Lucy Letby told a close friend that she remains “determined to get through this” as she revealed details about her life behind bars ahead of her trial for murdering seven babies in her care.
The serial killer nurse sent the handwritten letter from the Category A HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, writing that she missed her two cats and that she was able to leave her prison cell to go for a walk each day.
The letter appears in the new feature-length documentary The Investigation of Lucy Letby, which has been released on Netflix, and includes interviews with Letby’s friend and fellow nurse, Maisie, who met the convicted killer while they were both students at the University of Chester.
“Maisie, there are no words to describe my situation, but knowing that I have your friendship regardless is so important and special to me,” it says. “I have my own room and toilet. I am able to shower each day and go outside for a walk. Getting outside is so important even though it’s a bit chilly,” Letby writes.
“I miss Tigger and Smudge so much – it’s heartbreaking they can’t understand why I’m no longer there. They must think I’m a terrible mummy! Mum and Dad are taking good care of them though and are no doubt spoiling them. I’m trying to do all I can to remain strong and positive. I’m determined to get through this. I will not give up.”
Letby, 36, from Hereford, was removed from clinical duties in July 2016 after consultant paediatricians raised concerns that she may be deliberately harming babies.
She is serving 15 whole-life orders at HMP Bronzefield after she was convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
Maisie, whose image has been digitally altered to protect her identity, said: “Up until the trial and the verdict I would write to Lucy and she would write back. I’d always try to be really positive and now I don’t know what to say.
“There’s always doubt because as much as you know someone you never [know] the whole of someone. But unless I saw actual evidence I can’t believe it. I know that people think I support a baby murderer but she’s my friend and currently in jail, for ever.”
Letby’s barrister Mark McDonald, who took up her case after her guilty convictions and is one of the leading voices challenging her convictions, said he was “deeply concerned” given that there was no CCTV and nobody at the Countess of Chester Hospital had seen her intentionally harming the babies by injecting them with air or insulin.
Of her handwritten notes in which she described herself as “evil” and wrote “I did this”, Mr McDonald said that she was encouraged to write down her thoughts in therapy, telling the documentary: “It wasn’t a confessional note at all.”
Footage released from her police interview shows Letby being asked about the notes, to which she replied: “I wrote it because everything had got on top of me. I felt like they were blaming my practice … that I might have hurt them without knowing through my practice. And that made me feel guilty. I was blaming myself.”
Also participating in the documentary is the mother of a murdered baby, referred to as ‘Baby D’ in the trial, and ‘Zoe’ in the Netflix production.
Using the pseudonym ‘Sarah’, she said she "knew Lucy Letby was going to take the stand, so I needed to face her".
Sarah told the documentary: "I sat three metres away from her. She looked at me a dozen times, staring. Every time she looked at me I'd have to look down."
She added that at one point she felt she had “failed as a mum” because she had not been able to protect her daughter, who died in June 205 after Letby was found to have injected air into her bloodstream.
Meanwhile, health secretary Wes Streeting said Letby’s fate should be decided by courts and not campaigners, and said: “As far as I’m concerned, Lucy Letby is a convicted criminal and convicted of some of the most serious crimes imaginable.
“And unless and until that changes, I will continue to support the judgment of the courts unless that judgment is successfully challenged through evidence, not through campaigning.”
A group of campaigners is backing Letby and has submitted reports to legal review body, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, to try to get her convictions overturned.
Letby was twice denied permission to appeal against her convictions in 2024.
