A “poisoner was at work” in the heart of a hospital maternity unit who killed seven babies and attempted to kill 10 others, a court has heard.
Lucy Letby, 32, was working as a midwife in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester hospital in Chester when she is alleged to have carried out the attacks between mid 2015 and mid 2016.
She pleaded not guilty to murdering five boys and two girls, and attempting to murder another five boys and five girls as her trial got under way on Monday.
Opening the prosecution case, Nick Johnson KC said the Countess of Chester Hospital was a “busy general hospital” which included a neo-natal unit that cared for premature and sick babies.
He said: “It is a hospital like so many others in the UK but unlike many other hospitals in the UK, and unlike many other neo-natal units in the UK, within the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work.”
He added: “Prior to January 2015, the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units.
“However over the next 18 months or so there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses.
“These rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause.”
He went on: “Their concern was that babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly. Not only that, when babies seriously collapsed they did not respond to appropriate and timely resuscitation.
“Some of the babies who did not die collapsed dramatically but then - equally dramatically - recovered.
“Their collapse and recovery defied the normal experience of treating doctors.”
The collapses and deaths of all the 17 children concerned were not “naturally-occurring tragedies,” Mr Johnson said.
“They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these 17 children.”
Mr Johnson said the two children poisoned with insulin, who cannot be identified, were two baby boys, both born twins; the first born in summer 2015 and the other born in spring 2016.
Both were poisoned a couple of days after they were born.
“Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned and we allege she was the poisoner,” Mr Johnson said.
“There’s a very restricted number of people who could have been the poisoner, because entry to a neo-natal unit is closely restricted.”
Letby, wearing a blue jacket over a black shirt, earlier pleaded not guilty to seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder.
Family members of some of her alleged child victims sat in the public gallery listening as the names of the children were read out during her not guilty pleas.
On the other side of the public gallery sat the defendant’s parents, John, 76, and Susan, 62.
A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of surviving and deceased children allegedly attacked by Letby, and prohibits identifying parents or witnesses connected with the children.
The trial continues.
