January 4, 1990 - Lucy Letby
What made this case so difficult to confront at the time was that the harm occurred within a setting defined by care — a neonatal unit where vulnerable newborns and their families placed complete trust in attending staff. The pattern of deaths and collapses unfolded over the course of a year, and institutional failures meant that concerns raised by clinicians went unaddressed for an extended period before any investigation was opened. The evidentiary picture assembled at trial drew on medical data, record-keeping anomalies, and handwritten notes to establish a pattern across seventeen infants.
From Wikipedia
Lucy Letby (born 4 January 1990) is a British former neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. She was investigated after an unusual cluster of deaths in the hospital's neonatal unit.
Charged in November 2020 with seven counts of murder and fifteen counts of attempted murder relating to seventeen babies, Letby was prosecuted on the basis of her presence at many of the incidents, two abnormal blood test results and skin discolouration interpreted as signs of insulin poisoning and air embolism, inconsistencies in medical records, her removal of nursing handover sheets from the hospital, and handwritten notes interpreted by the prosecution as a confession.
In August 2023, she was found guilty on seven counts each of murder and attempted murder, acquitted on two counts of attempted murder. The jury was unable to reach verdicts on six further counts. She received fourteen whole life orders. One of the unresolved attempted murder charges was retried in July 2024, resulting in a fifteenth whole life order.
The senior management of the Countess of Chester Hospital was criticised for failing to act on clinicians' concerns, prompting the British government to commission an independent inquiry.
- Last updated on .