Lucy Letby inquiry bombshells - from baby death 'excitement' to 'potentially fatal overdose'

Lucy Letby's exchanges with fellow nurses and doctors at the Countess of Chester Hospital during her year-long killing spree have been exposed in the Thirlwall Inquiry

A public hearing into the events surrounding Lucy Letby's crimes has built a picture of what it was like working in the hospital ward alongside the baby killer.

Over the past week, the Thirlwall Inquiry, led by Lady Justice Thirlwall at Liverpool town hall, has heard from colleagues and bosses at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where Letby worked between her 2015 and 2016 killing spree. The former NHS nurse, 34, became Britain's most prolific child killer in August 2023.

Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others. She was then handed her 15th whole-life term this July for the attempted murder of a premature baby girl. As the public inquiry continues to shed light on the woman behind her heinous crimes, the Mirror takes a look at the biggest bombshells about Letby so far...

'Potentially fatal overdose' two years earlier

Lucy Letby gave a potentially fatal dose of morphine to a newborn infant - two years before she murdered her first victim, an inquiry has heard. The baby was given 10 times the correct amount of the painkiller at the end of a July 2013 night shift, which could have seen the baby die had colleagues not spotted the error an hour following a handover.

The inquiry heard Letby and another nurse had set up a morphine infusion for the infant, but the two had contrasting reactions to the horror that unfolded. Letby's colleague was said to be so “distraught” about the incident that she almost resigned, but Letby was “unhappy” when informed by neonatal unit ward deputy ward manager Yvonne Griffiths that she could not administer controlled drugs until a review had taken place.

A week later, neonatal unit ward manager Eirian Powell apparently informed Letby she could continue working with drugs such as morphine, the inquiry heard. The next day Letby messaged a colleague, saying: “Thankfully Eirian felt it had been escalated more than it needed to be. Everything is back to how it was. I just … have to have more training on using the pumps and it will be on my record for six months.

"She was very supportive, a case of learning to live with it now and getting my confidence back. I’m on nights this week, still feeling a bit vulnerable and thinking ‘what if’ but I’ll get there in time.”

Failed placement for being 'cold'

Letby failed her final year placement as a student nurse after she was noted to be "cold" and lacking empathy with patients and families, the inquiry heard. Her assessor, Nicola Lightfoot, deputy ward manager on the children's unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said it was apparent to her that Letby did not have the "overall characteristics" to become a successful registered nurse.

Ms Lightfoot said: "I found Lucy to be quite cold. I did not find a natural warmth exuding from her which I expect from a children's nurse. We see students that are extremely academic, but actually from a personality point of view they don't seem to blend into the role of being a children's nurse which includes characteristics [such] as empathy, being kind, being friendly and being able to establish good relationships with our families."

Ms Lightfoot also found that Letby's clinical knowledge was "not where it should be" and that she "struggled" to retain information over calculating dosages of drug medication, and also to recognise side effects of common drugs. In her final report on the student in July 2011, she said Letby "requires much more support, prompting and supervision" than she would expect - however, it would be 'achievable' in the future.

Baby death admission

On the first day at the hospital where she went on to murder babies, Letby chillingly told a colleague she "couldn't wait" for her "first death", the inquiry heard. The alleged comment was made in January 2012, more than three years before her year-long campaign of terror took place, in which she murdered seven babies and attempted to kill seven more.

A nurse, referred to as Nurse ZC due to legal reasons, said she was "taken aback" by the admission. She also said she was similarly surprised when, late in early 2012, Letby became "quite animated" when describing how she was involved in resuscitation attempts of a baby who had unexpectedly deteriorated overnight.

"She made a comment along the lines of 'I can't wait for my first death to get it out of the way'," the nurse told the inquiry. "It took me aback because for me the thought of having to experience that was not something you actively want to happen."

Nurse ZC said she thought at the time that Letby was trying to make conversation on her first day of work, and did not believe the comments were said with "sinister intent". She spoke of another exchange from early 2012, regarding a baby who was being prepared for discharge from the unit.

"I came in the next day and not long after I had been there Lucy sort of presented as quite animated and told me everything that had happened to the baby and that she was involved in resuscitation attempts," she said. "It was something that took me by surprise because obviously the baby had been so well."

Nurse ZC described Letby as "kind of excited", but added she thought at the time that it may have been the "adrenaline" of the experience and that she needed to offload. She said: "It was not as if she seemed upset or that it had traumatised her in any way."

Sinister reputation

Letby complained that she was "hurt" and "distressed" that doctors publicly referred to her as "angel of death" and "murderer" in the months after she was removed from caring for neonatal babies, the inquiry heard. In 2016, she was switched to clerical duties after consultants told management they feared she was harming patients.

Six months later, she was allowed to go back. During the inquiry, Karen Rees, head of nursing in the urgent care division, read out a statement from Letby directed to the consultants at the January 2017 meeting ahead of her planned return. One doctor who attended the meeting described the statement as a "melodramatic dissertation".

Letby stated: "My life was turned upside down and subsequently put on hold when I was unexpectedly informed, in July 2016, that I was being redeployed from the unit following a period of annual leave. I have not entered the unit since. There has been a huge element of dishonesty throughout this process and I want to ensure that you all hear my perspective and are aware of the impact your actions have had on me.

"I appreciate that we all have a right to raise concerns and that the protection of our vulnerable patient group, is, of course, of paramount importance. However, I find it extremely unprofessional and hurtful to have been made aware of such unsubstantiated insensitive comments, as listed below, often via 'word of mouth'. Some of these were voiced in public areas/meetings.

"It was only through the submission of my grievance that all of these 'comments' were confirmed. Members of your team have been heard to publicly make comments such as 'Angel of death', 'murderer on the unit', 'cold and calculated'. A member of the consultant team when asked how they would feel if I were to kill myself or if something were to happen to my elderly parents as a result, has been documented as replying 'I do not care'.

The statement continued. Consultant anaesthetist Dr Sean Tighe, who was part of the meeting, said the doctors responded by "completely denying" they had made any derogatory remarks, which Mr Chambers demanded they apologise for. Letby did not return to the neonatal unit as hospital bosses eventually called in Cheshire Police in May 2017.

Pitiful email to nurses

Letby had been removed from the neonatal unit back in July 2016 after concerns were raised among her colleagues in the aftermath of several unexplained deaths and collapses. But six months later, an external review found no evidence of criminality. Chief executive Tony Chambers told consultants to "draw a line under the Lucy issue".

Ahead of her planned return, Letby told doctors and nurses she had been 'fully exonerated' of any wrongdoing with a request for her colleagues. On January 31, 2017, Letby sent a group email to neonatal nurses in which she wrote: "Dear colleagues, I was redeployed from the unit in July 2016 following serious and distressing allegations of a personal and professional nature made by some members of the medical team. From then until now I have been unable to visit or contact the unit whilst these matters were investigated.

"After a thorough investigation, it was established that all the allegations were unfounded and untrue, and therefore, I have been fully exonerated. I have received a full apology from the trust. As you can imagine this whole episode has been distressing for me and my family. I will begin my return to the unit in the coming weeks. I will need colleagues to be sensitive and supportive at this time. Many thanks, Lucy Letby."

Nurse Kathryn Percival-Calderbank told the inquiry that she and her colleagues were "a bit stunned" when they read the grovelling email. She said: "We were not informed about anything. We didn't know what these allegations had been so we were a bit stunned by it all really because we were still under the impression she was on secondment."

She said Mr Chambers told them to "be nice to Lucy" on her return. Ms Percival-Calderbank said: "A lot of the staff were taken into a room. It took us by surprise that we had to be nice to Lucy because none of us had ever been horrible to her. That's not in our nature."

'Inappropriate' messages

One then-junior doctor, who guided Letby, told the inquiry that she "misled and maybe manipulated" him into giving her information about babies she attacked. The man, referred to as Doctor U, exchanged 1,355 Facebook messages with Letby over three months between June and September 2016, the inquiry was told.

The doctor frequently "reassured" Letby in messages over her care of three infants in June 2016 - a boy she attempted to murder and two brothers from a set of triplets who she murdered. He went on to support her grievance case against her removal from the neonatal unit to non-patient duties in July 2016.

Asked by counsel to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale KC, to explain the messages, spanning from "quite frivolous casual conversation" to "entirely inappropriate" discussions about newborn patients, Dr U replied: "Letby was struggling with her mental health and I think I picked up on that and offered some support, and that support grew, and I understood that she slept very, very poorly because of worry and anxiety.

"There were often messages that were passed throughout the day and sometimes later at night and early in the morning." The nature of one message was read out at the inquiry, which involved Letby inquiring about the condition of Child N - an infant she attempted to murder in early June 2016 - and whether or not she "should be worried?"

Dr U replied: "Oh Lucy, poor little thing. I am sure he has had the best care possible and you will have done everything you could for him." In another message, after Letby was removed from the neonatal unit in July 2016, Dr U told her: "You're still the best [neonatal unit] nurse I've ever worked with."

When asked about the messages, Dr U said: "It felt like a supportive gesture. That now feels like a mistake. It is something I have considered on a daily basis for the last six to eight years."

He went on: "I think I have become aware that I was not aware of the full clinical picture and I provided support by being misled and maybe manipulated, and for that I'm really sorry that things have come to an end as they have. I have a lot of regrets over how that period of time took place." Dr U told the inquiry he did not suspect deliberate harm had been caused to Child O and P.

'Excitement' in voice

The inquiry heard that Letby responded to the death of a newborn baby in an 'excitable' manner, which a children's nurse said she had "never seen" before or since. Nurse Melania Taylor told how Letby discussed a child's death with her in an "excited" and "gossipy" way that she found unusual.

Ms Lightfoot, the deputy manager, said she heard Letby discuss the death of the second triplet baby in June 2016 as though it was "exciting". She said she heard the ex-nurse say in an animated way to a colleague immediately after the second death: "You'll never guess what just happened."

Ms Lightfoot said: "It was like she was talking about some exciting event she had seen or witnessed on the unit … it wasn't an appropriate response to the death of a child. I had never - and I have never since - seen a response like that from a nurse involved in a child's passing." The inquiry is expected to sit until early 2025, with findings published by late autumn of that year.