2023-08-21 13:44:20
She killed seven babies and tried six others: Former nurse Lucy Letby has been sentenced to the maximum sentence in Great Britain. “You will spend the rest of your life in prison,” Judge James Goss said in Manchester on Monday.
The 33-year-old acted “cruelly, calculatingly and cynically” when she attacked the newborns. “Some of your victims were only a day or a few days old,” Goss said. It is the deadliest series of baby murders in recent British history. The relatives in the room wept and hugged each other as the judge announced the sentence.
Letby is now the fourth woman to be sentenced to whole-life order in Britain and is set to die in prison. She stayed away from her judgment, the dock was empty. The mother of two victims criticized the behavior of the 33-year-old as the “last act of wickedness of a coward,” and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a similar statement. He wants criminals to be required by law to attend their sentencing in person.
On the last day, the focus was on the relatives. They wore a badge with blue and pink ribbons symbolizing the babies being attacked. In statements, often in tears, they reported how the death of their children changed their lives. Unlike the accused, their names may not be reported, so the victims have been given letters: from child A to child Q – it’s an alphabet of horror.
For example, there is child D. Born prematurely, the girl died suddenly. The burial took place before the expected date of birth. “My arms, my heart, my life felt so painfully empty,” the mother said, overcome with emotion, in court. She wonders every day if she abandoned her daughter. The father of slain brothers O and P said: “Lucy Letby destroyed our lives.”
In many cases it was Letby who took care of the small bodies following death. For example, with Child C, a boy, she helped put together a box of memories with a footprint. She washed the body of Child E, also a boy, before dressing it in a woolen robe that she and her colleagues had specially chosen. As the child’s mother recounted, Letby had witnessed the whole family planning journey. E’s twin brother, Child F, survived the attempted murder. “Lucy knew regarding our trip and intentionally caused our boys significant harm and cruelty,” the mother said.
The relatives emphasized that, thanks to the verdict, they might start to close with the death of their children. “We wanted justice for (Child D) and that day has come,” his mother said. Another called Letby a “nobody”. But the question of why is still open. Because the former nurse denies her guilt to the last, her motive remains hidden.
Prosecutor Nicholas Johnson put forward several theories. “Ultimately, she wanted to play God,” he said of a case in which Letby discussed the impending death of a baby with a colleague. “She was enjoying what was happening and cheerfully predicting something that she knew was going to happen,” Johnson said. Letby overfed child P with milk 13 minutes following she killed his triplets. She injected other children with air or insulin. The judge also admitted that he did not know the reasons.
Notes may remain the only clue to a confession. “I’m bad, I did this,” read a sticky note that investigators found in Letby’s apartment. And: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed her on purpose because I’m not good enough to take care of her. I will never get married or have children. I will never know what it’s like to have a family. ” Letby said at trial the notes reflect her mental anguish following the children in her care died. The jury didn’t believe her. As the Guardian newspaper wrote, Letby may have tried to kill babies in dozens of other cases.
It is also unclear why Letby was not stopped earlier. The clinic management had ignored or even brusquely rejected suggestions from colleagues or superiors. The government has ordered an investigation. “Nothing can change what happened to us,” said the mother of children E and F. “We are serving a life sentence for Lucy’s crimes.”
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