How did Lucy Letby become a baby murderer? The
church-going 'vanilla killer' who holidayed with her parents and slept
surrounded by teddy bears was nicknamed the 'Innocent One' by friends
By NIGEL
BUNYAN and LIZ HULL and ANDY DOLAN
PUBLISHED:
13:18, 18 August 2023 | UPDATED: 23:00, 18 August 2023
When Lucy
Letby's friends circulated a post on social media inviting people to tag each
other as characters from a spoof Mr Men and Little Miss series, they were quick
to name her 'The Innocent One'.
None could
have predicted the terrible irony of that post when, years later their
'studious' and 'goofy' friend was put on trial and found guilty of the most
heinous crimes in modern times.
Letby was
described as 'vanilla' by police because on the surface the NHS nurse seemed
entirely innocuous – a plain, single woman going out to salsa sessions with her
friends and returning to a suburban semi twinkling with coloured lights where
she kept Disney-style cuddly toys on her bed and slept beneath a duvet bearing
the similarly childlike motif 'Sweet Dreams'.
The duvet
wasn't her only childlike foible. In the minutes after her first arrest her
father, John, carefully rearranged her collection of cuddly toys on the bed:
Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, a rabbit and a light brown teddy bear.
When she
was asked in court to name her two cats, the killer momentarily hesitated, then
almost sobbed their names. 'Tigger and Smudge', she said, wiping away a tear.
Letby has
now been exposed as one of Britain's worst ever serial killers. Each and every
day she set off for work as a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital she did
so wanting to inflict unimaginable pain on the very infants she was supposed to
be caring for in intensive care.
Her bedroom
had teddy bears, including Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore, on the bed, fairy-lights
hanging from the bedstead and two framed prints of feel-good slogans
Her bedroom
had teddy bears, including Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore, on the bed and
fairy-lights hanging from the bedstead. Figurines of Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves could be seen on a windowsill
There were
two framed prints of feel-good slogans such as 'Shine bright like a diamond'
and 'Leave sparkles wherever you go' on the walls
The fact
that Letby was deemed 'innocent' and the least likely of her peers to get into
trouble, perhaps speaks volumes about her 'girl-next-door' persona.
Social
media pictures show her enjoying holidays to Ibiza and nights out with friends,
while after work she would return to a childlike home with Disney stuffed toys
on her bed.
But how did
this 'vanilla' or 'beige' girl, with an unremarkable upbringing, in an ordinary
English town, go on to become a 'monster' and the most prolific child killer in
modern UK history?
Born the
only child of retail boss John, 77, and his accounts clerk wife, Susan, 63, on
January 4 1990, Letby was raised in a 1930's semi-detached home, in a
cul-de-sac, in the cathedral city of Hereford, on the England Wales border.
A source
told the Mail that Letby's mother was distraught when her daughter was arrested
– wailing and crying, even telling police: 'I did it, take me instead,' in a
desperate bid to protect her.
She
attended the local state comprehensive, Aylestone High School, where friends
said she had designs on becoming a nurse from early on.
'She was
part of a group of girls, many of whom were interested in a career in nursing,'
one said. 'I remember going to a careers day with Lucy and some of the others
where jobs in the health and social care sector were being bandied around.'
Described
as straight-laced, Letby attended the evangelical Hope City Church and had a
close circle of 'churchy' friends – five girls who self-styled themselves the
'Miss-Matches' while studying for their A-levels at Hereford Sixth Form
College.
Their
social media pages are full of pictures of the clique larking around in the
sunshine outside Hereford Cathedral and enjoying a final holiday to Greece
together, before they all flew the nest and went off to universities around the
country.
One former
friend told the Mail: 'It was a massive shock when Lucy was arrested. When I
knocked about with her in school, there were no red flags about her character.
She seemed very normal, very straight.'
When Letby's friends circulated a post on social media
inviting people to tag each other as characters from a spoof Mr Men and Little
Miss series, they named her 'The Innocent One'
Letby's
parents, Susan and John, arrive at Manchester Crown Court on August 17. The
couple supported her every day in court. A source told the Mail that Letby's
mother was distraught when her daughter was arrested – wailing and crying, even
telling police: 'I did it, take me instead,' in a desperate bid to protect her
The mother
of another close pal said: 'She was a happy girl. Part of a close-knit group.
There were no boyfriends, well not that I knew of anyway.'
Letby
worked hard, combining her studies with a part-time job at WH Smith in the
city, and her parents were immensely proud when she became the first in their
family to go to university.
She began
her paediatric nursing degree course at Chester University, another cathedral
city not dissimilar to her hometown, in September 2008.
It was
unlikely to have been her first experience of medicine, however. At the age of
11, she was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid, a condition which can cause
tiredness, weight gain and depression in sufferers.
Untreated
it can also impair fertility and lead to problems in pregnancy. It is also
likely to have brought her into contact with the medical profession for the
first time, involving frequent visits to the GP and specialists. Later she also
developed optic neuritis, a condition caused by inflammation of the optic nerve
which can cause pain and blurred vision.
During the
trial she revealed the thyroid medication sometimes made her grumpy, texting
one friend 'everyone peeing me off.'
Letby's
parents were so proud when she attained her honours degree they marked her
graduation, in December 2011, with an announcement in their local paper, the
Hereford Times
A series of
notes were found in Letby's home with scrawlings including 'everything is
manageable' and 'crime reference number'
Moving away
from home and her parents was a big deal. Mr and Mrs Letby doted on their
daughter, who was born five months after they married, in July 1989.
Creatures
of habit, they still live in the house they bought shortly before their
wedding, and holiday in Torquay three times a year, taking their daughter with
them right up until she was arrested in July 2018 – just hours after the trio
returned from their annual break in Devon.
Neighbours
remember Letby as a 'sweet' girl, who was a 'delight' for her parents. They
were so proud when she attained her honours degree they marked her graduation,
in December 2011, with an announcement in their local paper, the Hereford
Times.
Alongside a
picture of the pretty blonde, wearing a mortarboard and clutching her degree
certificate, they wrote: 'Letby Lucy BSc Hons in Child Nursing. We are so proud
of you after all your hard work. Love Mum and Dad.'
What
motivated Disney-loving 'ordinary woman' to become a serial killer?
By Nigel
Bunyan
Psychologists
will puzzle for decades over what darkness drove Lucy Letby to furtively murder
and maim a succession of tiny, defenceless babies.
On the
surface she seemed entirely innocuous – a single woman going out to salsa
sessions with her friends and returning to a suburban semi where she kept
Disney-style cuddly toys on her bed and slept beneath a duvet bearing the
similarly childlike motif 'Sweet Dreams'.
But it
appears that each and every day she set off for work as a nurse at the Countess
of Chester Hospital she did so wanting to inflict unimaginable pain on the very
infants she was supposed to be caring for.
She did so
'in plain sight' and yet felt protected from every being unmasked because
neither the friends she worked alongside, nor the parents of her victims, could
even contemplate the idea that a neonatal nurse might be a serial killer.
While the
doctors and nurses around her were doing their level best to save babies, she
was trying to exploit every opportunity she had to harm them.
She became
so practiced a murderess that she routinely created alibis for herself, perhaps
by creating false documents, perhaps by using WhatsApp and Facebook messages to
set up a false narrative so that when a baby collapsed she could point to some
explainable reason.
No one was
immune from her vicious betrayal. Not her best friend, a fellow nurse on the
unit. Not even the married male registrar she was supposedly infatuated with.
Just like
everyone else in her orbit, they were there to be unwittingly choreographed as
she set about 'playing God' with the lives of babies so small they could fit
inside the palm of her hand.
By the time
she was caught she had killed seven of them and tried to kill six more.
Tragically, even among the survivors there are children, now aged seven or
eight, who will spend the rest of their lives needing round-the-clock care.
She denied
it, of course, just as she denied everything else, but there were suggestions
throughout the trial that she derived a sickening pleasure from her attacks.
Whether the babies lived or died, she felt a thrill to have caused them to
collapse.
It was a
bonus if she could 'help' bereaved parents by preparing a memory box for them –
hand and foot prints of their lost baby, a photograph of two dead twins laid
out in a Moses basket, a condolence card for another baby in time for the
funeral.
The
detectives who led the investigation have such contempt for Letby that they
will never deign to speak to her.
Even as she
begins her lifetime in prison, they want the babies and their parents to be
uppermost in the thoughts of families around the world. Not Letby, never Letby,
is the unspoken thought.
Like the
serial killer Harold Shipman two decades before her, Lucy Letby is a
narcissist. Shipman, a GP from Hyde, Greater Manchester, got almost a sexual
buzz from sitting some of his victims down, injecting them with diamorphine,
and then quietly watching them die in front of him.
Prosecutors
are convinced that Letby felt 'excited' by the pain she caused and the way she
was able to manipulate the unwitting players – adults and babies alike – in her
sinister, depraved drama.
Letby, now
33, would have been easy to miss in a crowd in either Chester, where she
presented herself as a 'dedicated' nurse, or Hereford, where she had grown up
in a quiet cul-de-sac and attended the local sixth form college.
While
completing a three-year nursing degree at Chester University she went on
placement at the local hospital where she would later kill or maim her victims.
She also worked at Liverpool Women's Hospital at times that will now become a
major focus for the new, ongoing investigation into her murderous activities.
A glance at
her 2016 diary – a little girl's affair with a 'cute' doggie picture on the
front cover and flower doodles inside – shows she was constantly busy.
There were
references to the long shifts she liked to do because she 'so wanted to help',
to salsa classes with her friends, or else meals out at Las Iguanas followed by
late-night cocktails at the Kuckoo bar in Chester.
A similar
announcement, with an accompanying photograph of Letby as a young child was
also placed in the same newspaper to mark her 21st birthday.
But texts
Letby exchanged with colleagues hinted she sometimes felt smothered by her
mother and father and guilty about moving away. She explained they missed her
and hated her living alone.
She
appeared to speak or text them every day and described them as 'suffocating at
times.' She told one doctor friend who was considering moving to New Zealand
that she could never do that as it would 'completely devastate' them.
'Find it
hard enough being away from me now and it's only 100miles,' she said.
In a
message to another friend, she wrote: 'My parents worry massively about
everything & anything, hate that I live alone etc. I feel bad because I
know it's really hard for them especially as I'm an only child, and they mean
well, just a little suffocating at times and constantly feel guilty.'
The couple
relocated to Manchester and attended every day of their daughter's trial, with
Mrs Letby sometimes breaking into tears and appearing anxious during breaks
when her daughter was undergoing particularly tough periods of questioning by
the prosecution. Investigators suspect Letby had told them scant detail of the
horrific nature of the crimes she was being accused of before it was laid out
in front of them in court.
At
university, Letby was 'part of the quiet bunch' although she obviously enjoyed
the freedom living away from home afforded. While her social media posts showed
her enjoying cocktails with friends on nights out, larking around a lap dancing
pole and pulling funny faces for the camera, her contemporaries remembered a
'geeky and slightly awkward' student, who was focused on her dream of becoming
a nurse.
'She was
very bright,' one said. 'She was really sweet, kind and friendly and always
part of the quiet bunch.
'I was so
shocked when she was arrested. She loved her job, and when she and her friends
were in uni they all worked so hard and were all driven and excited.'
It was
during her three-year degree studies, in 2010, that Letby first spent time on
the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital and afterwards decided to
specialise in caring for premature babies, taking up a post full-time in the
hospital's neonatal unit soon after she qualified.
Letby – or
nurse 11I0094E - appeared to do well in her 'dream job,' which she said, 'was
everything.' So much so that, 18 months after qualifying, in March 2013, she
was trusted by managers to be interviewed for a local newspaper as the poster
girl for the neonatal unit's £3m fundraising campaign. Pictured holding a tiny
sleep suit in support of the Babygrow appeal, she said: 'My role involves
caring for a wide range of babies requiring various levels of support.
'Some are
here for a few days, others for many months and I enjoy seeing them progress
and supporting their families.'
And there's
no question most of her colleagues believed she was a 'dedicated' nurse. Few
suspected the self-confessed 'career driven' Letby of having a hand in the
deaths and collapses of babies – even after doctors became suspicious and she
was removed from frontline duties.
Mary
Griffith, a nurse for 43 years before retiring in 2016, said Letby was
'knowledgeable, caring and thorough' during the time she worked alongside her.
Shift leader Chris Booth also described her as a 'conscientious, excellent and
hardworking' member of staff.
She was
also friendly with the babies' parents, making cards for them on Mother's and
Father's Days, helping them bathe their newborns and even messaging them on
Facebook to see how their children were doing once when they went home.
One, whose
son was cared for by Letby, said: 'I met her a few times, she was completely
normal. I never would have thought in a million years that she could have done
something like this. She was not the chattiest nurse there, quite reserved, but
I would never have suspected her.'
Another
mother, whose son was in the unit for seven weeks, said: 'I remember her very
well and I could not have asked for a more caring and helpful nurse. She helped
me give my son his first bath. All I can say is my experience is that she was a
great nurse.
'I talked
to her loads of times and she was really, really lovely.'
But
unbeknown to her managers or colleagues, by the time of smiling Letby's second
appearance in the hospital newsletter, in a story announcing they had hit the
halfway mark in the fundraising drive, in August 2015, her killing spree had
already begun.
While Letby's motive is not clear, the prosecution
suggested she got a 'thrill' out of 'playing God'. She is pictured on a night
out
And for
months and months she got away with it. While some doctors had their
suspicions, hospital executives did not want to 'think the unthinkable' - so
the medics were fobbed off and Letby grew in confidence.
Letby
becomes the worst baby killer in modern British history
Letby's
crimes put her close to the top of the list of notorious serial killers – ahead
of Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who killed five children in
Manchester in the early 1960s; nurse Beverly Allitt, who killed four of her
child patients in 1991, and Robert Black, who raped and murdered four young
girls in the early 1980s.
She also
becomes the second worst female serial killer of all time behind Rose West, who
is serving a whole life tariff for the murders of 10 young girls, including her
eight-year-old step-daughter.
Amelia
Dyer, a Victorian baby farmer, is estimated to have killed 400 infants over a
30 year period. However, she was only ever found guilty of one murder. The UK's
worst ever serial killer was Dr Harold
Shipman, who used his position as a family GP to murder an estimated 250
patients.
Single, and
living in nurses' accommodation on site, managers knew they could ask her to
work extra shifts, often at short notice. She made no secret that, having
recently qualified to look after the sickest babies, she preferred working in
intensive care and resented younger, less experienced nurses when they were
assigned infants more poorly than ones she had to look after.
One nurse,
who shared a flat with her in hospital accommodation, said Letby did not appear
like a 'monster.'
'As I said
to the police, she was absolutely fine to live with,' she said. 'I couldn't
believe she had done what she has done.
'She was
quiet, but she wasn't a loner. She was out all the time.
'I had very
little contact with her. She was either at work, out, or in her room. We'd say
hi, bye, have a little conversation, like you would with a flatmate and that
was it really. Nothing out of the ordinary.
'Everybody
thinks I'm going to say she was some kind of monster, but she wasn't. It was a
bit of a shock when she was arrested.'
But this
ability to be kind and pull the wool over the eyes of her colleagues helped
Letby carry out her murderous campaign 'in plain sight,' police said.
Describing
Letby as 'beige or vanilla,' Detective Chief Constable Nicola Evans, the deputy
senior investigating officer with Cheshire police, said: 'She abused the trust
of the people around her, not just the parents, but also the nurses she worked
with and regarded as friends.
'There
isn't anything outstanding or outrageous about her. She was a normal,
20-something-year-old. She had a normal job, she was average in that job, she
had a group of friends and a family and a social life, nothing that you
wouldn't expect from someone of her age at that time.
'The fact
she was non-descript and average in work allowed her to go under the radar and
to commit these offences. There wasn't anything outrageous about her, there
wasn't anything that stood out about her, she was beige or vanilla. She was
present but not featured.'
What is
Munchausen's syndrome?
Criminologist
Professor David Wilson noted Letby's desire to place herself at the centre of a
crisis and said this was indicative of Munchausen's syndrome.
This is a
psychological disorder where someone feigns illness, injury, abuse, or
psychological trauma so that people care for them and they are the centre of
attention.
Munchausen's
syndrome is named after a German aristocrat, Baron Munchausen, who became
famous for telling wild, unbelievable tales about his exploits.
Munchausen's
syndrome is complex and poorly understood. Many people refuse psychiatric
treatment or psychological profiling, and it's unclear why people with the
syndrome behave the way they do.
By March
2016, Letby had been working at the hospital for more than four years. She had
bought her first home, a £180,000 modern semi, in the suburb of Blacon, two
miles from the Countess, which she described as a 'huge' milestone. Pictures of
the house, with its child-like décor, ornaments and neatly manicured garden,
with climbing roses, prompted her to break into tears when they were shown
during the trial.
Her bedroom
had teddy bears, including Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore, on the bed, fairy-lights
hanging from the bedstead and two framed prints of feel-good slogans such as
'Shine bright like a diamond' and 'Leave sparkles wherever you go' on the
walls. Figurines of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves could be seen on a
windowsill and thankyou notes from her godchildren, which proclaimed her
'number 1 godmother' were pinned to her kitchen noticeboard.
She lived
alone with her two cats, Tigger and Smudge, and didn't appear to have a regular
boyfriend, although the court heard she was obsessed with a married doctor.
His arrival
at court prompted more tears when he apparently betrayed her friendship and
gave evidence for the prosecution against her.
Letby
denied their relationship was intimate and insisted she simply loved him as a
friend. But she admitted he visited her home outside work hours, and the pair
met for coffee, meals and walks when not on duty. They also exchanged hundreds
of messages on Facebook messenger, including scores of messages 'of a social
nature' that were never shown to the jury and were often exchanged over long
periods of time, into the small hours. She also doodled pictures of love hearts
and repeatedly wrote his name on notes found at her home which talked about how
she 'loved' him.
Even after
she was removed from the unit Letby and the medic remained close, arranging at
least one trip to London together, although she insisted they never stayed
overnight.
Investigators
believe that – by the end of her killing spree – Letby was so desperate to see
him that she harmed and murdered babies to get him crash bleeped to the
neonatal unit when she knew he was on duty and working elsewhere in the
hospital.
On one
occasion it was also claimed she murdered a tiny, ten -week premature baby boy
because she was angry that one of her friends she was texting did not
understand why she was upset at being given a break from working in intensive
care following the death of another baby.
Criminologist
Professor David Wilson told the Mail that this desperation to be acknowledged
at work were signs of a 'hero complex,' and narcissism in Letby's personality.
Placing herself at the centre of a crisis was also indicative of the mental
condition, Munchausen's, he said.
'She sees
herself as deserving of attention and with skills that are superior to other
people,' he said. 'She sees herself as a saviour - she has unique skills no
other person can possess.
'But she is
quite unusual to other health care and nurse serial killers, who are often seen
as odd by their peers, because she did have friends and people she socialised
with.
'The other
thing is she is creating a crisis around her, which is a form of Munchausen's.
Extraordinary stories are being told about what happens when she is on shift.
She's saying, 'look at all the things that occur when I'm around.' It's also a
ruse to get the doctor that she fancies there.'
But, in the
end, she became too cocky. The unexplained deaths of two identical triplets
within 24 hours of each other on consecutive shifts, at the end June 2016, was
the 'tipping point' and doctors demanded she be moved off the unit and into an
administrative role.
Letby was
furious and two months later put in a formal grievance against her bosses.
But it was
another nine months before the hospital called in police and during that time
Letby continued to live her life as normal – ironically working in the Risk and
Patient Safety office on the hospital site, socialising with her former
colleagues on the unit and university friends, going to parties, and out
drinking to bars and the races.
Even after
she was arrested and bailed to her parents' home, in Hereford, and with the
distressing allegations relayed in the pages of national newspapers, Letby
appeared completely oblivious to the enormity of what she was facing, attending
yoga classes at the private Holmer Park Spa and Health Club on the edge of the
city.
One member
said: 'Other people in the class got to know what she was accused of because
they had read it in the news and talked about it among themselves, but you
would never have known what was going on from her demeanour.'
Letby told
the jury she went through a very difficult time after she was moved off the
unit and developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her arrest.
She claimed it left her with hypervigilance and hypersensitivity – making her
sensitive to loud noises and distractions. In a highly unusual move, the judge
agreed she did not have to walk from the dock to the witness box to give her
evidence because of these problems and instead no one was allowed into the
courtroom until she had already been seated.
One nurse,
who shared a flat with her in hospital accommodation, said Letby did not appear
like a 'monster'
Professor
Wilson said this behaviour too was a feature of her manipulative personality,
as she attempted to exert her control over the justice process.
'Like all
serial killers, she has a need for power and control,' Professor Wilson said.
'Taking the life of another and deciding who should live or die is the ultimate
power and control. We see that in her courtroom behaviour as well, in her
having to be seated before anyone else comes in.
'She's a
very complex character and in terms of other health care serial killers she is
an outlier. She is not odd or incompetent, like they often are, because she has
friends and was capable in her job. She was a killer in plain sight.'
She told
colleagues she found it 'boring' looking after infants that simply needed help
feeding and time to grow and would 'migrate' to the higher dependency rooms
when she got the chance. On at least one occasion she also argued with a shift
leader when she was assigned the more stable newborns to look after.
She was
also unfazed about ruffling feathers. Eirian Powell, the hospital’s neo-natal
manager, spoke of how Letby was prepared to call out anyone who made a mistake,
whether they were a nursery nurse or a consultant. She would regularly put in
formal ‘Datix’ incident reports if she thought mistakes had been made or
patient care compromised.
A hospital
source told the Mail: ‘She was not that well liked. She had an air of arrogance
and could be a bit of a madam.’
Despite
this, Letby was not disliked by other staff and had some friends on the unit,
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