UK: Nurse Lucy Letby poisoned babies using insulin, confirms trial

United Kingdom: Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse at Countess of Chester hospital, has been accused of killing five baby boys and two girls while attempting to murder ten other babies between 2015-16 by deliberately injecting insulin into their bodies.

However, the 32-year-old Lucy has denied 22 charges against her at the Manchester Crown Court.

As the trial opened, the prosecutor Nick Johnson informed the court that Chester Institution was a renowned institution. But the number of deaths of healthy babies in the hospital rose unusually in 2015 as a poisoner was at work in its neonatal unit.

“Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly deteriorated. Sometimes babies who had been sick but then been on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason,” told the Prosecutor to the jury.

The sudden rise in mortalities had drawn the hospital’s concern towards the matter. Consequently, the authorities, along with the police, had conducted a review wherein it was found that in mid-2015 and the middle of 2016, “somebody in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin,” he said. 

“Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants noticed that the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator, the presence of one of the neonatal nurses and that nurse was Lucy Letby.” Stated prosecutor Johnson.

Along with this, the Prosecutor told that the boys she had poisoned were born as twins and were killed within a few days after their birth.

 Letby was on- duty when those babies were poisoned. Therefore the Prosecutor believed that the death of 17 babies was a deliberate murder committed by none other than Lucy Letby.

 The investigation into the matter of rising fatalities in the hospital was launched back in May 2017. The accused nurse was detained thrice in the matter prior to being charged in November 2020.