‘Excited’ Letby’s sinister response to baby’s tragic death: ‘You’ll never guess what just happened’

Lucy Letby was heard telling a colleague “you’ll never guess what just happened” after she murdered a premature baby at the Countess of Chester Hospital, the inquiry into the deaths has revealed.

The killer nurse attacked Child P, who then required resuscitating twice before being pronounced dead on 24 June 2016. The child died a day after Letby had murdered his triplet brother Child O.

The Thirlwall Inquiry, which looked into the deaths at the hospital as well as management and patient safety, heard evidence from staff and parents ahead of the publication of its report on Tuesday, which made 14 recommendations.

It examined Letby’s response to the unexpected death of Child P, hearing from deputy ward manager Nicola Lightfoot, who said she heard the nurse speaking to a colleague coming on to night duty at the time.

“She was coming out of the break room and heard Letby greet a member of the night staff with something along the lines of, ‘You[’ll] never guess what just happened,” Lady Justice Thirwall’s report said.

The senior judge wrote that Mr Lightfoot had “felt it was inappropriate” and that Letby had spoken of the death as if it was an “exciting event”.

The report said it showed an example of “disturbing behaviour which echoes Letby’s enjoyment of dealing with arrangements for babies after death”.

The reaction of Letby to the death was one example of a catalogue of incidents of behaviour by the nurse that were highlighted in the Thirlwall Inquiry report.

After Child P had died, Letby accompanied a doctor in speaking to the parents of the two triplets who had died. The third survived unharmed. She asked then if they would like her to make a memory box with “inappropriate jolliness” and “brightness”, said the doctor, according to the report.

The father then recalled how Letby dressed Child P, making a “big deal about taking photos of the boys and making memory boxes”. Lady Justice Thirlwall wrote that this was again evidence of Letby’s “apparent enjoyment of the drama and ritual around death”.

Tragically, the two children should have been saved, the inquiry report found, if concerns raised beforehand linking deaths with her presence had been treated as a safeguarding matter by senior bosses, but instead Letby remained on the ward.

By the time of the babies’ deaths, Letby had already murdered five other victims.

They included Child C, who died at four days old. While the baby was still alive, the mother told the inquiry that Letby had prompted her to put him in a cold cot, which is a cooling device for babies shortly after they die.

The mother said: “I remember the cold cot being plugged in… we were in this really difficult situation where, you know, our son was dying, and it was certainly jumping the gun to bring that in and plug it in.”

Letby left the room after the father spoke to her curtly in response, the report said.

In a joint statement, the parents said: “I believe she wanted to savour my son’s dying moments for herself, which fills me with both emotion and anger. Had I not challenged her, she would have further intruded on our private goodbye.”

In another incident, following the death of Child A, murdered by Letby, text messages were shared in the inquiry report showing what the nurse had said to colleagues in the aftermath.

She told one colleague, nurse JenniferJones-Key: “Just feel I need to be in [Nursery] 1 to get the image out of my head.”

There were four nurseries in the neo-natal unit that dealt with babies needing specialist care or intensive care.

Ms Jones-Key replied to say her wish “sounds very odd and I think I would be the complete opposite”.

Included in the recommendations made in the Thirlwall Inquiry report were the fitting of baby monitors to all cots and incubators in neonatal units, and CCTV cameras focused on insulin storage fridges.

Health secretary Yvette Cooper said she had asked officials to develop plans to install “cot cams” in neonatal units.

“I am profoundly sorry for the failures set out so clearly in this report,” she said. “For the harm, distress and unthinkable loss for their families. For the failures by the NHS to keep babies safe.”