A nurse has described seeing Lucy Letby standing by the incubator of a premature baby after its heart rate and oxygen levels dropped.
Baby C died on June 14, 2015 and is alleged to have been the second baby murdered by Letby at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.
Today, Manchester Crown Court heard from Letby’s colleague Sophie Ellis, who had been a newly-qualified nurse at the time and was caring for Baby C on the night shift before the child died.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, Ms Ellis said Baby C, who weighed 800 grams at birth, was fed for the first time at 11pm on June 13, and she left the room briefly to go to the nurse’s station, but was then alerted by an alarm from the baby’s monitor.
When asked what she saw when she returned to the room, she said: ‘I’d seen Lucy standing by the incubator.’
Lucy Letby, 32, is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 more. She denies all charges
The court has heard Letby was designated to look after a baby in a different room at the time another infant, Baby C, collapsed
She said Letby, 32, told her the baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels had dropped but she could not recall what she was doing at the time.
Ms Ellis said Baby C’s condition resolved by itself and she sat at the computer in the room, but the infant’s heart rate and oxygen levels then dropped again.
The witness said: ‘Lucy was stood at the incubator. I would have been looking from the computer, it was on the right-hand side.’
Ms Ellis said she put out a crash call for a medical team to attend and then did chest compressions on Baby C until becoming upset when its mother came into the room.
‘When mum entered the room I just got upset,’ she said. ‘It was the first time I’d experienced something like this and I found it completely overwhelming.
‘It was very sudden and completely unexpected.’
She said she recalled Letby asking: ‘Do you want me to take over?’
‘I said ”Yes”. I left the room and I didn’t re-enter after that. I took a minute to sort myself out and went to look after the babies in Nursery 2.’
Ben Myers KC, defending, suggested Letby was not in the room at the time when Baby C’s condition had deteriorated and came in after resuscitation started.
Ms Ellis said: ‘I don’t agree with that.’
The court has heard Letby was designated to look after a baby in a different room at the time of Baby C’s collapse.
Baby C died just before 6am on June 14, 2015, the court has heard.
Letby, of Hereford, is accused of murdering seven babies in the neonatal unit and attempting to murder a further 10. She denies all the charges.
Miss Ellis told Mr Myers that she had never dealt with an infant as small as Baby C. ‘He was the smallest baby I’d ever seen at that time’.
Melanie Taylor, a Band 6 nurse, told the court she had been with Sophie Ellis in Nursery 1 that night.
‘Sophie was a very competent nurse, completely able to look after (Baby C),’ she said. ‘I had no concerns. He had been stable. I was there for support if she needed it.’
She could not recall whereabouts on the unit she had when Baby C deteriorated, but when she arrived at his incubator Letby ‘was already there’. Nurse Ellis was because she there too.
It was Letby who had suggested using a Guedal device to help ventilate the infant. That was then followed by the Neopuff.
The crash team eventually called a halt to their attempts to resuscitate him. His time of death was recorded as 5.58am on June 14.
A medical note recorded the fact that even after the resuscitation attempts had ended Baby C’s mother was concerned that he was still gasping and had a pulse. The doctor explained that it was a brainstem response and the infant was given morphine.
Mrs Taylor rejected the suggestion by Mr Myers that Letby had not been present at the start of the emergency.
None of the babies mentioned in the trial are allowed to be named due to reporting restrictions
He then pointed out that in her statement to police she said she was called over by Miss Ellis. There had been no mention of Letby.
‘I likely wasn’t asked if Lucy Letby was there,’ said the nurse. ‘Now I have been shown that (statement), I can remember Sophie called me over.
‘I said at the time what I thought needed to be said. I can tell you now that Lucy was there. I approached the incubator and she was standing on the opposite side. She was the one that suggested putting in an airway’.
Mr Myers contrasted the account she had given in her police statement with what she was now saying in court. ‘You’ve got Lucy Letby right in the centre of this in what you’ve told the jury’.
She replied: ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m just saying what I remember. I gave this statement a few years ago, but I remember how cool and calm she was at the time. I can tell you that Lucy was there’.
The case will continue on Monday.
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