The parents of twin babies attacked by Lucy Letby said they felt “very, very let down” by executives at the hospital, believing health bosses “could have stopped” the nurse taking “our joy, our happiness”.
The newborn boys, known as Child L and Child M, had to be resuscitated by doctors after Letby tried to murder them at the Countess of Chester hospital in Chester in April 2016.
Letby, who has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another six, poisoned two-day-old Child L with insulin before injecting his brother with air. Doctors saved the boys, who are now seven, but Child M was left with permanent brain damage as a result of the attack, the trial at Manchester crown court was told.
Speaking publicly for the first time, the boys’ parents said “evil” Letby, 33, had turned their lives into a living hell.
The mother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said: “She took everything. Our joy, happiness.” She said the past seven years had been “very, very horrendous”, while the boys’ father said he struggled with sleepless nights, flashbacks and depression.
The father, a senior support analyst, said he was a “changed man” as a result of the attacks and had suffered a stress-induced seizure shortly before the trial began in October 2022. He added: “It’s been hell, to be honest.”
The couple said when they learned their first pregnancy was twins, they were “over the moon” and “so happy”. The boys were born seven weeks prematurely but were otherwise healthy and were able to be cuddled by family members who came to visit.
Child L had low blood glucose levels so was prescribed a dextrose infusion, which was set up by Letby and another nurse 45 minutes after his birth. The trial heard that Letby injected the dextrose bag with insulin in a “deliberate act of sabotage”.
It was eight months after she had tried to kill another twin boy by injecting him with insulin.
At the same time as poisoning Child L, Letby attempted to murder his brother by injecting air into his bloodstream – one of the nurse’s “favourite” ways of killing, or trying to kill, the prosecution told jurors.
In the parents’ interview, they described a scene of chaos as Child M dramatically deteriorated while, unbeknown to doctors, his twin brother had been attacked with insulin.
“I was the first one into the unit at the time and the image that I saw was just horrendous. That image I’ll never forget because it’s on the brain,” said the boys’ father. “When I went down [to the unit] I saw doctors around the trolley and they’re just pumping his heart like … like a rag doll.”
The parents said they were both in tears, desperate to know what was happening to their sons, when their designated nurse told them in a panic: “I’ve not done anything. I’ve not done anything.”
The mother, a part-time carer, said she remembered Letby standing behind their nurse looking “very calm and cool” as Child M suddenly collapsed.
She said Letby’s behaviour towards the family “changed totally” after the boys survived, saying she appeared to be colder and more hostile: “After she was unsuccessful in killing my babies, afterwards she was not responding to me. She changed totally.”
The parents are demanding a judge-led public inquiry into how the hospital handled concerns raised by senior doctors about Letby months before their sons were attacked. On Friday, the health secretary, Steve Barclay, ordered a non-statutory independent inquiry.
Dr Stephen Brearey, the consultant paediatrician who was the first to alert executives to Letby’s association with unexplained deaths, in June 2015, has told the Guardian he believes babies could have been saved if the hospital had acted earlier on their warnings.
The twins’ father said they felt “very, very let down” by the hospital: “They could have stopped it. They could have done it a lot earlier and they need to be held accountable as well. I know they didn’t know there was a poisoner at work, and it’s difficult to prove that. But the doctors did speak up. The doctors spoke up in 2015. So they should have acted on that.”
The twins’ mother said hospital executives “need to be held accountable”, adding: “The doctors raised their concerns, and they didn’t act upon them, they dismissed them. It could have been prevented … It wouldn’t have got to this stage if they had acted upon those initial concerns.”
Letby faces becoming only the second woman alive to be handed a whole-life order, meaning she would never be released from prison, when she is sentenced.
The boys’ parents described the nurse as a “danger to everyone” and said she should never be released. The father added: “She’s taken lives, she’s tried to take other babies’ lives. So whatever sentence she gets it’s not going to be enough. It will be justice, but it won’t be enough.”
On Friday, Dr Nigel Scawn, the medical director at Countess of Chester hospital, said the trust was “deeply saddened and appalled” by Letby’s crimes. “We are extremely sorry that these crimes were committed at our hospital,” he said.
