Britain’s most prolific child killer Lucy Letby will die in jail after being ordered to spend the rest of her life behind bars for murdering seven babies and trying to kill six more.
She was handed a whole-life order, becoming only the fourth woman in UK history to receive such a sentence. Whole-life orders are the most severe punishment available in the country’s criminal justice system and are reserved for those who commit the most heinous crimes.
The killer nurse, branded “evil” and a “coward” by her victims’ parents, refused to appear for her sentencing hearing. But judge Mr Justice Goss said he’d pass sentence at Manchester Crown Court as if she were present before him.
He told the serial killer: “There was premeditation, calculation and cunning in your actions. Loving parents have been robbed of their cherished children. You have caused deep psychological trauma.”
In his address, which will be printed and given to Letby, the judge continued: “You acted in a way that was completely contrary to the normal human instincts of nurturing and caring for babies and in gross breach of the trust that all citizens place in those who work in the medical and caring professions.”
The 33-year-old was working at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit when she went on her year-long killing spree, joining the list of the UK’s most twisted child killers, including the Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and the so-called Angel of Death paediatric nurse Beverley Allitt.
Letby, from Hereford, stood trial after being accused of deliberately harming the infants in various ways, including by injecting air intravenously and administering air and/or milk into the stomach via nasogastric tubes. It was also claimed by the prosecution she added insulin as a poison to intravenous feeds, interfered with breathing tubes, and inflicted trauma in some cases.
