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Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby went out ‘drinking fizz and going to the races’ in the aftermath of carrying out the ‘calculated and cold-blooded’ murders of five baby boys and two baby girls, a jury heard today.
Giving evidence on the last of her 14 days in the witness box of Court 7 at Manchester Crown Court, the 33-year-old Letby agreed with prosecutor Nick Johnson KC, that she was ‘having a good time’.
‘Yes, there were times in those years that I had a good time,’ she told him.
The admission came as Mr Johnson suggested she was ‘a very calculating woman’ who in the months and years after the alleged attacks frequently searched for babies’ parents on Facebook to ‘check up on your victims’.
He also put to her that she deliberately told lies in order to get sympathy and attention from people, including the jury hearing her trial.
The 33-year-old nurse, originally from Hereford, is on trial accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder a further ten
The prosecutor questioned her about a note she had written to two triplets – Baby O and Baby P – she is alleged to have murdered (pictured)
‘You were killing children to get attention, weren’t you? And you’re getting quite a lot of attention now’.
‘No,’ said Letby.
The prosecutor questioned her about a note she had written to two triplets – Baby O and Baby P – she is alleged to have murdered, along with their brother who survived.
The note began with the line: ‘Today is your birthday’ and continues: ‘You aren’t here and I’m so sorry for that’.
When Mr Johnson asked why she had included the name of the surviving brother, Letby replied: ‘I can’t answer that’.
The barrister put to her: ‘It’s because in your mind, as (a woman doctor) perhaps anticipating, there was a terminal end in sight for (the surviving triplet) if he’d stayed with you’.
‘No,’ said Letby.
Mr Johnson asked: ‘Was the prospect of that exciting to you?’
‘Absolutely not’, said the nurse.
Mr Johnson suggested her claim to have felt isolated ‘from my friends and family’ after eventually being removed from the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital was untrue.
Letby was handed a 26-page document that the barrister said was ‘peppered’ with social engagements she had gone on between July 2016 when she was removed from the unit and June 2018 when police first knocked on her front door to arrest her.
Some of these were with her best friend, a fellow nurse on the unit, and others with a married registrar at the hospital who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
On one occasion Letby went to London with the doctor, and was due to go a second time before the trip was cancelled.
A message he sent to her ended with a large red heart emoji.
Mr Johnson asked her to read it aloud, but then had to prompt her twice before she finally referred to the emoji. ‘It’s a heart,’ she told him.
Letby had responded to the doctor’s love heart with one of her own, combined with a smiling face emoji.
‘It’s a smiley face and a heart,’ she said.
Mr Johnson asked: ‘But he wasn’t your boyfriend?’
Letby replied: ‘It’s not a relationship at all. It’s a friendship’.
Mr Johnson went on to refer to a note in which the nurse tells herself she is ‘an awful person’ and laments the likelihood that ‘I’ll never know what it’s like to have a family’.
The barrister asked: ‘What made you think at the time you wrote this that you would never have a family?’
Mr Johnson suggested her claim to have felt isolated ‘from my friends and family’ after eventually being removed from the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital was untrue
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Re-examined by her barrister, Ben Myers KC, Letby said there was nothing more to the events in the social file than going for drinks with friends
Referring to her removal from the neonatal unit and her feeling of isolation in her new role at the hospital, she replied: ‘I was still in that position and couldn’t see how that would end’.
Mr Johnson: ‘You had a good job?’
Letby: ‘It wasn’t a choice for me’.
Mr Johnson: ‘But still, a good job?’
Letby replied with a question of her own. ‘Good as in enjoyable?’ she asked.
Mr Johnson: ‘It’s a secure job with a very secure employer.’
Letby: ‘Yes’.
Mr Johnson: ‘A good salary?’
Letby: ‘Yes, but not as much as (from) my nursing’.
Letby was handed a 26-page document that the barrister said was ‘peppered’ with social engagements she had gone on between July 2016 when she was removed from the unit and June 2018
Mr Johnson questioned Letby about a note in which the nurse tells herself she is ‘an awful person’
The court has seen several notes written by Letby. In some she says she is ‘an awful person’ and writes the word ‘HATE’ in capital letters
Mr Johnson: ‘You had a house, you had a car, you had a boyfriend?’
‘Yes,’ the nurse replied.
Letby maintained that she ‘couldn’t see a future for myself’ because she felt senior staff were trying to hold her accountable for what she believed were failings at the hospital.
Mr Johnson asked: ‘But you were having a good time?’
Letby replied: ‘Yes, there were times in those years that I had a good time. Yes’.
Mr Johnson: ‘Drinking fizz? Going to the races? You felt like this because you knew and you had killed or grievously injured these children’.
‘No,’ she said.
The barrister continued: ‘And that’s the truth. You are a murderer’.
Letby replied: ‘I’ve never murdered a child or harmed any of them’.
The 33-year-old nurse, originally from Hereford, is on trial accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder a further ten. She denies all the charges and her trial continues.
Re-examined by her barrister, Ben Myers KC, Letby said there was nothing more to the events in the social file than going for drinks with friends.
The court was shown photographs of the nurse on holiday in Torquay with her father, David, having drinks with university friends and on a day out to Port Sunlight with both her parents.
Mr Myers asked why she was smiling in the photos, given that they were taken at around the time she was writing her handwritten notes.
She replied: ‘Because despite what is going on, you have to find some kind of quality of life’.
In answer to a series of questions, she denied having harmed any babies. She had never wanted to hurt infants ‘to be happy’, ‘because she was bored’ or ‘to get attention from anybody’.
The trial resumes next week.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
