Baby killer Lucy Letby maintains her innocence, panel hears

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Child serial killer Lucy Letby does not oppose a bid to strike her from the nursing register but maintains her innocence in respect of her convictions, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has been told.

The 33-year-old was sentenced in August to 14 whole-life orders after being convicted of murdering seven babies and trying to murder six others, with two bids on one victim.

Her crimes happened on the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit, where she worked, between June 2015 and June 2016.

At a hearing in east London on Tuesday, Christopher Scott, for the NMC, told a fitness to practise panel that Letby faces 14 charges, brought by the council, which reflect her criminal convictions.

Mr Scott said it is “a matter of legal fact” that Letby was convicted of seven counts each of murder and attempted murder at Manchester Crown Court in August.

The panel was told Letby was asked in a “tick-box exercise” if she accepts the NMC charges.

She ticked “yes” to each of the charges but added: “I do not wish to take part or be present at the hearing. I do not resist the application to strike me off the nursing register.

“I accept the fact of the convictions. However, I do not accept that I am guilty of any of the allegations.

“I maintain my innocence in respect of all of the convictions.

“These convictions are now the subject of an appeal.”

The panel found the fact of Letby’s convictions was proven.

Mr Scott went on to invite them to find that her fitness to practise as a nurse is impaired.

The NMC’s position is that Letby has put patients at unwarranted risk of harm, brought the profession into disrepute and breached fundamental tenets of the profession, Mr Scott told the panel.

Over the course of his submissions, he referenced Mr Justice Goss’s sentencing remarks – highlighting the judge saying “this was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder” that involved “a deep malevolence bordering on sadism” for which Letby showed “no remorse”.

The NMC’s barrister said Letby’s convictions are so serious that they cannot be remediated, that the panel should find her fitness to practise is impaired for public protection and that a failure to do so “would invoke a crisis in public confidence”.

“The harm that she caused is so egregious, the lack of insight and remorse that she demonstrated so striking, that the finding of impairment is necessary,” Mr Scott said.

If the panel finds Letby’s fitness to practise is impaired, Mr Scott will ask them to strike her off the nursing register.

Letby, of Hereford, was told of the hearing but did not attend and was not represented.

The panel decided to proceed in her absence.

She faces a retrial next June for one count of attempted murder.