‘Trust me I’m a nurse, killer told mum as she murdered her baby boy’
A MOTHER who walked in on Lucy Letby allegedly killing her baby in a neonatal unit was told by her: “Trust me, I’m a nurse”, a court heard.
Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the jury the night before Child E died his mother brought breast milk for his evening feed at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
The mother saw blood by his mouth but it is alleged that Letby “fobbed” her off by reassuring her this was simply due to a “tube irritating his throat”.
Yet Child E died on August 4, 2015 after air was introduced into his blood stream via a tube, Manchester Crown Court was told.
Mr Johnson claimed the mother, who cannot be named, had no idea when she interrupted the nurse, who was allegedly in the process of attacking the five-day-old boy, one of twins.
Letby is on trial accused of seven murders and of 10 attempted murders.
He said: “Child E was acutely distressed. The mother recalls Letby attempting to reassure her the blood was due to the tube.
“Letby told her the registrar would be down to review Child E before urging her to return to the postnatal ward. ‘Trust me, I’m a nurse’ is what she told her.
“She did as she was told having been in the neonatal for five minutes or so. However, she was concerned and telephoned her husband when she got back to the labour ward.”
The jury were told that Letby made a note in the child’s records, which she timed at 21.13 hours.
Mr Johnson added: “The presence of blood and the timing of this event are important. The next time the mother recalls seeing Child E was when he was in terminal decline later that night.” The court heard the boy died at 36 minutes past midnight – just over three hours after the mother’s visit.
Mr Johnson alleged that Letby entered “fraudulent” notes in the medical records that failed to mention the mother’s evening visit at all. He added: “We say the nursing notes made by
Letby are false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks.
“They fail to mention that Child E was bleeding at 9pm and they men- tion a meeting between a registrar and the mother that neither remembers.”
The prosecutor said a decision was made at the time not to hold a post-mortem, which was seen as “a big mistake”.
Mr Johnson added that Letby then took “an unusual interest” in Child E’s family by looking them up on sites such as Facebook.
He said: “She did social media searches on the parents on August 6 (two days after Child E’s death), August 23, September 14, October 5, November 11, December 12 and even on Christmas Day.”
Mr Johnson claimed her interest in the family became “more sinister” in relation to the baby’s surviving twin, Child F, who the prosecution claim was poisoned with synthetic insulin by Letby the following day from a contaminated feeding bag. The boy survived.
The barrister stated there was “conclusive evidence” that Child F had been given synthetic insulin in his total parenteral nutrition (TPN) feeding bag, stating: “Someone poisoned him.
“All experienced medical and nursing members of staff would know the dangers of introducing insulin in any individual whose glucose values were within the normal range and would know it carries life-threatening risks.
“No other baby on the neonatal unit was prescribed insulin at the time. Child F could not, therefore, have received insulin intended for another baby through negligence. He was given it intentionally.”
Mr Johnson said the prosecution allege Letby had injected insulin into the TPN bag before it was hung up to give to the child.
He added: “You know who was in the room and you know from the records, who hung the bag. It can’t have been an accident.”
The jury also heard yesterday that Letby allegedly killed a baby girl, known as Child D, on June 22, 2015, again by the fatal injection of air into her bloodstream.
The court was told that, in a police interview in November 2020, it was put to Letby that she had searched Facebook for Child D’s parents after her death.
Mr Johnson said: “She said that she could not recall it but accepted she had done so.
“We suggest if you searched for that family of a baby who you had seen die you would remember why you had done it.”
Letby, 32, from Hereford, denies seven counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder between June 2015 and June 2016.The trial continues.
‘We say notes made by Letby are false and designed to cover her tracks’