What Lucy Letby’s motive could have been for killing 7 babies

Lucy Letby, 33, has been found guilty of killing seven babies and attempting to kill six more on the neonatal unit where she worked.

Justice has been served for many of the parents involved, but questions remain about why the nurse chose to kill tiny babies who were supposed to be in her care.

Lead detectives on the case have said we may never know Letby’s motive behind the murders, but jurors were given several possible reasons why a seemingly normal woman would choose to commit such crimes.

Letby was ‘playing God’

Towards the end of the trial at Manchester Crown Court, lead prosecutor Nick Johnson KC had suggested Letby enjoyed “playing God” with the lives of the children in her care.

During the trial, it emerged that Letby made ominous comments as the condition of the babies worsened.

Mr Johnson highlighted the case of Baby O, one of three triplets born in June 2016. He died following a sudden and unexpected collapse on the neonatal ward aged two days old.

There were no concerns for the triplets when they were first born but the jury found Letby guilty of giving Baby O a large injection of air via a nasogastric tube, and also carrying out an assault which caused a liver injury.

Mr Johnson called the murder “cruel and violent” and said Letby was “completely out of control” by this stage, thinking she could do “whatever she wanted”.

Letby was also found guilty of murdering Baby O’s brother, Baby P, who collapsed and died a day after his brother – before he could be transferred to another hospital.

One member of staff, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, has said that as medics awaited for a transfer team, Letby remarked: “[Baby P] isn’t leaving here alive, is he?” Reminding jurors of this evidence, Mr Johnson said: “By this stage, [Letby] knew what she was doing.

“She was controlling things, she was enjoying what was going on, she was predicting something she knew was going to happen, she in effect, was playing God.”

The murders gave her a ‘thrill’

A pattern developed where Letby deliberately harmed a child and then was the first to alert her colleagues of their collapse.

During the trial, prosecutor Mr Johnson asked Letby whether she was “getting a thrill” out of watching the “grief and despair” in the room as babies collapsed. She had replied: “Absolutely not, no.”

It emerged that the nurse searched the families of the victims on Facebook after they died, and also on the anniversaries of the babies’ deaths.

The prosecution suggested this was because she was hunting for grief but Letby maintained that she searched for all sorts of people on social media.

The parents of Baby L and Baby M, twin boys born prematurely but otherwise in good health at the Countess of Chester Hospital, recalled Letby watching a doctor desperately give CPR to one of the twins after he collapsed unexpectedly.

Doctors were about to cease resuscitation efforts and declare Baby M dead when extraordinarily, he recovered.

Looking back, the parents now believe Letby became “aggressive” and “frustrated” with them after both Baby L and Baby M recovered.

“I think she was unsuccessful to kill my kids, that’s why she was very annoyed with us because she couldn’t kill our babies,” said the mother.

She killed them because she was ‘not good enough’

Notes found at Letby’s home were the closest thing to a confession, with messages such as: “I am evil, I did this.”

Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, highlighted how other notes appeared to amount to a confession including one which read: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.”

She wrote these notes after being suspended from work pending an investigation into the deaths.

Other notes contained rambling including her colleagues names and protestations of innocence.

Doctor relationship

The prosecution claimed Letby was having a secret relationship with a married doctor at the Countess of Chester hospital, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Letby repeatedly denied this, though texts revealed that the communicated regularly and met up on several occasions, even after she was removed from the ward.

Prosecutors suggested the relationship was significant. The doctor would be called when babies suddenly deteriorated, so Letby harmed them to get his “personal attention”, they argued.

Letby denied these allegations.