Lucy Letby ‘told colleague there was element of fate’ to hospital baby deaths, court hears
Lucy Letby allegedly told a colleague there was an ‘element of fate’ in the deaths of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
The 32-year-old, on trial accused of murdering babies at the facility’s neonatal unit, sent WhatsApp messages to another nurse on June 22 2015 following a shift where a baby, referred to as child D, died.
Manchester Crown Court was told Letby sent the following message to a colleague: ‘We had such a rubbish night. Our job is just far too sad sometimes.’
She went on to say: ‘We lost (child D).’
Her colleague replied: ‘What!!!! But she was improving. What happened? Wanna chat? I can’t believe you were on again. You’re having such a tough time.’
Letby is also said to have texted the friend about there being a ‘reason for everything’.
The court heard that the nurse also wrote in a message: ‘But then sometimes I think how is it such sick babies get through and others die so suddenly and unexpectedly. Guess it’s how it is meant to be.
‘I think there is an element of fate involved. There is a reason for everything.’
Earlier today, Manchester Crown Court also heard how a mother of one of the babies allegedly murdered by Letby saw her ‘hovering around’ the evening before her death.
Giving evidence, child D’s mother described seeing the nurse in the neonatal unit.
She told the court: ‘As we got in the room she was sort of hovering around (child D) but not doing much.
‘She had a clipboard or something to take notes on and she sort of was looking at the machine but I didn’t really clearly understand what she was doing.
‘She was just watching, looking over us. I asked (my husband) “can you tell her to go away and just give us some privacy?”‘
The court heard in the early hours of the following morning, the parents – staying in another part of the hospital – were rushed to the unit where a doctor was resuscitating child D, with Letby holding a phone to his ear.
After efforts were made to save the child’s life, the decision was made to ‘let her go’.
Manchester Crown Court heard the mother’s waters had broken on June 18 2015 but she was not given a Caesarean section until two days later, on June 20, after attempts to induce labour.
Doctors told the parents that child D was ‘up and down’ but were happy with her progress once she was treated on the unit, the court heard.
The day before the baby died, a doctor said she was doing well and promised her mother she would be able to give her baby a ‘cuddle’ and feed her the following day, she said.
In a statement, child D’s father said: ‘I was never given the impression that (child D’s) condition was life-threatening and it didn’t even cross my mind that she was in danger of dying.
‘When she died, we just were not prepared for it.’
Letby, originally from Hereford, denies the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.
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