Lucy Letby was “completely out of control” and “playing God” when she murdered two triplets and attacked a third baby on her return from a holiday in Ibiza, a court has heard.
Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said the nurse, 33, had “got away with so much” at that point it gave her the “misplaced confidence that she could pretty much do whatever she wanted” at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit.
Letby is alleged to have murdered seven babies and attempted to murder 10 others between June 2015 and June 2016.
On three successive days in June 2016 she is said to have murdered two triplet boys, Child O and Child P, and attempted to murder another baby boy, Child Q.
The Crown say Letby, from Hereford, murdered Child O by injecting him with air intravenously and via a nasogastric tube, as well as using “significant force” to inflict a liver injury.
Continuing his closing speech at Manchester crown court, Johnson told the jury of eight women and four men that Child O’s case had similarities to Letby’s alleged murder of Child E, a twin boy, who bled profusely before his death in August 2015.
“Some of the earlier offences were less overtly violent but no less devastating,” the prosecutor said.
He added: “But no doubt she had got away with so much by the time she returned from Ibiza it gave Lucy Letby the misplaced confidence that she could pretty much do whatever she wanted.
“Her objective, as always, was to kill. In [Child O’s] case she combined all three methods she had used to such devastating effect on all the other children in the case. In order to try to cover up what she did, she falsified the notes.
“We say, frankly, by this stage she was completely out of control and was determined to mete out the same treatment to [Child P] the very next day.”
Johnson said Letby had returned from her break in Ibiza with two friends shortly after the birth of the triplets on 21 June 2016.
He said that text messages she sent revealed she was “excited at the prospect of seeing them” on her return to the unit on 23 June.
On the afternoon of 22 June, Letby texted a friend: “Probably be back in with a bang lol.”
The prosecutor said: “Within 72 hours of that text message, two of the triplet brothers were dead and she tried, we say, to kill [Child Q].”
The court has heard that as Child P deteriorated and efforts were made to transfer him to another hospital, Letby said to a colleague: “He’s not leaving here alive, is he?”
Johnson said she made the “shocking” remark because “by this stage she knew the end game” for Child O.
He added: “She knew what was going to happen. She was controlling things. She was enjoying what was going on. She was predicting things that she knew was going to happen. She, in effect, was playing God.”
Letby denies all the allegations.
The case continues.
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