Lucy Letby: Convicted child serial killer found guilty of attempted murder of premature baby girl
Lucy Letby had been sentenced to life in prison last year
PA
Lucy Letby, the convicted child killer nurse, has been found guilty of the attempted murder of a prematurely-born baby girl.
The 34-year-old had been convicted by another jury last August of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.
Back then, a verdict on the allegation concerning the infant known as "Child K" could not be reached - and a retrial was ordered on that count, of which Letby was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court today.
Letby had targeted Child K in the early hours of February 17, 2016, after the girl was moved from the hospital's delivery room to its neo-natal unit just after her premature birth.
The nurse, 34, deliberately dislodged Child K's breathing tube
PAThe nurse deliberately dislodged Child K's breathing tube, through which she was being ventilated with vital air and oxygen, just 90 minutes after the infant's birth.
Dr Ravi Jayaram, a consultant paediatrician at the facility, caught the nurse "virtually red-handed" as he entered the unit’s intensive care room - where he went on to intervene and resuscitate Child K.
Dr Jayaram told jurors that he saw "no evidence" Letby had done anything to help the deteriorating baby as he walked in and saw her standing next to the infant's incubator.
He said he heard no call for help from Letby, nor alarms sounding, as Child K's blood oxygen levels suddenly dropped.
And because of her extreme prematurity, Child K was transferred to a specialist hospital later that day - where she died three days later.
READ MORE ON LUCY LETBY:
The Countess of Chester Hospital, where Letby carried out her campaign of crimes
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Letby had told the jury of six women and six men she had no recollection of any such event.
She denied she did anything harmful to Child K, and added that she had not committed any of the offences of which she had been convicted.
Letby also denied the prosecution's claims that she interfered with the infant's breathing tube on two more occasions during the same shift to create the impression that Child K was habitually displacing her own tube.
More than two years later, on a late Friday night in April 2018, Letby searched on social media for Child K's surname.
Court artist Elizabeth Cook's drawing of Letby's cross-examination by prosecutor Nick Johnson KC today
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Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said her online activity 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."
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 set to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on September 10.
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