Letby ‘interfered with baby’s breathing tube’

Lucy Letby allegedly tried to murder a premature baby girl within two hours of her birth, a court heard yesterday.

The jury was told the nurse ‘interfered’ with the breathing tube of the child, known as Baby K, before TV doctor Ravi Jayaram interrupted the 33-year-old.

Manchester crown court heard Baby K had been born 15 weeks early, at 25 weeks gestation, at the countess of chester Hospital, cheshire, on February 17, 2016.

Despite weighing just 1lb 8oz, jurors were told she was in an ‘expected’ and ‘satisfactory’ condition when she was delivered at 2.12am.

But just 98 minutes later at 3.50am – around an hour after she was admitted to the hospital’s neo-natal unit and when the nurse looking after Baby K temporarily left – she suddenly collapsed.

Nick Johnson Kc, prosecuting, said: ‘The allegation is Lucy Letby interfered with the endotracheal [breathing] tube and Dr Jayaram walked in to the immediate aftermath.’ But Ben Myers Kc, defending, previously told the court the ‘probable cause’ for the tube dislodgement was the child inadvertently moving it herself.

Baby K recovered after the tube was removed and was transferred to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral, Merseyside, but she died three days later. The prosecution alleged Letby attempted to murder Baby K but not that she caused her death.

Dr Jayaram, a paediatric consultant who regularly appears as an expert on television, will today give evidence about Baby K.

In a statement, the child’s mother said the decision to turn off their daughter’s life support was ‘the hardest of my life’.

She added: ‘I remember saying to the doctor that she had been poked and prodded from the moment she was born… I didn’t want her to be suffering any more. She was in my husband’s arms when she took her last breath and slowly passed away.’

The court also heard how Letby searched for Baby K’s parents on Facebook in April 2018 – more than two years after her death.

Letby, of Hereford, denies the murder of seven babies and attempted murder of ten others on the unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

The trial continues.