Nurse Lucy Letby Faces Sentencing for 7 Baby Murders
Lucy Letby will be sentenced after being found guilty of murdering seven infants, making her the most prolific child serial murderer in contemporary British history.
Additionally, the 33-year-old was convicted of attempting to murder six additional neonates at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
The trial lasted over ten months and is believed to have been the longest murder trial in the United Kingdom.
She has indicated that she will not attend the hearing.
The reasons for her non-attendance at Manchester Crown Court have not been disclosed. Her legal team stated that she does not wish to observe proceedings via videolink from prison.
If Letby does not show up to the hearing, she will not be able to hear the families’ victim impact statements, in which individuals describe how a crime has affected them and their loved ones.
She will also be unable to hear the judge, Mr. Justice James Goss, deliver his sentencing remarks in which he justifies the duration of her prison sentence.
Letby, who intentionally injected babies with air, force-fed others milk, and poisoned two of the neonates with insulin between June 2015 and June 2016, refused to appear in the dock on Friday as the most recent verdicts were read.
They were rendered throughout multiple proceedings, but they could not be reported until all verdicts were returned.
Letby, a native of Hereford, wept as the first guilty verdicts were read out by the jury foreman on August 8 following 76 hours of deliberation.
On August 11, she wept with her head bowed as the second set of guilty verdicts were announced.
The refusal to appear in court last week has renewed demands for a new law mandating that convicted criminals attend sentencing hearings.
Letby’s anticipated absence from the dock is the latest in a string of high-profile trials in which convicted murderers have refused to appear, including the murderers of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Liverpool and London’s Zara Aleena.
Prof. Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, told the BBC that judges should have the authority to compel criminals to appear in court “to be sentenced in front of the people they have harmed.”
The government stated earlier this year that it would introduce legislation requiring criminals to appear in court for sentencing.
The families of the victims stated that they will be “forever grateful” to the jurors who endured 145 days of “grueling” testimony.
The defendant was declared not guilty of two counts of attempted murder, and the jury was deadlocked on four counts of attempted murder involving infants.
The prosecutor, Nicholas Johnson KC, requested 28 days to determine whether a retrial would be pursued for the remaining six counts of attempted murder.
During Letby’s trial, which began in October, the prosecution described her as a “calculating and devious” opportunist who “gaslighted” her coworkers to conceal her “murderous assaults.”
Following a two-year investigation by Cheshire Police into the alarming and unexplained increase in premature infant fatalities and near-fatal collapses at the hospital, she was found guilty.
The government has mandated an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the murders of infants.
Nurse Lucy Letby Faces Sentencing for 7 Baby Murders