Reuters: A British public enquiry concluded on Tuesday that hospital managers could have prevented nurse Lucy Letby killing more babies in her care had they taken action against her sooner.
Letby is serving life in jail after being found guilty of murdering seven newborns and attempting to murder eight more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital (CoCH) in northern England.
The convictions made her Britain’s worst serial child killer of modern times.
She has always maintained her innocence and in recent years there has been a growing campaign arguing she was a victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Here are details about her, the controversy around her convictions and the public enquiry.
WHO IS LUCY LETBY?
Letby, 36, was born in Hereford in central England. She completed a nursing degree at Chester University in northwest England and after qualifying, she began to work in the neonatal unit of the city’s Countess of Chester Hospital.
WHAT IS THE LUCY LETBY CASE ABOUT?
Over 18 months from January 2015, there was a significant rise in the number of babies dying and suffering serious collapses at the neonatal unit.
Senior doctors became worried as many of the babies had deteriorated suddenly and unexpectedly, and then did not respond to appropriate resuscitation.
Other babies, who suddenly collapsed and did not die, recovered, with both their collapse and recovery defying usual medical norms.
