British nurse Lucy Letby, accused of murdering seven babies and attempting the murder of six others, was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance for parole on Monday. Letby killed the babies while she was working as a neonatal nurse at a hospital in northern England. Justice James Goss imposed the most severe sentence possible under British law on Letby Monday.
Following 22 days of deliberation, a jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted Letby, 33, of killing the babies during a yearlong spree that saw her prey on the vulnerabilities of sick newborns and their anxious parents. The victims, including two triplet boys, were killed in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016.
Politicians and victim advocates have called for changes in the law to force criminals to appear for sentencing after several high-profile convicts chose not to face their victims in recent months.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who called the crimes “shocking and harrowing,” said his government would bring forward in “due course” its plan to require convicts to attend their sentencings. “It’s cowardly that people who commit such horrendous crimes do not face their victims and hear first-hand the impact that their crimes have had on them and their families and loved ones,” Sunak said.
Senior doctors said over the weekend that they had raised concerns about Letby as early as October 2015 and that children might have been saved if managers had taken their concerns seriously. Dr. Stephen Brearey, head consultant at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit, told the Guardian newspaper that deaths could arguably have been avoided as early as February 2016 if executives had “responded appropriately” to an urgent meeting request from concerned doctors.
Letby was finally removed from frontline duties in late June of 2016. She was arrested at her home in July 2018. An independent inquiry will be conducted into what happened at the hospital and how staff and management responded to the spike in deaths.
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