Homicide-accused nurse Lucy Letby tells jury she had not harmed any kids

Seven months on from the beginning of her trial at Manchester Crown Court, Lucy Letby, 33, entered the witness field on Tuesday to offer proof.

She is alleged to have murdered 5 boys and two ladies, and tried to homicide one other 5 boys and 5 ladies, between June 2015 and June 2016.

The prosecution says Letby was a “constant malevolent presence” of their care on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital.

It is claimed she used varied means to focus on the infants, together with injections of air into their system and insulin poisoning.

Letby, carrying a black high and black trousers, walked from the dock and throughout the courtroom to reply the allegations as her defence case began.

Several rows behind, her mother and father, John Letby, 76, and Susan Letby, 62, regarded on – as did members of the family of the alleged victims on the opposite facet of the general public gallery.

Her barrister, Ben Myers KC, requested her: “Over the period of 2015 and 2016 we are looking at the babies on this indictment, could you put a figure on the number of babies you cared for in that period?”

Letby stated: “It would be hundreds.”

Mr Myers stated: “Did you care for them?”

Letby stated: “Yes.”

Asked if she ever wished to harm any of them, she stated: “No, that’s completely against being what a nurse is.”

Mr Myers requested how did she really feel to have her job as a nurse taken away from her and to be accused of killing infants.

Letby replied: “My job was my life. My whole world was stopped.”

Mr Myers requested: “If you think back to when you were a young woman, you were 25, 26, before you were being blamed for what happened, are you the same person?”

Letby replied: “Everything has completely changed. Everything about me and my life, the hopes I had for the future, everything has gone.”

She stated she studied her nursing diploma on the University of Chester and was the “first person in her family to go to university”.

During her research she went on quite a few work placements, she stated, with the bulk on the Countess of Chester Hospital, both on the youngsters’s ward or the neo-natal unit.

Letby stated she certified as a Band 5 nurse in September 2011.

A court docket order prohibits reporting of the identities of surviving and deceased kids allegedly attacked by Letby, and prohibits figuring out mother and father or witnesses related with the youngsters.

Letby, from Hereford, denies all of the allegations.

The trial continues.