Content warning: the subject matter in this article may be upsetting to some readers
Chilling footage shows the moment when nurse Lucy Letby was arrested for murdering babies.
Today (18 August), the 33-year-old was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others.
Advert
Prosecutors described Letby as a 'calculated opportunist' who used the vulnerabilities of premature and sick infants to camouflage her acts.
In 2015 and 2016, there was a significant rise in the numbers of babies who suffered serious and unexpected collapses in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Letby was the only member of the nursing and clinical staff who was on duty each time the collapses happened, which the Crown argued were not natural events.
She used various ways to harm the babies including injecting air into the bloodstream, injecting air into the stomach, overfeeding with milk, physical assaults and poisoning with insulin.
Some of the children were subjected to repeated attempts to kill them by the 'cold, cruel and relentless' band 5 staff nurse, the court heard.
Letby’s presence when collapses took place was first mentioned to senior management by the unit’s head consultant in late June 2015.
Concerns among some consultants about the defendant increased and were voiced to hospital bosses when more unexplained and unusual collapses followed, the court heard.
However, Letby was not removed from the unit until after the deaths of two triplet boys and the collapse of another baby boy on three successive days in June 2016.
And now, newly released footage by Cheshire Constabulary, shows the moment the nurse was arrested at her semi-detached home in Westbourne Road, Chester, at 6am on 3 July 2018.
Letby is filmed being put in the back of a police car before asking the officer to move the seat forward due to having knee surgery.
During searches of her address, a number of closely written notes were also discovered.
On one green Post-it note, she wrote: “I don’t deserve to live.
“I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them”, “I am a horrible evil person” and in capital letters “I am evil I did this”.
On 16 August, the jury convicted her on six more counts – three murders and three attempted murders – and cleared her of one count of attempted murder.
The jury could not reach verdicts on six counts of attempted murder.
A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children who were the subject of the allegations.
Topics: Crime, UK News, Lucy Letby
Anish Vij