A nurse accused of murdering seven babies on her ward was overheard tearfully telling a colleague ‘it’s always me when it happens’, a court has heard.
Lucy Letby, 33, allegedly made the comment during a spike in cases of infants collapsing at the Countess of Chester hospital.
She denies the seven murders as well as 10 attempted murders of other babies at the hospital’s neo-natal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
A GP named Lucy Beebe who cared for one of Letby’s alleged victims while working as a trainee doctor told police she saw the nurse talking to a colleague ine one of the unit’s care rooms.
Dr Beebe told the court on Friday: ‘I remember Lucy crying with another nurse and it was very much of the gist of “it’s always me when it happens, my babies, it’s always happening to me a lot”.
She went on to say she could not remember exactly when the conversation happened and that it ‘seemed a pretty normal reaction’ given the upsetting trend of baby deaths at the hospital.
Letby is accused of murdering Child I, who was born premature, on her fourth attempt – having tried to kill her three times in the previous three weeks.
Dr Beebe said the baby in her care, named in court as Child I, stuck in her memory ‘because it was unusual that she seemingly became well and then became unwell’.
She continued: ‘In my memory I felt like she was shipped out to a tertiary centre, made a rapid recovery and then was brought back very quickly.
‘It certainly stuck in my memory because it had never happened to a baby I had been involved in the care of before or since, at any of the neo-natal units I worked at.’
Asked about her reaction to Child I’s death, she replied: ‘Shock and frustration at the time because on reflection I felt there was something else going on with (Child I) that we were not getting to the bottom of.
‘It was sad because I remember the family and the whole situation was just very sad and frustrating.’
Letby, originally from Hereford, denies murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others between June 2015 and June 2016.
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