Child serial killer nurse Lucy Letby has been handed a 15th whole life order for the attempted murder of a baby girl.
Letby was locked up for the rest of her life last August after being convicted of the murder of seven babies and seven counts of attempted murder, also against babies in her care.
The original jury could not reach a verdict on a further charge of attempting to murder a newborn girl, known as Child K, in February 2016.
But she was convicted of the charge following a retrial, and was sentenced on Friday to a further whole life sentence.
It was a “shocking act of calculated, callous cruelty”, said Mr Justice Goss.
“You acted in a way that was completely contrary to the normal human instincts of nurturing and caring for babies, and in gross breach of the trust that all citizens place in those who work in the medical and caring professions.”
He said Letby had tried to shift the blame to others, and the court was told she continued to deny harming any of the babies in her care.
“You are intelligent, and outwardly were conscientious, hard-working, knowledgeable, confident, and professional nurse, which enabled you to repeatedly harm babies on the unit without arousing suspicion for some time.”
As she was leaving the dock, Letby turned to the public gallery and said “I’m innocent”.
She angered the parents of the victims by refusing to appear in court for her originally sentencing hearing, but sat in the dock on Friday.
She was in court to hear the mother of Child K detail the agony of going through two criminal trials, and the trauma of losing their daughter who died three days after the attack by Letby, due to prematurity.
“You, Lucy Letby, will never hurt another child”, the mother said in court.
Letby, of Hereford, targeted the “very premature” Child K 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.
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.
The Crown said it was part of a pattern of similar Facebook searches which showed Letby’s “fascination” with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families.
Letby was initially charged with the murder of Child K but the charge was dropped in June 2022 as the prosecution offered no evidence.
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 and2015.
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.
