A Manchester Crown Court in the United Kingdom has sentenced a serial child killer, Lucy Letby to whole-life imprisonment.
The 33-year-old was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six other infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Letby was said to have deliberately injected the babies with air, force fed others milk and poisoned two of the infants with insulin.
The murders and attempted killings took place between June 2015 and June 2016, when Letby was a nurse in the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester hospital in northwestern England.
Letby will spend the rest of her life behind bars, making her only the fourth woman in UK history to receive such a sentence.
Whole-life orders are the most severe punishment available and are reserved for those who commit the most heinous crimes.
Reading the sentence on Monday, the judge, Justice Goss, said the “cruelty and calculation” of Letby’s actions were “truly horrific”.
“You acted in a way that was completely contrary to the normal human instincts of nurturing and caring for babies and in gross breach of the trust that all citizens place in those who work in the medical and caring professions,” he said.
“There was a malevolence bordering on sadism in your actions.
“During the course of this trial, you have coldly denied any responsibility for your wrongdoing. You have no remorse. There are no mitigating factors.”
Some of the jury members, who sat through nine months of harrowing and complex evidence, were visibly upset as they heard about the grief, loss and distress suffered by each family.
Letby’s parents, who had been present throughout her trial, did not attend her sentence hearing.
The mother of a baby boy killed by Letby said she was “horrified that someone so evil exists” as the families’ victim impact statements were read out in court.
Addressing an empty dock, the mother of Baby C, who became emotional, told the court that knowing her son’s murderer was watching over them was like “something out of a horror story”.
The mother of Baby D, who was holding a toy rabbit as she read her statement, said Letby’s “wicked sense of entitlement and abuse of her role as a trusted nurse” was a “scandal”.
Baby E and F’s mother described Letby as a “coward” for failing to attend the sentencing hearing, adding: “Our world was shattered when we encountered evil disguised as a caring nurse.”
“We have attended court day in and day out, yet she decides she has had enough, and stays in her cell – just one final act of wickedness from a coward,” she said.
The parents of Baby G, who was the most premature of all the babies, weighing just 535g (1lb 3oz) and now requires constant care, told the court: “God saved her” but then “the devil found her”.
The parents of Baby N, who Letby attempted to murder in June 2016, said the family still had a camera in their now seven-year-old’s bedroom so they can check on him while he sleeps.
“We are extremely protective,” they said.
