Nurse Lucy Letby talks about ‘raw sewage coming out of sinks’ at hospital in murder trial
Nurse Lucy Letby tells murder trial that ‘raw sewage coming out of the sinks’ in the hospital’s neonatal ward was a ‘contributing factor’ in the deaths of babies she cared for
- Lucy Letby said sanitation issues meant the hospital was ‘not a safe environment’
Raw sewage may have been a “contributing factor” in the deaths of babies in a neonatal ward, a nurse charged with murder said in court today.
Lucy Letby, 33, claimed sanitation issues meant that the infant intensive care unit at Countess of Chester Hospital was ‘not a safe working environment’.
She said sewage sometimes came out of the sinks and ended up on the floor of one of the nurseries, she told Manchester Crown Court.
Letby denies the murder of seven babies and the attempted babies of 10 others in the neonatal ward between June 2015 and June 2016.
She allegedly assaulted her fifth alleged victim, Child E, on a night shift in August 2015.
Lucy Letby, 33, claimed sanitation issues meant that the infant intensive care unit at Countess of Chester Hospital was ‘not a safe working environment’. She was cross-examined last week
Letby is also charged with the attempted murder of his twin brother, Child F, by poisoning him with insulin.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges against her.
Today, the nurse told District Attorney Nick Johnson KC that the sanitation issue was “an important thing to know” in order to understand the conditions in which her unit was operating.
She has previously told the Manchester Crown Court jury that there were problems with understaffing and sometimes the ‘wrong’ mix of skills among the nurses.
Later in today’s cross-examination, Letby – originally from Hereford – denied feeling “a lot better” than some of the other nurses on the ward.
However, she agreed with Mr Johnson that she was ‘always ready to point out other people’s mistakes’ and was ‘unafraid to confront the medical staff if you thought they were wrong’.
She told him, “I had a lot of confidence in my clinical abilities.”
Letby denied lying about the time Baby E’s mother and his twin brother Baby F came to the ward with expressed milk on August 3, 2015.
She claims it was 10 p.m., while the mother, as proof, said it was 9 p.m. — a timing that coincided with a scheduled feeding for one of the boys.
The neonatology nurse said it was ‘a mistake’ on her part not to note in a medical chart that baby E had vomited fresh blood at 10pm.
She denied an allegation that on other occasions she had persuaded other nurses to write chart notes “to hide what you were doing.”
Letby agreed that the twins’ mother had seen blood around baby E’s mouth, but disagreed with her evidence about the timing.
Mr. Johnson said to her, “You’re not telling the truth about that, are you?”
“Yes,” Letby said.
Letby denies the murder of seven babies and the attempted babies of 10 others in the neonatal ward between June 2015 and June 2016
Mr. Johnson: “I suppose when she came down at 10 p.m. you had an injury and he was screaming.”
Letby: ‘No, I don’t accept that’.
The lawyer pressured her and said, “You killed (Baby) E, didn’t you? You injected him with air.”
Letby denied the allegation.
Mr. Johnson: “Just like you had with other babies?”
The defendant replied: ‘No’.
Letby agreed that she conducted a number of Facebook searches for his mother in the months following Baby E’s death, including one at 11:26 p.m. on Christmas Day.
But she denied being obsessed with her. She’d just wanted to “see how (Baby) F was doing” since he’d gotten well enough to go home.
The searches were not conducted, she told Mr Johnson, so she could “see what reaction you would get from this grieving family.”
The process continues.
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