The British nurse accused of murdering several babies in her care sobbed as she testified on Tuesday about her “traumatizing” arrests — and claimed she “couldn’t believe” that she had been charged with the sickening crimes.
Lucy Letby, 33, took the stand Tuesday in her trial for allegedly killing seven infants and attempting to kill 10 others in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Manchester between June 2015 and June 2016.
The former nurse was visibly emotional as she recalled how she was arrested three different times before finally being charged in 2020, The Guardian reported.
The University of Chester graduate described the arrests as “traumatizing.”
“It was just the most, the scariest thing I’ve ever been through,” she said of her first time in custody in July 2018.
“It not only happened once, it happened twice and then a third time. It’s just traumatizing.”
Letby said she has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety, and requires medication to sleep.
“I’m easily startled, easily frightened of new things,” she told the court.
Before the trial broke for lunch, Letby repeatedly denied harming the children in her care, saying she was “devastated” by the accusations against her.
“It was sickening. I just couldn’t believe it,” she said of the moment she learned she had been suspended from neonatal care following a string of unexplained infant deaths.
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“My job was my life. I can’t put into words, it’s just – my whole world just stopped,” she continued through tears.
Letby was also questioned about notes recovered from her home in which she berated herself with messages like “I hate myself” and “I’m an awful person.”
“I felt immense responsibility [for the babies’ deaths],” she explained.
“I felt I had been incompetent or done something wrong that had harmed children.”
Earlier this year, the prosecution told a harrowing story accusing Letby of trying to kill one child twice in the same day.
The infant girl – identified as Child H – was born six weeks prematurely in 2015. On Sept. 25 that year, her parents were rushed to the neonatal unit where Letby worked because their daughter was in a cardiac collapse.
She was eventually resuscitated, but experienced a similar episode later that day.
The girl, now 7, was moved to another hospital, where she thrived.
Letby’s defense team argued that Child H’s experience was the result of “suboptimal care” and was not tied to Letby specifically.
