Mother reveals how Lucy Letby took ‘sickening’ photograph of her baby with her feeding tube dislodged – before the child collapsed and had to be moved to intensive care
A mother has revealed Lucy Letby took a ‘sickening’ photo of her baby daughter while her feeding tube was loose.
The child later collapsed shortly after the neonatal nurse finished her shift and had to be transferred to the intensive care unit.
She was subsequently diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a condition caused by brain damage, and her mother now fears her daughter was harmed by the serial killer.
The woman, who asked not to be identified, told police Mirror that she wants the police to investigate and take legal action against the Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire, where Letby worked.
Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more in the hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. She injected them with air, overfed them and abused them.
A mother has revealed Lucy Letby took a ‘sickening’ photo of her baby daughter while her feeding tube was loose
On the back she wrote: ‘Caught red-handed! (Baby’s name) decides she’s a big girl now and doesn’t need tube feeding anymore! X’
Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more in the hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. She injected them with air, overfed them and abused them.
Cheshire Police have confirmed they are reviewing the care of 4,000 children – every baby admitted to the unit and those at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where Letby interned, during the footprint of her career, which began in September 2012.
Earlier this week, Dr Dewi Evans, the prosecution’s key expert at the trial, told the Mail he had reviewed the baby notes from June 2014 and believed three more children may have been killed and 15 others harmed by Letby. He said he believed she had disconnected breathing tubes from babies before her “modus operandi” changed to injecting air in June 2015.
The mother told the Mirror that her daughter was born prematurely in hospital in September 2014.
About a month later, during a night shift on October 25, Letby took a Polaroid of her daughter sleeping in her hospital bed with her feeding tube, which was supposed to deliver milk into her belly through her nose, pulled out.
On the back she wrote: ‘Caught red-handed! (Baby’s name) decides she’s a big girl now and doesn’t need tube feeding anymore! X’
The next day the child, who made good progress and was prepared to go home, deteriorated and had to be transferred back to the intensive care unit.
“I screamed for them to open the incubator to put an oxygen mask on her,” the mother said. ‘She had to undergo a lumbar puncture and was then placed back in intensive care. No infection was found.’
Cheshire Police have confirmed they are reviewing the care of 4,000 children – every baby admitted to the ward and that of Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where Letby interned, during the footprint of her career, which began in September 2012
Lucy Letby is arrested at her home here in June 2018
Letby injected children with air, gave them too much milk and abused them while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital (pictured)
The mother said her daughter had a brain scan shortly after birth, which showed no abnormalities. However, eight months later, in May 2015, she visited a consultant after realizing her daughter was struggling to sit up. An MRI scan confirmed she had brain damage with cerebral palsy.
“There’s never been an explanation for it,” she added. ‘She was always looked after by Lucy or the head nurse. You sit there all day looking at their incubator and don’t really question anything.
‘I sat down to chat with Lucy. She told me she was going to university and her parents were from Hertfordshire… it was all so normal.’
Shortly before Letby was arrested, the mother said she received a cryptic text message from another nurse at the hospital, who had also been caring for her daughter, saying she would see a familiar face in the papers and “not all believe what you say’. to belong’.
The nurse, who was reportedly close friends with Letby, also said that being arrested “is not the same as being charged.”
But the mother said she had since been unable to look at the Polaroid, which she had framed and put on display.
“When she was arrested, I immediately removed it and put it in a drawer, and I haven’t been able to put it away since,” she added.
She also said she burst into tears when Letby was found guilty.
“All the hairs on my arms were sticking up,” she added. ‘I just pulled out the photo and read the back of it, thinking, ‘That can’t actually be the case.’ Why would she take a picture of a child with a feeding tube sticking out of his nose? If that ever happened, the nurses wouldn’t pass it up; they would put it back right away. None of the other nurses left notes on the ward either. It’s horrible to look back at it now.’
Referring specifically to Letby’s “caught red-handed” comment, she added: “It’s shocking. It feels like a sick joke, which is why I can’t make it up and never will.”
Letby, from Hereford, has applied for permission to appeal her conviction.
A decision is expected on Monday on whether she will face a new trial on six charges of attempted murder on which the jury has not been able to reach a verdict.