Nurse Lucy Letby admits she was ‘upset and frustrated’ six minutes before collapse of baby boy she ‘killed’, court hears
- Letby, 33, agreed with detectives she was ‘frustrated’ for baby boy’s death
- But Letby insists she didn’t kill him after her arrest in July 2018
Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby denied murdering a baby within six minutes of a “frustrating and disturbing” WhatsApp conversation with an off-duty colleague, a jury heard today.
Letby, 33, agreed with a detective who interviewed her about the deaths of seven babies at Countess of Chester Hospital that she had been lying at baby C’s bedside when he collapsed. But she insisted she didn’t kill him.
She also denied doing anything that caused his vocal cords to become so swollen that a doctor was unable to intubate him three times.
And she claimed to have no recollection of holding up a Moses basket and saying to the dying child’s parents, “You’ve said goodbye now, will you put him in here.”
An officer told the alleged killer that the father was “shocked and upset” by the comment, especially since baby C was still alive despite medics ceasing their efforts to resuscitate him.
Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby (pictured) denied murdering a baby within six minutes of a ‘frustrating and upsetting’ WhatsApp conversation with an off-duty colleague, a jury heard today
Jurors were taken through a summary of numerous interviews Letby gave to Cheshire Police after her original arrest in July 2018.
In one recording, Letby told the detective, “I don’t remember saying it. I don’t remember that conversation about the Moses Basket.
The Manchester Crown Court jury was told how shortly before C’s death in intensive care Nursery 1, the neonatology nurse had had a WhatsApp conversation with colleague Jenny Jones-Key.
From memory, Letby believes she was either in nursery 3, where she was the designated nurse for a healthier baby, or at the nurse’s station when she was texting from her cellphone.
She told Jones-Key that she kept thinking about the day baby A died last week, and saw the image in her mind’s eye of him lying in his bed.
When her colleague suggested she take a break, she responded with a message, sent at 11:09 p.m. on June 30, 2015, that read, “Forget it. I’m clearly making more of it than I should’.
During the police questioning, a detective asked her how the conversation had made her feel.
“Frustrated,” Letby said. She agreed that it made her feel “like Jenny didn’t understand” how she felt.
She continued, “I just remember feeling like I wasn’t getting anywhere with the conversation.”
Letby also agreed that she told Jones-Key that working in Nursery 3 “eats me.”
The officer pointed out that baby C had collapsed six minutes after the 11:09 pm message, then told Letby: ‘You were the only member of staff there and you were seen at his bedside when the alarm went off. You felt frustrated and upset at the time. Do you agree?’
Letby replies, “Yes.”
Officer: “You then started attacking (Baby) C.”
“No,” says Letby.
And she repeated the answer when asked moments later, “Did you kill C?”
Letby, originally from Hereford, denies killing seven babies and attempting to kill a further ten.