British killer nurse Lucy Letby, who is currently serving multiple life sentences for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others, lost her bid to challenge her conviction for the attempted murder of a baby girl in her care. Letby, 34, worked as a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwestern England between June 2015 and June 2016.
Her attorney argued that her retrial in July on a charge of attempting to kill an infant identified as Child K in February 2016 should not have proceeded due to overwhelming prejudice from news coverage of her first trial in 2023. The retrial was conducted after jurors failed to reach a verdict on the charge involving Child K.
Letby, who has consistently maintained her innocence and testified that she never harmed a child, watched the hearing from a prison video link. The court denied her petition to appeal, showing no emotion during the decision. A similar decision was made in May regarding her appeal of multiple earlier convictions.
An inquiry is currently underway to investigate the hospital's failures in recognizing the reasons behind the deaths of babies in the neonatal unit and in taking action against Letby sooner.
