John and Susan Letby were constant during her ten-month trial, but at the last moment of the reckoning, they couldn’t face the truth about their only child’s wicked crimes.
Like Lucy, who huddled in her cell yesterday and refused to come to Manchester Crown Court to be sentenced, Mr and Mrs Letby also chose to stay away.
They weren’t there to hear the heartbreaking statements of the grieving parents of the precious, long-awaited babies murdered by their 33-year-old daughter. Or to listen to Mr Justice Goss declare that she will now spend the rest of her life behind bars.
But then, from the beginning of this horrible saga, the couple has completely denied their precious daughter; unable or unwilling to accept that she could have committed the heinous crimes she was accused of and above all was never afraid to defend her.
It was Mr and Mrs Letby who accompanied their daughter to an important meeting with hospital bosses in January 2017, six months after she was removed from the neonatal ward at Countess of Chester Hospital following the deaths of two boys who were triplets.
John and Susan Letby, the parents of nurse Lucy Letby, outside Manchester Crown Court ahead of the verdict in the case
Convinced of her innocence, the couple helped her obtain an apology letter from senior doctors who had expressed concerns about their beloved daughter, threatening to report them to the General Medical Council.
As devoted parents, their blind faith in their child is hardly surprising. Letby is only the fourth woman in British criminal history to receive a life sentence, but unlike killers such as Myra Hindley and Rose West, there’s no suggestion she endured a brutal or deprived childhood.
Far from it. Those who know the family say that 77-year-old former store manager John and 63-year-old retired bookkeeper Susan adored their daughter. Some may even say too much.
Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents got married and not long after bought the house they still live in, a 1930s semi-detached house in a cul-de-sac in Hereford.
Their daughter, neighbors say, was always a “delight” to her parents. They saw her flourish at the comprehensive Aylestone School and then at Hereford Sixth Form College. Her first part-time job was as a teenager with WH Smith.
When she was the first member of the family to graduate – with a BSc in Pediatric Nursing from the University of Chester in 2011 – the couple were so delighted they placed an ad in the local newspaper. “We are so proud of you after all your hard work,” it read. They did the same when she turned 21, accompanying the birthday message with a photo of their daughter as a sweet-looking kid.
And although they were reportedly unhappy because she had left Hereford to start her new job, they helped Letby buy her first home; a £179,000 three-bedroom half board, just a mile from the Countess of Chester Hospital, where she lived alone with her two rescue cats, Tigger and Smudge.
During her trial, the emergence of texts Letby exchanged with colleagues hinted that she sometimes felt suffocated by her parents and also felt guilty for moving away from them.
Like Lucy (pictured as a child), who huddled in her cell yesterday and refused to come to Manchester Crown Court to be sentenced, Mr and Mrs Letby also chose to stay away
She continued to holiday with them, going on the thrice-annual trips to Torquay that the family had enjoyed since early childhood. She told a doctor, who moved to New Zealand, that she would never have been able to take such a step as it would “completely devastate them,” adding: “(They) are already finding it difficult enough to be away from me now and it’s only 100 miles.’
Another time she posted, “My parents are massively worried about anything and everything, hate that I live alone, etc.
“I feel bad because I know it’s really hard for them, especially being an only child, and they mean well, just a little suffocating at times and constantly guilty.”
Ironically, given the nature of Letby’s crimes, perhaps the key to understanding her sometimes claustrophobic relationship with her parents lies in her own childhood. One of the killer’s best friends, who went to school with her and also refuses to accept her school friend’s guilt, told the BBC’s Panorama program last week that Letby wanted to become a neonatal nurse because she had survived a traumatic birth herself.
If true, this might go some way to explaining why John and Susan Letby tended to be overprotective of their daughter. What effect this might have had on Letby as she entered her adult years is another matter.
A psychologist involved in the case told the Mail that Letby was a “covert narcissist.” Having been at the center of her parents’ universe for so long, she craved the attention she had received since childhood and, once she moved away from them, she had to seek it elsewhere.
Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents got married and not long after bought the house they still live in, a 1930s semi-detached house in a cul-de-sac in Hereford.
Other text messages sent during her killing spree reveal how she sought sympathy and admiration from colleagues.
After the death of her first victim – Baby A – in June 2015, a fellow nurse sent her a message that read, “I hope you are well, you were brilliant.”
Letby replied, ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do… Just a big shock to all of us. Hard to come in tonight and see the parents.’
According to Dominic Willmott, a lecturer in criminology at Loughborough University, some of the nurse’s texts suggest she wanted to “garner sympathy” after the babies’ deaths. He said last week she may have been motivated by a “pathological desire for attention and sympathy.”
Another key argument made by the prosecution at her trial was that Letby wanted to win the sympathy of a doctor she had “fallen in love with”.
It has even been suggested that Letby suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which caregivers may deliberately harm children to gain attention for themselves. It is said that after a few kills, she came to life, as if enjoying the drama she had created.
John Letby was present when his daughter was first arrested on July 4, 2018.
He had stayed the night after driving her home the day before, from one of the family holidays to Torquay, and watched her being led out of the house by police officers.
A psychologist involved in the case told the Mail that Letby (pictured when he was younger) was a ‘hidden narcissist’
In court, Letby was almost in tears when she said her father had made her bed after her arrest.
Her room, as the jury saw in photos shown in the courtroom, was rather childish, filled with stuffed animals, fairy lights, and a saccharine sign on the wall that read, “Leave sparkles wherever you go.” In her kitchen was a “Happy Birthday Mummy” note from her cats, sent by her own mother.
Letby was released on bail before being arrested twice more, in June 2019 and November 2020, as the investigation continued.
On one occasion, when she was arrested at her childhood home, her distraught mother is said to have pleaded with the officers, “I did it.” Take me instead.’
Before their daughter’s trial began last October, the couple, who still run a family radiator business, moved from Hereford and rented an apartment near Manchester Crown Court.
They may now choose to move once more, to be near Letby, as she begins her life sentence in a prison that will likely be far from the family home.
During the trial, the couple were seen exchanging loving glances with their daughter, who often tried to make eye contact with them.
Determined to hear every piece of evidence against her, they were at times a irascible presence in court, berating journalists for their coverage of the trial and complaining about its length, forcing them to renew the lease on their rented flat.
They became a familiar sight during lulls in proceedings, as they both smoked cigarettes on the steps of the courthouse.
Letby (pictured in 2007) was released on bail before being arrested twice more, in June 2019 and November 2020, as the investigation continued
Despite everything they’ve heard about Letby’s evil deeds, the couple’s faith in her has proved unshakable.
Last Friday, when all the verdicts were made public, Mrs Letby’s disbelief was exposed in court when she fell sobbing into her husband’s arms and at one point exclaimed, ‘You can’t be serious. This can’t be right.’
Their decision to stay away from court yesterday was another clear sign of their continued solidarity with their daughter.
Being forced to listen day in and day out to details of the wrongs she has committed is more than most parents could bear. And yet it is still nothing compared to the grief of those whose innocent premature babies were given a chance at life, only to be murderously snatched away.
At the heart of this monstrous story is a simple question.
How could a child raised by such loving parents turn out to be one of the worst child serial killers in modern British history?
If John and Susan Letby ever accept their daughter’s guilt, it will be a question they will ask themselves for the rest of their lives.