month of killing five baby boys and two baby girls and attacking other newborns in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016, making her one of the UK’s most prolific serial killers of children.
She did not appear in Manchester Crown Court for her sentencing, where Justice Goss said “there was premeditation, calculation and cunning” in her actions.
“There was a malevolence bordering on sadism in your action,” he said.
“During the course of this trial, you have coldly denied any responsibility for your wrongdoing. You have no remorse. There are no mitigating factors.”
During Letby’s 10-month trial, prosecutors said that in 2015 the hospital started to see a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying or suffering sudden declines in their health for no apparent reason.
Some suffered “serious catastrophic collapses” but survived after help from medical staff.
Letby was on duty in all of the cases, with prosecutors describing her as a “constant malevolent presence” in the neonatal unit when the children collapsed or died.
The nurse harmed babies in ways that were difficult to detect, and she persuaded colleagues that their collapses and deaths were normal, they said.
Defence lawyer Ben Myers said Letby had maintained her innocence and that there was nothing he could add that would be able to reduce her sentence.
‘Our daughter was tortured’
According to a report, Letby did not attend the hearing to listen to the anger and anguish from the parents of the children whose lives she took, or those she injured.
The mother of a girl identified as Child I said in a statement that was read during the court trial:
“I don’t think we will ever get over the fact that our daughter was tortured till she had no fight left in her and everything she went through over her short life was deliberately done by someone who was supposed to protect her and help her come home where she belonged.”
Letby’s absence, which is allowed in British courts during sentencing, fuelled anger from the families of the victims, who wanted her to listen to statements about the devastation caused by her crimes.
“You thought it was your right to play God with our children’s lives,” the mother of twins, one of whom was murdered and the other of whom Letby tried to kill, said in a statement to the court.
Politicians and victim advocates have called for changes in the law to force criminals to appear for sentencing after several high-profile convicts chose not to face their victims in recent months.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who called the crimes “shocking and harrowing”, said his government would bring forward in “due course” its plan to require convicts to attend their sentencings.
Doctors had raised concerns about Letby
Senior doctors said that they had raised concerns about Letby as early as October 2015 and that children might have been saved if managers had taken their concerns seriously.
Doctor Stephen Brearey, head consultant at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit, told The Guardian that deaths could arguably have been avoided as early as February 2016 if executives had “responded appropriately” to an urgent meeting request from concerned doctors.
Letby was finally removed from frontline duties in late June of 2016. She was arrested at her home in July 2018.
An independent inquiry will be conducted into what happened at the hospital and how staff and management responded to the spike in deaths.
AP/ABC/9News Nigeria
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