Britain’s most prolific serial child killer Lucy Letby sentenced to life in jail

Neo-natal nurse Lucy Letby, the United Kingdom’s most prolific serial child killer in modern times, will spend the rest of her life behind bars, a judge ordered on Monday following her conviction for murdering seven newborn babies and trying to kill yet another six. Letby, 33, murdered the five baby boys and two baby girls at the neonatal unit of Countess of Chester hospital in northern England where she used to work as a nurse in 2015 and 2016, injecting the infants with insulin or air or force feeding them milk. Some of the children she attacked were twins – in one case she murdered both siblings, in another she killed two of three triplets, and in two instances she murdered one twin but failed in her attempts to kill the other. Letby, refused to attend court for the sentencing in Manchester, northwest England, sparking outrage from her young victims’ families. “The order of the court is a whole-life order on each and every offence and you will spend the rest of your life in prison,” said judge James Goss. Judge Goss said she had acted with “pre-meditation, calculation and cunning” with “malevolence bordering on sadism”, “coldly” denying responsibility for her actions throughout the trial. Most of her young victims suffered acute pain but she deceived colleagues at the Countess of Chester Hospital about what she had done. Letby kept medical notes as “morbid records” about what she had done, which were found during police searches of her home after she was arrested. “You have no remorse,” the judge said. “There are no mitigating factors.” “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,” he added. “Lifelong harm” had been caused to her victims’ families by cutting short young lives “almost as soon as they began”, the judge said. “Loving parents have been robbed of their cherished children. You have caused deep psychological trauma,” he added. No motives have emerged for the killings, which took place between June 2015 and June 2016 and have made Letby one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. Some 70 criminals are currently serving a whole-life order in the UK. Only three women have previously been given the sentence: “Moors Murderer” Myra Hindley, who with her boyfriend Ian Brady killed five children in the 1960s, and serial killers Rose West and Joanna Dennehy. Hindley died in 2002. Harold Shipman, a medical doctor who killed 15 of his patients but is suspected to have murdered as many as 250, was given a whole-life term in 2000. He killed himself in his cell in 2004.