A UK-born Indian-origin doctor played a crucial role in raising concerns and convicting a British nurse who was found guilty of murdering seven babies on Friday, making it one of the worst cases of serial killing of babies in the country in recent times.
The 33-year-old Lucy Letby was founded guilty of killing seven newborn babies and attempting to kill six more by a jury at Manchester Crown Court. She awaits an official sentence from the court on Monday. She was first arrested in 2018 and charged in 2020. Her trial had begun in October last year.
Dr Ravi Jayaram, a consultant paediatrician at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England, stated that some of the newborns could have been saved if his concerns about former colleague Letby were heeded in time and the police alerted sooner.
"I do genuinely believe that there are four or five babies who could be going to school now who aren't," said Dr Jayaram in a media interview, adding that the consultants first raised concerns in 2015 after the deaths of three babies.
As more babies died, senior medics, including Jayaram, held several meetings with hospital executives to raise concerns about Letby's conduct. Eventually, the National Health Service (NHS) trust allowed doctors to meet with a police officer. An investigation into the matter was launched soon after.
"The police, after listening to us for less than 10 minutes, realised that this is something that they had to be involved with. I could have punched the air," said the Indian-origin paediatrician.
A horrifying case
The case made several officials and jury members visibly distraught over the brutality of the crime. The Cheshire Constabulary, which investigated the case, said it had been one of the toughest cases for them. According to the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Letby used several methods to secretly attack 13 babies in the neonatal war of the hospital between 2015 and 2016.
The CPS presented evidence of Letby using various methods to attack babies, including the injection of air and insulin into their bloodstream; the infusion of air into their gastrointestinal tract; force feeding an overdose of milk or fluids; impact-type trauma.
The Manchester Crown Court heard that doctors became suspicious after a significant rise of babies dying or unexpectedly collapsing. Letby's intentions were to kill the babies and disguising it as natural causes.
The evidence against Letby included hadnwritten notes with phrases like: "I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them" and "I am evil I did this". Additionally, the court found medical documents including falsified notes by the neonatal nurse to hide her involvement and deceive her colleagues.
"Lucy Letby sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability. In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids – or medication like insulin – would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponised her craft to inflict harm, grief and death," said Pascale Jones of the CPS.
Jones also called Letby's actions a "a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her". Although throughout the trial, Letby claimed that she was being wrongly accused to cover hospital failings.
A joint statement from the families of the victims said that though justice has been served by the verdict, it will not take away the "extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experience."
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