The sentencing to life imprisonment without possible remission of Lucy Letby, the nurse who killed babies, on Monday, August 21, arouses intense emotion in the United Kingdom, as well as heated controversy. This 33-year-old woman, with blonde hair and a smooth face, was found guilty of the murder of seven newborns and the attempted murder of six others. She is only the fourth woman sentenced to the harshest possible sentence by British justice.

Her crimes are terrible: Lucy Letby, a native of Hereford, on the Welsh border, described by those around her as a discreet and quiet young woman, attacked often premature babies for whom she was responsible for neonatal care. Between June 2015 and June 2016, at the Countess of Chester hospital (west of England), where she had just obtained one of her first positions, the nurse injected them, when she was alone with them, insulin, air into their veins or did they ingest too much milk. The babies who did not die from it mostly had very serious neurological consequences.

Giving evidence for the last time at Manchester Royal Court before sentencing was handed down on Monday, the parents of the young victims recalled the ordeal their children, and themselves, endured because of the nurse. “ “My daughter will never be able to go to high school, have a boyfriend or get married,” stressed the mother of a very premature girl, whom Lucy Letby attacked during the summer of 2015. The nurse tried three times to kill this girl who only weighed 500 grams at birth, causing irreparable brain damage.

“No regrets”

The mother of twins, a boy and a girl, attacked in June 2015 (only the little girl survived), explained that she suffered from post-traumatic stress: “After our son’s death, we were terrified for our daughter’s health, there was always a family member by her side, that was probably what saved her. » She wanted the nurse “She lives a long life and spends every day of this life suffering for what she has done.” The names of the victims have not been revealed, as the courts imposed anonymity on the media at the request of the families.

British channels broadcast the sentence live. Weighing his words, Judge James Goss, who presided at Manchester Royal Court (where the trial took place for almost a year), described Lucy Letby’s crimes as “Cruel, calculated and cynical murder campaign, targeting the smallest and most vulnerable babies. (…). You created the situations so that their discomfort and the causes of their discomfort were not obvious.” Judge Goss insisted, pointing out “a deep malevolence bordering on sadism.” The nurse doesn’t have either “He showed no remorse, there are no extenuating circumstances” for crimes “whose severity justifies life imprisonment,” concluded the magistrate.

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