British nurse found guilty of murdering seven babies

A British nurse has been found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others at the hospital where she worked, making her the country's worst baby serial killer in recent times.

Lucy Letby, 33, harmed babies in her care by injecting air into their blood and stomachs, overfeeding them with milk, physically assaulting them and poisoning them with insulin, Manchester Crown Court in northern England heard.

She secretly attacked 13 babies on the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester hospital between 2015 and 2016, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement.

Her intention was to kill the babies while duping her colleagues into believing there was a natural cause of death, prosecutors argued.

Doctors at the hospital began to notice a steep rise in the number of babies who were dying or unexpectedly collapsing, the court heard. When they could not find a medical explanation, police opened an investigation

In 2018 and 2019, Letby was arrested twice by police in connection with their investigation, according to the UK's PA Media news agency. She was arrested again in November 2020.

Authorities found notes Letby had written during searches of her address.

"I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them," she wrote in one memo, adding in another "I am a horrible evil person" and in capital letters "I am evil I did this."

Pascale Jones of the CPS called Letby's actions a "complete betrayal of the trust placed in her."

"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," she said.

"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."

Victims' families said they "may never truly know why this happened."

"Justice has been served and the nurse who should have been caring for our babies has been found guilty of harming them," a joint statement said, according to PA.

"But this justice will not take away from the extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experience."

Letby will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on August 21.