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Lucy Letby has been sentenced to a whole life order by Mr Justice Goss telling her that “she will spend the rest of your life in prison.”
As she was led out of the dock, Letby, who was dressed in black said in a quiet voice: “I’m innocent”.
Mr Justice Goss told Letby: “Only you know the reason or reasons for your murderous campaign.”
He said the “attempted murder was a “shocking act of callous cruelty”.
On Tuesday, Letby, 34, was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of the attack on the newborn infant during a night shift at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neo-natal unit in February 2016.
Last August, she was convicted at the same court by another jury of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others at the unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
She is already serving 14 whole life terms for the seven murders and seven attempted murders, with two bids to kill one child.
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Mr Justice Goss has now begun his sentencing remarks. He said all 15 offences were committed over a period of almost 13 months between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
“You acted in a way that was completely contrary” to the care expected for infants on the unit, he said.
He added: “You are intelligent and outwardly a very conscientious, hard working, knowledgeable and confident nurse”.
He said it enabled her to “repeatedly harm babies without arousing suspicion”. He added that it appeared she “relished” being in the intensive care unit with the most poorly babies.
Benjamin Myers KC, for Letby’s defence, says they recognise the sympathy for the family of Baby K.
He adds that Letby maintains her denial of the offence, and all the other ones she was convicted of.
He said: “Miss Letby’s position remains that she is not guilty of any offence. The court of course will proceed on the basis of this conviction and other convictions.
“The sentence is inevitable and therefore there is no more I can say.”
Discussing the impact of going through two trials to get a guilty verdict, she said: “The upheaval of baby K’s death, the 6 year wait for 1st trial, 8 month trial, the verdict and then learning we were doing it over again… was heart wrenching, but our baby girl needs a voice, we had too, we had no choice.”
Addressing Letby directly, she said: “Will we get answers and the verdict that we want? Will that actually bring some peace and closure?
“Baby K is not here, never will be, we will never have what would give us peace, closure, or a feeling of being a complete family unit, however, you Lucy Letby, will never hurt another child or have the privilege and joy that children give. Our time and effort that you have absorbed over the years will stop today and our focus will remain on our beautiful children and building the most exciting and love filled life that we possibly can.”
The mother of Baby K said that their memory of her child had been “tainted” by Letby’s actions.
She said: “Our happy go lucky and positive view on life has been dampened and all the good things are riddled with the apprehension, the waiting for it to go wrong or an element of it not being quite right.”
She said they now have three “beautiful children” and they would one day have to be told about what happened to their older sister.
“One day we will have to sit our children down and explain what happened to their big sister and that right now is the biggest task to overcome as yet.”
Letby has not reacted to the emotional statement from the mother of Baby K.
The mother told the court that when they received a phone call from the police to say their child’s death was under investigation it was like a “bolt from the blue”.
“We were in complete shock, as from what we can recall my care and the care of our baby while under the Countess was superb and that within Baby K’s most critical and needing time that anyone would think or try to knowingly hurt her was unthinkable. She was defenceless. She was in the right place to be looked after.”
“And so, what ended up being the next seven and half years of investigation and the unknown, began.
“Thinking that our baby had just fallen into the timeline for consideration, to Baby K being confirmed as a baby that they would be pursuing a charge for an Attempted Murder. How was this possible? How could we have let this happen to her? Why has this happened? What happens next? All questions that were unable to be answered and might never be able to be.”
Baby K’s mother said that “people don’t talk about child death” as it is not “part of the natural cycle”
She added: “We were and sometimes still are lost in this bubble of everyday actions and functions that now have no meaning or importance but can cause overwhelming emotions from nowhere. It’s a rollercoaster.
“We could control our feelings before, held it together but now any mention of our baby and that lump appears uncontrollably in your throat, you’re hot, uneasy, your senses on overload, listening but thinking and not fully processing all at once. “
The mother of Baby K, who cannot be named for legal reasons, read out her statement to the packed courtroom.
She said: “We found out we were pregnant with Baby K in August 2015 after suffering a miscarriage earlier that year. As you can imagine making it to the 12-week mark, seeing her little heartbeat, we were beyond ecstatic and overwhelmed with love already.”
She said that her child was born on 17 February 2016 and although she was in a fragile state, “she was here”.
She added: “She was transferred to Arrow Park later that day however, despite everyone’s best efforts, she passed away on the 20th February 2016, the day our world fell apart and changed forever.”
In May, Letby lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions from last year.
Cheshire Constabulary said its review of the care of some 4,000 babies admitted to hospital while Letby was working as a neonatal nurse remains ongoing.
The period covers her spell at the Countess of Chester from January 2012 to the end of June 2016, and includes two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital in 2012 and 2015.
A separate corporate manslaughter investigation at the hospital by Cheshire Constabulary also remains ongoing.
The public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes on the unit is set to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on September 10.
A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children involved in the case.
Speaking from the witness box Letby told the jury of six women and six men she had no recollection of the event described by Dr Jayaram and did not accept it had taken place.
She denied she did anything harmful to Child K and added that she had not committed any of the offences she had been convicted of.
Letby also denied the prosecution’s claims that she interfered with the infant’s breathing tube on two more occasions during the same shift to create the impression it was accidentally displaced.
Child K was transferred to a specialist hospital later on February 17 because of her extreme prematurity and died there three days later.
More than two years later on a late Friday night in April 2018, Letby searched on Facebook for Child K’s surname.
Letby, of Hereford, targeted the “very premature” baby after she was moved from the delivery room to the unit’s intensive care room in the early hours of February 17.
The youngster, born at 25 weeks’ gestation and weighing just 692g, was said by the prosecution to be the “epitome of fragility”.
About 90 minutes after her birth, Letby dislodged the breathing tube through which she was being ventilated with air and oxygen.
Consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram caught her “virtually red-handed” as he entered nursery one at about 3.45am and he then went on to intervene and resuscitate Child K.
Dr Jayaram told jurors he saw “no evidence” that she had done anything to help the deteriorating baby as he walked in and saw her standing next to the infant’s incubator.
He said he heard no call for help from Letby or alarms sounding as Child K’s blood oxygen levels dropped
Convicted child killer Lucy Letby was told by a judge “she will be in court” for her sentencing after she previously refused to attend.
The 34-year-old was found guilty of attempting to kill a premature baby girl by dislodging her breathing tube while she worked a night shift at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit in February 2016.
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