UK nurse Lucy Letby sentenced to whole-life jail term for murdering 7 babies
A British nurse, Lucy Letby, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Monday for the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others at the UK hospital where she worked.
British nurse Lucy Letby was given a life sentence on Monday for murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to kill six others while they were in her care. The 33-year-old Lucy Letby will never be released after receiving a full life order from Manchester Crown Court in northern England. Letby's refusal to show up in court prompted demands that rules be modified to require offenders to show up for their sentencing proceedings.
She became the UK's most prolific child serial murderer in modern history after being found guilty of killing five boys and two girls. Between June 2015 and June 2016, a number of infant fatalities occurred at the newborn section of the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England.
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Explaining why he decided Letby must spent the rest of her life in prison, Justice James Goss said: “This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children.”
"The impact of your crimes has been immense," the judge said, adding "lifelong harm" had been caused after Letby targeted babies whose lives were cut short "almost as soon as they began".
"Loving parents have been robbed of their cherished children," he added. "You have caused deep psychological trauma."
According to testimony given in court on Friday, Letby physically assaulted the infants in her care and injected air into their blood and stomachs, overfed them with milk, poisoned them with insulin, and overfed them with air. There were concerns about how Letby was able to avoid discovery for so long after the accusations against her and her imprisonment, which led to a government investigation.