Lucy Letby trial: Nurse 'gaslighted colleagues to hide baby murders'

Nurse Lucy Letby was a "calculating and devious" opportunist who "gaslighted" colleagues to cover her "murderous assaults", her trial has heard.

Ms Letby is accused of murdering seven children and attempting to kill 10 others at Countess of Chester Hospital.

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said she "got away with her campaign of violence for so long" because people "could not contemplate" a nurse was trying to kill babies.

Ms Letby denies all charges.

Her trial at Manchester Crown Court, which has been sitting since October, entered its final phase earlier as Mr Johnson began his closing speech for the prosecution.

The prosecutor asked the jury of eight women and four men to focus on the "similarities" between the collapses of the children in the hospital's neonatal unit in this case.

He said the cases showed an "evolution" of Ms Letby's "murderous assaults" and reveal "how calculating and devious she has been".

The court has heard, in more than eight months of evidence, allegations the 33-year-old murdered and attempted to murder children between June 2015 and June 2016 by deliberately injecting air and insulin and force-feeding some with milk.

"We suggest that Lucy Letby gaslighted staff at the hospital, doctors and nurses alike, professional people with many many years of experience," Mr Johnson said.

He said the nurse "persuaded [the staff] what they knew, in their heart of hearts, to be utterly abnormal was just a run of bad luck".

In her evidence, Ms Letby, originally of Hereford, told the jury a number of senior doctors - referred to as "the gang of four" by the prosecution - had apportioned "blame" on to her "to cover up failings at the hospital".

Ms Letby named Dr Ravi Jayaram, Dr Stephen Brearey, Dr John Gibbs and another doctor who cannot be named for legal reasons, as those who had conspired to accuse her.

Mr Johnson said this was a "conspiracy theory" and told the jury "when considering whether this has any credibility, ask yourself the question, why would the doctors do that?"

He also said there was no evidence to support Ms Letby's theory and pointed out when he had put to the nurse what those named doctors had witnessed she disputed "very little, if anything".

"All she did say was that she did not see what they say they saw," he said.

He added: "What was their motive for scapegoating Lucy Letby, she didn't give you specifics... she hasn't told you the evidence."

Mr Johnson told the jury Ms Letby had "put a lot of effort in trying to pull the wool over your eyes".

"We suggest that Lucy Letby was an opportunist - she used their [the babies in this case] vulnerabilities as camouflage," Mr Johnson said.

He said Ms Letby thought Child A and Child B had an inherited blood disorder and that allowed her the cover to target them.

"If she had left it there, she probably would have got away with it," he said.

But he said the misperception of the vulnerabilities "gave her away" and noted her "ignorance" of the "biological fingerprint" left in the cases of Child F and Child L, who were both poisoned with synthetic insulin.

Mr Johnson told the court "when she thought she was rumbled [in June 2016] she did her best to create the impression the neonatal unit was dysfunctional" by putting in false incident reports, through the hospital's Datix reporting system.

Mr Johnson said the evidence showed "a pattern of behaviour, all down to Lucy Letby".

"All the clues point in one direction, don't they? She's sitting in the back of court," Mr Johnson said.

Focusing on specific babies in the case, Mr Johnson later asked the jury to consider the evidence of the mother of Child E.

She told the court in November last year that she went to feed her son, who subsequently died, on the night of 3 August 2015.

Child E's mother said she heard her son making "horrendous" sounds when she arrived on the neonatal unit and found him with blood around his mouth.

She told the court that she saw Ms Letby stood near a work station on the unit and when she alerted her to the blood, she was told it was due to a feeding tube.

Ms Letby in her evidence denied having this interaction and said no blood was sighted in Child E's mouth before 22:00 that night.

"Have [the parents] made that up, to get at Lucy Letby? Are they in on it? Are they a sub-gang of two?" Mr Johnson asked.

Mr Johnson said this was "a head on credibility contest" and either Child E's mother was "lying" or Ms Letby was "lying".

He said of the mother's account: "It's powerful evidence - independent of the medical evidence - that Lucy Letby murdered [Child E]".