A nurse from Britain was declared guilty on Friday for causing the death of seven newborn babies and attempting to harm six more at the hospital’s special baby care unit where she was employed. This makes her the person who has harmed the most children in the UK.
Lucy Letby, who is 33 years old, has been on trial since last October. She was accused of hurting babies who were either sick or born too early. It was said that she injected air into them, gave them too much milk, and used insulin to poison them.
A group of people called the jury at Manchester Crown Court in northern England made decisions about the case after thinking for 22 days.
Lucy Letby was taken into custody after several babies died at a special part of the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016.
The people arguing against Lucy, called the prosecution, said she was a smart woman who planned how to kill babies in ways that were hard to notice. Lucy denied many times that she hurt the children.
“Lucy Letby was supposed to protect vulnerable babies, but she ended up harming them. Her colleagues didn’t realize she was a murderer. She hurt the babies multiple times, even when they were supposed to be safe. She tricked her coworkers into thinking the deaths were just bad luck. She was even accused of trying to kill some triplets. She got arrested and charged after leaving a note admitting her actions. She said she felt guilty because she was taken off her job after the babies died. In court, she said she loved her work and blamed the hospital’s problems for what happened.”
The situation brought back memories of two notorious cases in Britain involving medical professionals who committed murder: Dr. Harold Shipman and Nurse Beverley Allitt.
Dr. Shipman, a family doctor, took his own life in prison in 2004, four years after he was found guilty of killing 15 of his patients.
A later investigation found that he had used lethal doses of morphine to kill around 250 patients between 1971 and 1998.
Nurse Allitt, known as the “angel of death,” was sentenced to life in prison in 1993 for killing four children she was caring for. She also tried to murder three other children and caused serious harm to six more.