2023-08-19 10:45:30
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Lucy Letby, 33, was found guilty of killing seven premature newborns in a year in the hospital where she worked, and of attempting to murder six others.
Posted on 08/19/2023 12:45 Updated on 08/19/2023 13:01
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British nurse Lucy Letby during her arrest at her home in Chester (United Kingdom), July 3, 2018. (CHESHIRE CONSTABULARY / AFP)
It was a nine-month long trial that horrified the British. An English nurse was found guilty, Friday August 18, of having killed in one year seven premature newborns in the hospital in which she worked, and of having attempted to murder six others. This judgment “will not take away from the extreme pain, anger and distress that we have all felt”reacted the families of the victims in a press release read on the steps of the Manchester court (north) where it took more than a month of deliberations to reach a verdict. “We may never know why this happened.”
Lucy Letby is now believed to be the deadliest serial killer of children in modern UK history and police are continuing to review the records of thousands of patients for possible additional victims. This 33-year-old woman, who was not present in court on Friday, will receive her sentence on Monday.
Triplets among the victims
Described as “cold, calculating, cruel and tenacious” by the prosecution, Lucy Letby worked in the intensive care unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in north-west England. Between June 2015 and June 2016, seven premature babies suddenly died there, for no obvious reason, sometimes within hours of each other. In particular, she injected air intravenously into newborns, used their nasogastric tubes to send air or an overdose of milk into their stomachs. Among the victims are triplets, two of whom will die within 24 hours of each other after returning from vacation in June 2016. The third will be spared after his parents pleaded for him to be transferred to another hospital.
“I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to take care of them. I’m a horrible person”, had written the nurse on a post-it found at her home in 2018. In other documents, however, she proclaimed her innocence. Lucy Letby was the only member of the medical staff still on duty during the brutal deterioration of the newborns, the judge had pointed out. Faced with the shock caused by the affair and the questions which arise on the reaction of the health services, the government ordered the launch of an independent investigation to try to draw the lessons from it.
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