Lucy Letby: Mother begged 'don't let my baby die', trial hears

A mother begged medics "please don't let my baby die" as they tried to resuscitate him, the trial of alleged killer nurse Lucy Letby has heard.

Ms Letby has been charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016.

On the sixth day of the murder trial, the jury heard evidence about her first two alleged victims - twins who suffered sudden collapses.

Ms Letby, 32, denies 22 charges.

She has been charged with murdering Child A, a boy, and attempting to murder his sister, Child B, in early June 2015.

Ms Letby was said to have fatally injected an excess amount of air into the bloodstream of Child A, and then attempted to murder his sister, Child B, via the same method.

Manchester Crown Court heard separate statements written by the twins' mother and father.

They both described the moment, in the hours after Child A's birth, that a member of staff told them "you need to come quick", to the neonatal ward because there was something wrong with him.

They said when they got there it "felt like there were hundreds of people standing around the incubator trying to resuscitate him".

The court heard the baby's mother cried: "Please don't let my baby die, please don't let my baby die."

Despite doctors' efforts the one-day-old boy could not be saved.

Child A's grandmother recalled: "The minute I went into that room and saw the baby boy I knew he was gone. He was blue."

She added the father was "in shock" and "like a statue".

After they were told Child A would have brain damage and further complications if he survived, she said she told her daughter "you need to let him go".

Child A's mother told medics to "carry on", the grandmother said, but eventually "simply nodded her head" to the doctors to stop chest compressions.

Child A's parents said one of the things which upsets them the most was they never had the opportunity to hold their son whilst he was alive because he remained in the incubator for the whole time.

The court has heard in the aftermath of Child A's death, his sister Child B started to show some of the same symptoms.

In her statement, the twins' mother explained she was in hospital herself, still recovering from giving birth, when a nurse again came into her room, and said "you need to come now".

The mother was distraught and said "not my baby, not again".

The jury has been told that Child B's skin had become marked and mottled.

They were shown a photograph of the baby in her incubator.

She recovered, and her parents said that since that time they have been extremely protective of her.