Jurors in Lucy Letby baby deaths trial sent out to consider verdicts

The jury in the case of nurse Lucy Letby has been sent out to consider its verdict, following one of the UK’s longest-running murder trials.

Letby is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at the Countess of Chester’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

The 33-year-old from Hereford denies all the charges against her.

Read more: The trial as it happened

The trial at Manchester Crown Court started in October 2022 and had been scheduled to take six months – the jury is now being sent out more than nine months later.

It is not known how long the jury will take to reach a decision, but it will have to return a verdict on each of the 22 counts Letby faces, with the prosecution claiming she attempted to murder some babies multiple times.

The media is restricted from reporting the names of the children – although their real names have been used in court – and instead they have been referred to in public as Children A to Q.

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‘Completely out of control’

During the trial, Letby spent almost three weeks on the stand as she faced questions about the infants’ care.

Towards the end of her time working as a nurse, the prosecution claims she was “completely out of control”.

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said the 33-year-old had “got away with so much” at that point it gave her the “misplaced confidence that she could pretty much do whatever she wanted”.

On three successive days, in June 2016, she is said to have murdered two triplet boys, Child O and Child P, and injured another boy so severely he was sent to intensive care.

But Letby repeatedly denied doing anything to hurt any of the children in care, or that she “enjoyed the aftermath” of their deaths.

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Letby ‘keen to involve herself’

A colleague previously testified that they had to keep pulling Letby from the family room as Child C died.

“Why were you so keen to involve yourself with the family as they cradled their dying son?” Mr Johnson asked.

Letby said: “I agree I probably went round at some point, but not repeatedly and I don’t recall my colleague having to pull me back out.”

She said she may have been helping the family make mementos, including hand and footprints.

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