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A mother spoke emotionally as she described the moment she found Lucy Letby with her premature baby, crying and with blood around his mouth.
Giving evidence at the Thirlwall Inquiry, the woman told how she heard screaming and crying like “I’d never really heard” as she walked toward the neo-natal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital to provide milk.
Entering the room she found her baby – known as Baby E – with Letby close by, the inquiry heard. Hours later the baby died.
Letby was later found guilty of the murder of seven babies, including Baby E by injecting air into his circulation. She was also convicted of attempting to murder seven more, including Baby E’s twin brother, Baby F.
Recalling the incident, the mother told the inquiry: “As I was coming to the unit along the corridor I could hear screaming and crying and it was a shock because I’d never really heard ... a baby cry like that and then I walked in the room and realised it was my baby.
“And I went to him and he had blood around his mouth and I was just shocked.”
She continued: “I asked Lucy Letby why there was blood around his mouth, why it was bleeding and she was quite dismissive ... [she said] ‘I contacted the registrar and he’s on his way, you go back to the ward, if there are any problems I’ll ring for you’.
“I knew there was something not right.”
As the nurse serves 15 whole-life sentences for the murders, the public inquiry is taking place at Liverpool Town Hall to examine the circumstances surrounding the deaths, and what lessons can be learned.
Appearing before Lady Justice Thirlwall, the mother of Baby E told the inquiry how she had close contact with Letby, who was one of the nurses caring for her son after his premature birth.
She told how the nurse had helped the parents after his death.
In a statement to the inquiry, she said she felt tormented by the thought of her baby buried in a woollen gown with a blue ribbon around the waist that Letby had picked out.
The killer also placed a teddy bear by the boy’s side.
“There was no discussion about those clothes,” the mother told the inquiry. “He was bathed by Lucy Letby and he was placed in that woollen gown in that incubator. When I asked where it had come from she said it had come from the unit and she had picked it out and chosen it for him.”
Letby also gave the mother a memory box which included the boy’s hand and footprints, and a photograph that also captured Letby’s hand, the inquiry heard.
Asked how she felt now about the box, the mother told the inquiry: “If that memory box was put together in the way it is meant to be put together by somebody who was a caring, professional who hadn’t done harm to our child, then it would be wonderful.
“But everything in that box, absolutely everything, was created by her, all his belongings were touched by her, the blankets which had the blood on are in that box, the hands and footprints were taken by her ... it’s painful.
“Even one of the pictures she took of him has part of her hand in it. For me, that hurts because I don’t know if it was intentional, but it felt intentional.”
The mother told the inquiry how hours before her son had died, she remembered Letby appeared unable to make eye contact with her as she stood by the baby when she discovered him crying. It later emerged in the criminal trial that the nurse had pumped air into the boy’s bloodstream.
But despite the murder, the mother told the inquiry how Letby showed care and attention to the grieving parents.
The mother said: “When I look back, her behaviour toward me was very different to other nurses, and that’s something I’ve reflected on. She was very attentive to me, whenever she would see me, she would hug me.
“She was just as upset as me, which reflecting back on now, is very odd behaviour.
“They [other nurses] were very professional and cared for my child in the correct way, whereas she [Letby] was very emotional. I thought she was being kind. Every time she was speaking to me she was on the verge of tears.”
The inquiry continues.
