Nurse ‘tried to murder newborn with insulin... then went salsa dancing’
A NURSE went salsa dancing hours after allegedly poisoning a baby with insulin, a jury was told yesterday.
Lucy Letby, 32, is accused of sabotaging the care of the premature boy under 24 hours after murdering his identical twin brother.
Manchester Crown Court heard the twins were being cared for at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital after being born ten weeks early.
Letby is accused of attacking the brother – Baby E – by shoving a piece of plastic tubing or a wire down his throat before killing him with an injection of air during a night shift in 2015. The following night Letby allegedly added insulin to a bag of nutrition being fed intravenously into the bloodstream of his brother, Baby F, causing his blood sugar to fall ‘dangerously low’. He survived.
The jury was told that, after finishing work on the shift, Letby exchanged WhatsApp messages with colleagues about Baby F’s condition, which she described as a ‘worry’, before arranging to go to a salsa class that night. In the exchange, with nursing colleague
Minna Lappalainen, Letby asked: ‘Are you doing to salsa tonight?’ Miss Lappalainen replied: ‘Should do really as haven’t been for ages. Meet at 20.20pm?’ Letby, who had worked a run of night shifts, replied with an OK emoji before adding: ‘Need to try and find some post nites [sic] energy,’ signing off: ‘Hasta luego [See you later].’ In a separate exchange, another nurse, who was on duty that evening, agreed to Letby’s request to update her on Baby F’s condition. At 8.43pm the colleague sent Letby a WhatsApp message to let her know Baby F was a ‘bit more stable’.
The court heard the levels of glucose in his blood had dropped to dangerously low levels during the day and doctors had conducted a series of tests to try to work out what was going on. The colleague said: ‘He’s deffo better, tho. Looks well, handling fine.’ Letby replied: ‘Good’ before adding three hours later: ‘Wonder if he has an endocrine problem. Hope they can get to the bottom of it. On way home from salsa with Mina. Feel better now I’ve been out.’
Letby then asked about Baby F’s parents, who were grieving for
‘Sabotaged care of premature twin’
Baby E. Her colleague said they were: ‘OK. Tired,’ adding: ‘They have just gone to bed.’
It is alleged that the following night Letby made the first of nine searches for the twins’ mother on Facebook. The court heard that the brothers should not have been born at the Chester hospital and were only there because Liverpool Women’s Hospital was full.
Letby, of Hereford, denies murdering seven babies and trying to kill ten others in 2015 and 2016. The trial continues.