Lucy Letby: More households advised their youngsters could also be victims of killer nurse

More households have been advised their youngsters could also be victims of killer nurse Lucy Letby because the police investigation widens into her complete profession.

Letby has been discovered guilty of murdering seven babies and of seven counts of tried homicide.

She was additionally discovered not responsible of two tried homicide expenses, whereas the jury couldn’t attain verdicts on six additional counts of tried homicide.

Cheshire police started wanting into the deaths of infants on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital again in May 2017, in what turned often called Operation Hummingbird.

Officers say they’ve examined greater than half one million medical and digital data in the course of the probe, which noticed Letby charged in November 2020.

The 33-year-old stood trial accused of murdering seven infants and attempting to homicide 10 others on the hospital between June 2015 and July 2016. She at all times denied the fees.

Read extra: Reaction after verdicts reached in Lucy Letby trial

Police say they’ve been supporting the victims’ households, a lot of whom attended Manchester Crown Court in individual in the course of the nine-month trial.

But Letby began working within the hospital’s neonatal unit simply earlier than her twenty second birthday – round 4 years earlier than the beginning of the allegations within the trial – and colleagues raised suspicions greater than a yr earlier than bosses contacted the police.

Former Countess of Chester nurse Lynsey Artell stated she fears that Letby attacked her son, Asa, who was on the hospital’s neonatal ward after being born two months untimely.

The boy’s therapy by Letby was not the topic of any cost and Ms Artell is asking for the police to reinvestigate her claims and people of different mother and father.

Following the verdicts, Cheshire police confirmed they’re now investigating whether or not Letby might have attacked different youngsters in her care earlier than June 2015.

Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, the senior investigating officer within the case, stated: “We’re obviously committed to looking at the entire time that Lucy has been employed as a nurse, whether it’s a unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital (or) the Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

“That’s to guarantee that we, on the finish of Operation Hummingbird, can say with a level of confidence that we have investigated each child.”

Read extra:
Parents of boy Letby tried to kill criticise hospital
Video shows moment Letby was arrested

He couldn’t say what number of different energetic instances there are however added: “There are instances the place we have advised mother and father.”

The probe will look into the other years Letby worked at the Countess of Chester, as well as time she spent on training placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Sky News has contacted both hospitals for comment.

DCI Nicola Evans, the deputy senior investigating officer on the case, said: “I do not assume there’s anyone who has labored on this investigation who will come out of the opposite facet the identical individual they had been.

“It has been heartbreaking.”