Lucy Letby was 'inadequate woman with empty life' who showed unusual trait in court

Lucy Letby killed seven children at the Countess of Chester Hospital and now leading psychiatrists have given their opinion on whether she has the traits of a psychopath

Child killer Lucy Letby showed signs of being “inadequate” and not a psychopath, say psychiatrists, while she also showed an unusual trait in court.

The 34-year-old from Hereford is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims. Her offences took place at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit, where she worked as a nurse, between June 2015 and June 2016.

She is the UK’s most prolific child killer of recent times and yet there is debate as to whether she is a psychopath with leading psychiatrists pointing to traits to suggest she isn’t. Dr Michael Crawford, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, wasn’t involved in the Letby case and can’t make a clinical diagnosis as he hasn’t assessed her in person, but says that she lacks typical psychopath traits.

“She doesn’t seem psychopathic to me. She appears more like an inadequate woman who’s living a very empty life that has this real need for fulfilment,” he said, reported the Independent. And speaking for a new book on Letby, Prof Mark Freestone, who has worked with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, agreed. He also pointed to that psychopathy is less well understood in women and that antisocial behaviour doesn’t occur with such frequency.

He continued: “Psychopaths are inherently quite chaotic. They don’t do ‘normal’. They don’t make bedrooms look nice so they can live there. Everything is temporary, they’re usually quite promiscuous sexually. They’re pathological liars who don’t lie constructively. There’s pretty good evidence that there is a neurological problem in people with a diagnostic psychopathy ... I just don’t get any of that from Letby at all.”

In fact psychiatrists haven’t a clear condition for Letby with borderline personality disorder being a theory that has been put forward with a lack of emotion as a symptom. For Julia Quenzler, a court illustrator with more than 30 years of experience drawing some of the country’s most infamous criminals, pointed to one unusual trait.

She reportedly said: “She just looked somewhat vacant and sat very still. It was difficult to read anything from her – I don’t recall seeing anyone quite like that before. You’d almost have thought that perhaps she was on some sort of medication – I didn’t see any reaction, movement or any expression.”