Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby told detectives that it was ‘bad luck’ that she was involved in the collapses of four babies when she was questioned about the 2015 incidents that saw three infants die, a jury heard today.
Letby, 33, claimed that neither she nor other staff had questioned what had caused the ‘spike’ of three deaths and one near-death on the neonatal unit in the single month of June eight years ago.
When an officer pointed out that she had been involved in all four collapses during an interview, she attributed it to bad luck.
During the interview, one detective suggests to Letby: ‘It must have been devastating.’
Letby replies: ‘Yes’. Backing up why she did not question the spike in deaths, she added: ‘I didn’t think there was maybe anything to be looked into. It was just a shock for everybody.’
The officer later points out that she was involved in all four collapses, adding: ‘What do you put that down to? Bad luck?’ Letby replies: ‘Yes’.
Jurors also heard that Letby denied murdering a baby within six minutes of having a ‘frustrating and upsetting’ WhatsApp conversation with an off-duty colleague.
The nurse agreed with a detective interviewing her over the deaths of seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital that she had been at the cot-side of Baby C at the time he collapsed.
But she insisted she had not murdered him.
She also denied having done anything to cause his vocal cords to swell so much that a doctor failed three times to intubate him.
And she claimed to have no recollection of holding up a Moses basket and telling the dying infant’s parents: ‘You’ve said your goodbyes now, do you want to put him in here’.
During the police interview a detective asked her how the conversation had made her feel.
‘Frustrated,’ said Letby. She agreed it made her feel ‘like Jenny didn’t understand’ how she was feeling.
She went on: ‘I just remember feeling I wasn’t getting anywhere with the conversation’.
Letby also agreed she had told Jones-Key that working in Nursery 3 was ‘eating me up’.
The officer pointed out that six minutes after the 11.09pm message Baby C had collapsed, then went on to tell Letby: ‘You were the only staff member there and you were seen at his cot-side when the alarm sounded. You were feeling frustrated and upset at the time. Do you agree?’
Letby replies: ‘Yes’.Officer: ‘You’ve then gone on to attack (Baby) C’.’No,’ says Letby.
And she repeated the answer when asked a moment later: ‘Did you murder C?’
Letby, originally from Hereford, denies murdering seven babies and attempting to murder a further ten.
The nurse denied deliberately injecting the baby with air, but could offer no explanation for his collapse.
In a later interview Letby was told that expert witnesses believed Baby A had been injected with air.
She told the officer: ‘I didn’t deliberately give him any air’.
She acknowledged having carried out Facebook searches on the infant’s mother both shortly after A’s death and again in the September, but said she was ‘not sure’ what she had been looking for.
She added: ‘I’m not sure I was looking for anything’.
Asked specifically about the September search, she suggested she may have wanted to know ‘how the family was doing’.
The officer asks why, and Letby replies: ‘Because you think about the babies on the unit at times and wonder about them and what they’re doing’.
