Lucy Letby (born 4 January 1990) is a British former NHS neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester between June 2015 and June 2016. She was investigated after an unusual cluster of deaths in the hospital's neonatal unit.
Charged in November 2020 with seven counts of murder and fifteen counts of attempted murder relating to seventeen babies, Letby was prosecuted on the basis of her presence at many of the incidents, two abnormal blood test results and skin discolouration interpreted as signs of insulin poisoning and air embolism, inconsistencies in medical records, her removal of nursing handover sheets from the hospital, and handwritten notes interpreted by the prosecution as a confession.
In August 2023, she was found guilty on seven counts each of murder and attempted murder, and acquitted on two counts of attempted murder. The jury was unable to reach verdicts on six further counts. She received fourteen whole life orders, meaning life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. One of the unresolved attempted murder charges was retried in July 2024, resulting in a fifteenth whole life order.
The senior management of the Countess of Chester Hospital was criticised for failing to act on clinicians' concerns, prompting the British government to commission an independent inquiry. Cheshire Police examined extra cases, resulting in three arrests related to corporate manslaughter.
Two applications for permission to appeal have been refused by the Court of Appeal. Multiple experts have since challenged the prosecution's interpretation of the medical evidence, arguing that the infants' deaths were explainable by natural causes. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is considering referring the case back to the Court of Appeal.
Early life and education Lucy Letby was born on 4 January 1990 in Hereford, the only child of a furniture salesman and an accounts clerk. She attended St. James' Church of England primary school, Aylestone School and Hereford Sixth Form College. According to a friend interviewed by the BBC, she had long expressed an interest in neonatal nursing.
Letby studied child nursing at the University of Chester, completing clinical placements at Liverpool Women's Hospital and the Countess of Chester Hospital. During her final year she failed an assessed placement but passed a subsequent retrieval placement after requesting a different assessor. One of her assessors later told the 2024 statutory inquiry that she had considered Letby inexperienced and lacking confidence in some clinical areas. Letby graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a speciality in child nursing in September 2011 and completed a further placement at Liverpool Women's Hospital the following year.
Career Letby began working as a registered nurse in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital on 2 January 2012. In 2012 and 2013 she took part in a fundraising campaign for a new neonatal unit. Colleagues later recalled that she sometimes described non‑intensive care work as boring. She completed another specialisation course in March 2014 and had a second placement at Liverpool Women's Hospital in early 2015.
In July 2013, Letby set a morphine infusion rate incorrectly, leading the deputy ward manager to suspend her from administering controlled drugs and require additional training. The suspension was lifted a week later after she raised the matter with the unit manager. In April 2016, she administered antibiotics that had not been prescribed, which she described as a minor error, and she was subsequently moved from night shifts to day shifts.
In June 2016, consultant paediatrician and neonatal-unit lead clinician Stephen Brearey asked hospital management to remove Letby from clinical duties pending an investigation. She was transferred to the patient experience team the following month and later to the risk and patient safety office, where she remained until her arrest in 2018.
After an interim suspension in 2020, the Nursing and Midwifery Council struck off Letby's registration on 12 December 2023 after her conviction. Letby had informed the council that she did not accept guilt but would not contest her removal.
Initial investigations Concerns about an increase in infant collapses and deaths in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital first arose in June 2015, when four collapses occurred, three of them fatal. The unit normally recorded two or three deaths a year. The unit manager, Eirian Powell, and unit lead clinician Brearey carried out an informal review and reported the incidents to the trust's serious‑incident committee, which classified the deaths as medication errors. Brearey noted that Letby had been on duty for each incident but regarded this as an unsurprising coincidence, given staffing levels. He later told the statutory inquiry that no concerns had been raised about her practice at the time. Subsequent reporting in 2023 indicated that he had developed suspicions earlier and believed the trust failed to act on them.
A Care Quality Commission inspection in February 2016 heard concerns about difficulties raising issues with managers but was not informed of an elevated mortality rate. Its report highlighted staffing and skill‑mix problems but described a generally positive organisational culture. In May 2016, the trust's executive team concluded that the rise in deaths was coincidental. National MBRRACE‑UK data later showed that the unit's neonatal death rate between June 2015 and June 2016 was at least 10 per cent higher than expected, with deaths in 2015 double those of the previous year.
On 24 June 2016, following two further deaths, Brearey asked the duty executive to remove Letby from clinical duties, but was told she was safe to work. The trust's executive directors discussed involving the police but instead commissioned a review by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). Letby was taken off the unit on 30 June, and the hospital subsequently reduced cot capacity and raised the gestational‑age threshold for admissions.
The RCPCH review began in September 2016. Its October report found no definitive explanation for the increased mortality rate but identified inadequate staffing and senior cover. It described concerns about Letby as subjective and unsupported by evidence. The trust's medical director asked consultant neonatologist Jane Hawdon to undertake detailed case reviews recommended by the RCPCH. Hawdon instead conducted a review of medical notes relating to 17 deaths and collapses; she was understood to have told the hospital's medical director that she had not been able to conduct the thorough review that the RCPCH had recommended due to not having had the time, and later said that she had not been "adequately briefed" about the concerns about Letby before she carried out her analysis. The report concluded that most of the deaths and collapses could be explained and might have been preventable with different care, while four warranted further local forensic review. Minutes of a subsequent board meeting recorded the medical director stating that the RCPCH and Hawdon reviews attributed the deaths to leadership and intervention issues; the board chair later said he had been misled about the depth of Hawdon's review.
Letby lodged a formal grievance in September 2016 regarding her removal from clinical duties. The trust upheld the grievance in January 2017, concluding that her transfer had been orchestrated by consultants without firm evidence. The chief executive apologised to Letby and her parents in December 2016 and instructed consultants to apologise to her in writing.
In March 2017, four consultants, including Brearey and Ravi Jayaram, again asked management to involve the police after receiving advice from the regional neonatal lead. They met Cheshire Constabulary on 27 April, shortly before Letby was due to return to clinical work. The trust publicly announced police involvement in May 2017, stating that it sought assurances to rule out unnatural causes of death. The resulting investigation was named Operation Hummingbird. Senior Investigating Officer Paul Hughes later said the inquiry initially considered a range of natural and clinical explanations alongside the possibility of inflicted harm.
After reading about the investigation, retired paediatrician and expert witness Dewi Evans contacted the National Crime Agency offering assistance. He was instructed to review clinical records for 61 cases of sudden collapse or death. Evans produced multiple reports for Cheshire Police, and his conclusions were peer-reviewed by consultant neonatologist Sandie Bohin. He also advised on the appointment of further specialist experts. The police ultimately narrowed the investigation to 22 cases, which formed the basis of the charges at Letby's trial.
2023 trial Police arrested Letby on 3 July 2018 on suspicion of eight counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder, and searched her home. Officers were also seen at her parents' property the same day. Following her arrest, detectives began reviewing her entire nursing career, including her time at Liverpool Women's Hospital. She was bailed on 6 July, rearrested in June 2019, and bailed again shortly afterwards. Letby was arrested for a third time in November 2020 and was remanded in custody. She denied all allegations, attributing the collapses to issues such as staffing levels and hygiene.
Letby's trial opened at Manchester Crown Court on 4 October 2022 before Mr Justice Goss. She pleaded not guilty to seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder.
The infants were anonymised as Baby A to Baby Q. Reporting restrictions also protected the identities of nine colleagues who gave evidence. Two years before the trial, Mrs Justice Steyn had ordered that the surviving infants could not be identified until adulthood. Several adult witnesses were also granted anonymity, which the court considered necessary to secure their testimony.
Evidence At trial, the prosecution presented evidence from parents, clinicians and expert witnesses. The mother of Baby E testified that she had heard her son cry and found blood around his mouth while Letby was present; Letby attributed the blood to a nasogastric tube. Baby E died later that day. Letby subsequently sent a sympathy card to the family, photographs of which were later found on her phone. The court also heard that she had been advised more than once not to enter a room where bereaved parents were grieving.
Prosecutors cited text messages sent by Letby to colleagues, which they said showed inappropriate interest in clinical events. Messages included offers to take additional intensive‑care shifts shortly after deaths or collapses, expressions of frustration when not allocated to intensive‑care rooms, and comments about fate following a series of deaths. The court also heard that Letby had searched for the families of several infants on Facebook, sometimes on anniversaries or significant dates. She told the jury this reflected general curiosity and frequent phone use.
Consultants testified that they believed suspicious incidents began after Letby qualified to work in intensive care in 2015 and that the pattern of collapses shifted after she was moved from night to day shifts in 2016. One consultant said he had found Letby standing over a deteriorating infant in February 2016 and believed she had not intervened promptly; the infant survived. Other clinicians described a cluster of near‑fatal collapses between March and June 2016, including the deaths of two triplets on consecutive days.