EXPLAINER | Who is Lucy Letby, Britain’s worst serial child killer of modern times, and why is her case so controversial?

A British public inquiry concluded on Tuesday that hospital managers could have prevented nurse Lucy Letby killing more babies in her care had they taken action against her sooner.

Letby is serving life in jail after being found guilty of murdering seven newborns and attempting to murder eight more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital (CoCH) in northern England.

The convictions made her Britain’s worst serial child killer of modern times. She has always maintained her innocence and in recent years there has been a growing campaign arguing she was a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Here are details about her, the controversy around her convictions and the public inquiry.

Letby, 36, was born in Hereford in central England. She completed a nursing degree at Chester University in northwest England and after qualifying, she began to work in the neonatal unit of the city’s Countess of Chester Hospital.

Over 18 months from January 2015, there was a significant rise in the number of babies dying and suffering serious collapses at the neonatal unit.

Senior doctors became worried as many of the babies had deteriorated suddenly and unexpectedly, and then did not respond to appropriate resuscitation. Other babies, who suddenly collapsed and did not die, recovered, with both their collapse and recovery defying usual medical norms.

The police and medical experts were called in and as they looked for a cause, they eventually focused on one common factor — Lucy Letby.

She was first arrested in July 2018, and then again in June 2019 and November 2020 when she was charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another 10 between June 2015 and July 2016.

Prosecutors said Letby attacked 17 babies who had been on the ward. Some she was said to have poisoned with insulin. Mostly she was accused of injecting air into their bloodstream or stomachs, or giving them excessive milk.

The victims included twins and triplets, and in one case, she killed two siblings on consecutive days. The youngest baby she murdered was just a day old. The oldest was 11 weeks old, a baby girl who she attacked four times before she died.

Although the babies had been born prematurely, some were regarded as being in reasonable or good condition before they suddenly deteriorated, mainly during night shifts when Letby was working.

Letby attacked a number of the babies shortly after their parents had left their bedside, prosecutors said.

Police said she had kept medical records at her home with reference to some of the babies involved and had also carried out social media searches for their parents and families.