Doctor’s pain over death of baby in ‘killer nurse’ trial

A DOCTOR publicly apologised to the parents of a twin baby boy for failing to ‘push’ for a post-mortem examination after his alleged murder at the hands of a neo-natal nurse.

In a dramatic moment during the trial of Lucy Letby, the paediatric consultant turned to the child’s parents, who were sitting in the public gallery, and said sorry for initially concluding their premature son died of natural causes.

The female doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the parents she ‘regretted’ what she had done and that with hindsight she should have insisted on a post mortem examination on the newborn, referred to in court as Baby E.

But she claimed she had been keen not to make the situation any worse for his ‘understandably devastated and shellshocked’ parents.

Turning towards them in the courtroom, she said: ‘I apologise to them. That I didn’t push for that.’

Letby is accused of murdering Baby E at the Countess of Chester Hospital, in Cheshire, by injecting air into his bloodstream in August 2015. His identical brother, Baby F, was also allegedly attacked the following evening.

Letby, of Hereford, denies 22 charges, including seven of murder and 15 of attempted murder, between June 2015 and June 2016. The case continues.