Indian-origin doctor helped catch UK nurse Lucy Letby who killed seven newborns

A UK-born Indian doctor in northern England helped catch nurse Lucy Letby who was on Friday (August 18) convicted of killing seven newborns. According to a report by the news agency PTI late Friday, Letby was a colleague of Dr Ravi Jayaram from the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester. Speaking to a news channel, Dr Jayaram said some of the seven newborns could have been saved if his concerns about Letby, 33, had been heeded and the police were alerted sooner.

"I do genuinely believe that there are four or five babies who could be going to school now who aren't," Jayaram said, adding the consultants first began raising concerns after three babies died in June 2015. As more babies died, senior medics like him held several meetings with hospital executives to raise their concerns about Letby.

How Letby was arrested and the trial

Eventually, it was in April 2017 that the National Health Service (NHS) trust allowed doctors to meet with a police officer. "The police, after listening to us for less than 10 minutes, realised that this was something that they had to be involved with. I could have punched the air," Jayaram added.

An investigation was launched which led to Letby's arrest. She was found guilty of murdering seven newborns along with seven counts of attempted murder relating to six other babies by a jury at Manchester Crown Court.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told the court that the 33-year-old nurse used a variety of methods to secretly attack a total of 13 babies in the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.

During the trial, which started in October last year, the court heard that doctors at the hospital began to notice a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying or were unexpectedly collapsing.

The CPS presented evidence of Letby using various methods to attack babies including force-feeding an overdose of milk or fluids. She intended to kill the babies while deceiving colleagues into believing there was a natural case.

"In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids – or medication like insulin – would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponised her craft to inflict harm, grief and death," Pascale Jones of the CPS said.

Other evidence presented to the court included falsified notes made by the nurse to hide her involvement and social media activity to deceive her colleagues.

'I am evil'

As the investigation was launched, police found hand-written notes inside Letby's house in which she described herself as a "horrible evil person". "I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them," the note read. The seven victims were five baby boys and two baby girls, and the youngest was just a day old.

Letby will be sentenced at the Manchester Crown Court on Monday.

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