"Lucy Letby
‘caught virtually red-handed’
trying to kill newborn baby,
new trial hears.
A nurse who murdered seven babies was 'caught virtually red-handed' trying to kill another newborn
by dislodging her breathing tube
two hours after she was born,
a jury has been told.
The jury was told that the
'extremely premature' infant had been doing
'remarkably well'
for a baby born 15 weeks premature.
Baby K, who had not yet been named,
was intubated with a breathing tube while preparations were made to transport her to a specialist hospital,
the court heard.
Johnson said the allegation against Letby was
'very straightforward'
and that she had
'deliberately displaced'
the newborn’s breathing tube when her designated nurse had briefly left her side at about 3.40am.
The prosecutor said one of Letby’s colleagues,
Dr Ravi Jayaram,
walked in on the nurse
'doing nothing'
while Baby K’s blood oxygen levels collapsed suddenly.
Alarms would ordinarily have sounded to alert staff that a baby’s heart rate or blood oxygen levels had fallen below a certain level –
but this time they did not,
Johnson said.
'The reason the alarms didn’t sound was because somebody had disabled them'
he told the jury.
'When Dr Jayaram walked into the nursery
he saw Lucy Letby was standing over [Baby K].
[Baby K’s] blood oxygen was falling but the alarm was not sounding.
Not only that,
but Lucy Letby was doing nothing'.
Johnson said the
'only reasonable' thing for Letby to have done
was to call for help or assist the baby’s breathing'.
He added:
'The reason [Baby K] was desaturating was because the ET [endotracheal] tube had been displaced'.
'We suggest the fact Lucy Letby was doing nothing
and the fact the alarm was not sounding
is evidence from which you can conclude
that Lucy Letby,
the convicted murderer,
had displaced the tube'.
Jurors were told that Baby K collapsed twice in the following hours,
when Letby was allegedly present.
On both occasions,
the prosecutor said,
the breathing tube had been displaced.
Johnson said Letby was
'trying to create the impression'
that the newborn was dislodging her own tube
despite
being extremely premature and heavily sedated on morphine."
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