THE heartbroken parents of twin boys who miraculously survived Lucy Letby’s sadistic attempts to kill them spoke of their living “hell” – as they called for a public inquiry into the hospital’s failings.
Baby L was poisoned with insulin and on the same day his brother, Baby M, was attacked.
It’s believed Letby either injected his tiny body with air or obstructed his airway, leaving the infant with permanent brain damage.
After the nurse, 33, was today convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more, the twin boys’ dad said he hopes she spends the rest of her life behind bars.
It comes as…
- Police are probing whether 'beige' Letby was behind any other hospital attacks
- The nurse was today convicted of murdering seven babies after a lengthy trial
- Footage shows the moment Letby was led away from her home by police
- She can also be seen lying to police while being grilled after her arrest
He said: “She’s tried to take our babies’ lives, so whatever sentence she gets is not going to be enough.
“It’s going to be justice, but it’s not going to be enough”.
After it emerged during the nine-month trial that red flags were reported to bosses at The Countess of Chester, Cheshire, as early as June 2015 – just a month after Letby started her year-long killing spree – the dad said: “I blame the hospital.”
When asked what he thinks of Letby, the father said: “To me, nothing, she means nothing. Just an evil person.
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“There’s no way she should have been able to get away with it for so long.”
When asked what Letby has taken from their family, the boys’ mum said: “Everything. She took everything, our joy, happiness, everything.
“I want a proper sentence. A life sentence.
“I love my kids too much, they are my life.”
Discussing what the last seven years have been like, the dad said: “It’s been hell to be honest.
“Horrendous. Every day it’s always there. It’s always on your mind.
“It's been very difficult, very mentally and physically draining.”
The twins’ grandad never saw the justice the family so desperately longed for after he passed away last month – “always asking” about the trial.
The dad said: “Before I was like kind of happy go lucky, you know go with the flow, always smiling.
“Now I’ve become reserved, in my shell.
“There’s no doubt it's going to affect me for the rest of my life.
“There's no way you can get away from it, it's going to always be there in the back of your mind.”
The mum added: “When we heard what Lucy did to our kids we broke down. Previously we were happy.”
Baby L still suffers from night sweats and has to sleep with a fan following the attack on his life on April 9, 2016 and his brother has permanent brain damage.
Their dad said: “As far as we know, Baby M had a scan and the doctor did say that one part of his brain is damaged permanently.
“He may deviate from his peers. At the moment, if you look at him, he’s just like a normal child, so it’s just something we’ll have to keep monitoring over the years, as the years progress.”
The boys’ father has suffered a seizure in the run up to the case which was brought on by stress, and his wife worries constantly about his health.
His sons, now aged seven, who love football and riding their bikes, know they were targeted by Letby as their parents did not want them to find out from anyone else.
Their mother said: “They make a joke of it.
“They say ‘We will kick her, we will bite her, we will pull her hair mummy’, but they don’t understand yet.”
They recalled feeling “over the moon” at having two healthy twins as their first children.
Letby had been present at their birth but then came the nightmare of Baby M’s collapse.
His dad said: “Everything was going well.
“Then within 15 minutes a nurse came charging upstairs shouting ‘You need to come back down’.
“I was the first one into the unit and the image I saw was just horrendous. I’ll never forget it. I saw doctors around the trolley, pumping his heart just like a rag doll.
“I was in floods of tears and didn’t know what to think”.
Dr Ravi Jayaram was leading the efforts to save Baby M, but after 30 minutes the father thought he was “ready to give up”.
He said: “Then all of a sudden (Baby) M came back to life out of nowhere and by the grace of God he’s ok today.
“The doctors told us that kind of thing happens to premature babies, and at the time we believed what they were telling us because we didn’t know any different.”
The twins’ mum said Letby was present as they worked on Baby M.
The part-time carer said: “She was just standing there, very calm and cool. At the time I didn’t know her name. I only found out later.”
She added: “I was just praying to my god, (asking) what had happened to my child. I’ve not done anything wrong in my life to anybody, so why do I have to suffer? And then after 30 minutes he recovered”.
In the aftermath of Baby M’s recovery Letby appeared to be “more aggressive” towards them.
The mum said: “I think she was very annoyed with us because she didn’t succeed in killing our babies. She was very frustrated.”
The couple were relieved to see both boys discharged from the Countess on May 3, 2016. They accepted what had happened to Baby M but had no idea of the attempt on his brother’s life.
When the police called at their home two years later to tell them they both broke down in shock.
She said: “We couldn’t believe it. We were shocked because the hospital hadn’t told us.
“My legs were so shaking, I sat down on the floor and just cried.
“They told us about Baby L and we didn’t know anything.”
Despite staff at the Countess being given the proof that Baby L had been poisoned with manufactured insulin, they failed to pass on the information to his parents.
The couple are now demanding a public inquiry into the hospital authorities they believe left them at the mercy of the serial killer.
They also believe that most of Letby's victims might have either lived or been saved from harm had senior executives at the Countess of Chester heeded the warnings of their own doctors a few months into her terrifying campaign of murder.
The twins’ dad said: “I blame the hospital. The people at Chester are the ones that didn’t act on the results. They never told us.”
The senior support analyst singled out the hospital’s then director of nursing, Alison Kelly, for failing to take decisive action after the first three deaths and a near fatality in June 2015.
He said: “There should definitely be an inquiry.
“The head of nursing needs to be accountable. She refused to take Lucy Letby out of the unit. She didn’t listen to the doctors and the thing has just carried on.
“She made that decision. She could have stopped this long before if she’d taken responsibility.
“She could have been taken off the unit and put her in another role while they investigated fully.”
A second chance to stop Letby was missed in October 2015 when Ms Kelly allegedly suggested the paediatricians “see what happens”.
And even in June 2016, following the deaths of Baby O and his fellow triplet Baby P, hospital bosses initially refused to intervene.
The neonatal unit’s lead paediatrician, Stephen Brearey, rang Karen Rees, the duty executive in urgent care, to say he didn’t want Letby to come into work the following day, but she turned him down.
Dr Brearey told the jury: “I put it to her ‘Was she happy to take responsibility for this decision in view of the fact that myself and consultant colleagues would not be happy with Nurse Letby going to work the following day’. She responded ‘Yes, she would be happy’.
“I said ‘Would you be happy if anything happened to the babies the following day’. She said yes. That’s where the conversation ended”.
The father of Baby L and Baby M said: “If they’d acted on the initial suspicions it would have stopped any more babies being attacked. It would have prevented multiple deaths.
They need to be accountable for the decisions they made. They’re not minor decisions. They do need to be put in front of a judge.”
His wife, a part-time carer, added: As soon as two or three babies died, why did they wait until 17 babies?”
It also emerged that Letby wasn’t meant to be working the day she attacked the twins, but ended up on shift due to staffing issues on the neonatal unit.
The couple are concerned that the registrar Letby was in love with had forwarded her a confidential email about a review into the deaths of the two triplets.
She added: “It’s a definite breach that needs to be investigated.”
The family have become close to the parents of Baby F, whose twin, Baby E, was one of the seven infants murdered by Letby.
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They are saddened that F has been left severely disabled.
The couple said they are angry with Letby for “lying, lying, lying” every time she gave evidence.
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