Nurse Lucy Letby murdered five babies and attempted to kill another two shortly after their parents left their sides, a court has been told.
The prosecutor Nick Johnson KC suggested that Letby spotted “an opportunity” to harm the newborns when their parents were not around.
The trial at Manchester crown court was also told on Thursday that the 33-year-old liked Facebook posts nine minutes before allegedly attempting to kill a five-day-old girl.
Letby is said to have twice attacked the baby, Child H, not long after her father left her side on the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit.
Johnson read the names of eight other babies and said they were “all cases where the children deteriorated shortly after their parents left”.
“Is that something you identified as an opportunity to attack children?” he asked. Letby replied: “No, I’ve never attacked any child.”
Five of the children – Child C, Child E, Child I, Child O and Child P – all died on the unit, Manchester crown court heard.
Letby, who denies murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another 10, was giving evidence for a ninth day on Thursday.
Letby denies attempting to murder Child H twice. She is accused of removing the infant’s chest drain at about midnight on 26 September 2015 “just after her father had left” the neonatal unit.
The second alleged attack took place at 1am the following day. It was at this time, the jury was told, that Letby was scrolling Facebook before the act of “sabotage”.
The jury was told she “liked” two friends’ Facebook posts at 00.45am and another a minute later – nine minutes before Child H’s “sudden and unexpected” collapse.
“You’re scrolling through her photos. Were you a bit bored at quarter to one that morning?” Johnson asked.
Letby replied: “I can’t say. I may have been on my break at that time.”
Nursing notes completed by Letby suggested she was carrying out observations on another child at 1am. She denied this was an alibi that allowed her to attack Child H when her father had left to sleep in the parents’ room.
Medics were emergency “crash called” and treated the newborn with cardiac compressions and adrenaline at 1.04am, the jury was told.
A doctor previously told the trial he saw Letby at Child H’s incubator when the emergency unfolded, even though she was not the baby’s designated nurse. “He said he was concerned about that because he wasn’t completely clear why [Child H] had collapsed,” Johnson said.
Letby replied that she could not say “from memory exactly what I was doing when”.
“Why is it always you that ends up in nursery one when something happens?” the prosecutor asked. The defendant, giving evidence between two prison guards, replied: “I don’t agree that it is always me.”
Johnson said: “You tried to kill [Child H] twice didn’t you?” Letby replied: “No.”
Earlier, the nurse denied she “cooked the records” to make it seem as if the baby girl was deteriorating before the alleged attempts to kill her.
The trial finished half an hour early after Letby briefly became emotional during an exchange with Johnson about her ninth alleged victim.
The court took a short break and when it resumed Letby said she was “finding it hard to concentrate”.
The judge, Justice James Goss KC, said he would adjourn the trial earlier than planned “having observed the witness and given that it’s been a long day”.
