A neonatal nurse in a British hospital was found guilty Friday of killing seven babies and attempting to kill six others.
Lucy Letby, 33, was charged with murder in the deaths of five boys and two girls and the attempted murder of six other children when she worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between 2015 and 2016.
She was accused of deliberately harming the newborn infants in various ways, including by injecting air into their bloodstreams and administering air or milk into their stomachs via nasogastric tubes.
“Lucy Letby sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability. In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids – or medication like insulin – would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponized her craft to inflict harm, grief and death,” prosecutor Pascale Jones said.
“Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families,” Jones said in a statement on Friday following the verdict.
Letby was also accused of poisoning infants by adding insulin to intravenous feeds and interfering with breathing tubes.
Letby denied all the charges. The alleged vic-tims cannot be named under British law. A jury of seven women and four men deliberated for 22 days before reaching the verdict. One juror was excused well into deliberations for personal reasons and the judge later gave the remaining 11 jurors the option of reaching a verdict with 10 people in agreement instead of a unanimous decision.—Agencies
