Lucy Letby falsified records to cover her tracks, jury told
Posted 22 June 2023 - 14:42
Inconsistent records, a text and internet searches show the accused nurse lied about Child D, who died while she was on shift, says prosecutor in closing speech
Nurse Lucy Letby lied when she said she could not remember a baby girl who she is accused of murdering, a jury has heard.
Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told Manchester Crown Court that Ms Letby did not want to admit the truth because it would be ‘bad for her’.
Text message showed Lucy Letby had witnessed distress caused by Child D’s death
Continuing his closing speech on 21 June, Mr Johnson reminded the jury of eight women and four men about a text message the defendant sent a colleague the morning after the death of the baby, referred to in court as Child D. The message read: ‘So upsetting for everyone. Parents absolutely distraught, dad screaming.’
Ms Letby is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder ten others at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. She denies all charges.
She is alleged to have murdered Child D on a night shift that began on 21 June 2015, which was Father’s Day.
Prosecutor says Lucy Letby falsified records to ‘cover her tracks’
The prosecution claims she injected air intravenously into Child D’s circulation while the infant’s designated nurse was on a break. ‘Just as in the cases of Child C, Child G, Child I, Child J, Child K and Child N,' Mr Johnson told the court. ‘All of them collapsed when their designated nurse left the room or went on a break.
‘When she gave evidence. Lucy Letby claimed to you that she didn’t really remember Child D. She said that to you because that is what she told the police in an interview and she said that because she thought the absence of her name from the paperwork for Child D gave her the opportunity for plausible deniability.
‘What she didn’t realise and what she has now not taken account of is through the hard work of the police they can put her in the room.’
The prosecution claims Ms Letby falsified medical records frequently to ‘cover her tracks’. Mr Johnson suggested the defendant had falsely recorded that she was attending to other children in the nursery at the same time as two of the three occasions when Child D collapsed during the shift.
The prosecutor also noted an unsigned blood gas reading for Child D at 1.14am, which he said Ms Letby admitted was in her handwriting. ‘She said the lack of signature was an oversight and an “error that happens from time to time”,’ he said.
‘While people do forget things in a busy neonatal unit – we all make mistakes – but it’s the timing of the “errors”, isn’t it. It’s the pattern of the errors.’
Designated nurse was absent when Child D was injected with air
A separate chart showed an intravenous infusion of liquid for Child D, recorded at 1.25am and co-signed by Ms Letby and designated nurse Caroline Oakley, he said. ‘Caroline Oakley, who was not actually there at the time, couldn’t explain it,’ he said.
‘This is clear evidence, isn’t it, that Lucy Letby in the absence of Caroline Oakley gave an intravenous injection of air to Child D five minutes before she collapsed.’
Child D collapsed again at 3am and then finally at 3.45am, the court heard.
Ms Letby searched on Facebook for Child D’s mother three days after the infant’s death and then for Child D’s father more than three months later, the court heard. She said she could not explain why she had made the online searches, Mr Johnson said.
The defence will deliver its closing speech before the jury adjourns to consider its verdict.
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