Lucy Letby has told jurors that “killing babies” was not on her mind at a time when she was looking forward to a holiday in Ibiza.
The nurse is alleged to have attempted to murder a baby boy at the Countess of Chester hospital a day before she flew out to the Spanish island with a colleague and a friend.
It is alleged she went on to murder a newborn triplet boy on her first shift back after her return, and then killed his brother the next day.
Letby, 33, denies murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others on the neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
On Tuesday at Manchester crown court, her barrister, Ben Myers KC, asked her about an exchange of WhatsApp messages with a nurse, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, on 13 June 2016.
Myers said: “You were going to have to go to work before you went away; how were you feeling about going to work?”
Letby replied: “I was happy to go to work but I was also looking forward to time off and going on holiday.”
Myers said: “In the middle of that were you planning on killing babies?”
Letby said: “No.”
Myers said: “That’s what the prosecution are saying.”
Letby said: “That didn’t happen.”
Letby denied first attacking Child N, a baby boy born with the blood clotting disorder haemophilia, in the early hours of 3 June. She said she was unaware that his blood oxygen levels had dipped during her shift before he made a relatively swift recovery.
Twelve days later, on 15 June, Child N had a profound deterioration at 7.15am, the court heard. Letby said she had looked after Child N the day before and did not recall any concerns with him but his condition had deteriorated by the time she arrived for duty the next morning.
The defendant said she was standing in the doorway of nursery room three when Child N’s monitor alarm sounded. She said: “I went over and found him to be mottled and not breathing properly.
“He was a blueish colour. Straight away I started Neopuffing [using a breathing support] and called for help. [Child N] recovered from that episode within minutes and the same thing then happened again.”
Earlier, Letby said she was in a different nursery when a doctor has alleged he saw her “doing nothing” when a baby girl collapsed on the unit. The defendant is alleged to have deliberately dislodged the infant’s breathing tube shortly before a consultant walked into nursery one.
Giving evidence earlier this year, Dr Ravi Jayaram said he saw Letby standing by the incubator of Child K as her blood oxygen levels plummeted.
On Tuesday, Myers asked: “Did you interfere with [Child K’s] tube?”
“No,” replied Letby.
Myers asked: “Was there a time when you were in the nursery and Ravi Jayaram came in and he found you to be standing there close to [Child K]?”
Letby said: “No.”
Child K was transferred later that day, 17 February, to Wirral’s Arrowe Park hospital, where she died three days later.
The prosecution does not allege that Letby caused her death. Letby, from Hereford, denies all the allegations against her. The trial continues.
