For clarity and continuity, here is a summary of the start of questions of Baby I:
BABY I:
Mr Johnson began to ask LL about Baby I—she was very premature, having been born at 27 weeks when her mother’s waters broke early.
LL was accused of attacking her three times before allegedly murdering her on the fourth attempt when she was around 11 weeks old on October 23rd, though you might remember that nurses last the countess knew Baby I well because she’d also spent time being cared for there—
And a feature of Baby I was that her tummy was often swollen or distended.
LL told jurors that this was a topic of conversation among staff at COCH because they wondered if she was getting the treatment that she needed
She denied Mr Johnson’s suggestion that she’d use this problem as an opportunity but he said it was the pros case that she’d injected air into Baby I’s feeding tube causing her tummy to bloat and to crush her lungs
LL said she didn’t remember a great deal about two collapses suffered by her on Sept 30th -one at half past 4 in afternoon and another at half past seven pm.
But Mr Johnson highlighted this date
being significant because by this time doctors were so confident that she had been progressing well, that they’d recommended she be given her first set immunisations in a few days.
[This also mirrored the case go Baby G, who was also earmarked for immunisations. ]
Mr Johnson said LL had cared for Baby I many times and she knew the routine of her mother well. She denied this but he insisted she knew baby I’d mom left the hospital in the afternoon to go pick up her other children from school and while she was away on the school run at around 4 pm, LL pumped excessive amounts of milk or air into her while giving her a routine milk feed via her nasal tube to try and kill her.
Q: You had pumped her with air or milk, hadn’t you?
LL: No
Q: Were you excited by what you did?
LL: I fed Baby I a normal tube feed
Mr Johnson then reminded the jury about the 2nd alleged attack on Baby I which took place around a fortnight later on a night shift in the early hours of October 13th, and just to recap, it was Nurse Ashley Huston looking after Baby I on this shift. She told the court that she had asked either LL or Caroline Oakley to keep an eye on Baby I because she was nipping away to help another colleague. She told the jury that the main light was off in Nursery two and Baby I’d cot had a canopy over it keeping her face in shadow, but when she returned about a quarter of an hour later, Lucy Letby was already in the doorway, and she told her the baby looked pale.
Nurse Hudson gave evidence in person and she became tearful when she was asked questions about the event which happened around 3 am. And here is a recap:
Nurse Hudson: I looked towards Baby I. I could see she was in the cot but I couldn’t see the top half of her because she was obscured by the lighting and the canopy so I turned around and switched the main light on the nursery —I pushed back the canopy and pulled back the blankets to have a proper look at her and assess her. That’s when I recognised she was in quite poor condition. She was incredibly pale in colour, almost white. She didn’t respond to me—she was very still. She was floppy and she was making gasping breathing movements, a handful of times within a minute. My first thought and worry, was that she had deteriorated so rapidly that it was too late. The change in her had been remarkable.
So Mr Johnson asked LL about this event and she claimed Nurse Hudson was inexperienced and should have had Baby I on a monitor. …or noticed changes in her condition sooner. But she agreed that it was not her case that any incompetence or mistakes made by staff contributed to Baby I’s collapse on this occasion.
She also accepted that less than 2 hours before her collapse, Baby I had taken a full bottle feed, was breathing for herself and had been demanding milk—which were all good signs.
LL said she had no memory of being asked to look after Baby I , while Nurse Hudson went to help her colleague. She also disputed that she was already standing by the door when Nurse Hudson returned and instead insisted that they’d arrived at Nursery 2 together. She also said the lights were not turned off in the room and instead she thought they were on low on a dimmer.
LL: There’s ALWAYS enough light in the unit to illuminate the nursery she said.
Q: How long after arriving did you notice that Baby I looked pale?
LL: I can’t put it into time but it was very quick
Q: How did you get physically to the doorway of Nursery two?
LL I could have come from the corridor
Q:Are the lights on in the corridor?
LL: Yes
Q: What is the effect if you go from a bright corridor into a dim nursery? What does it do to your eyesight?
LL: I don’t know
Q: You really don’t know? You’re a nurse, everybody knows don’t they, if you go from bright into dark light, what effect does it have on your ability to see in the dark?
LL: It depends upon the brightness, but you wouldn’t be able to see as well…
Q: You’ve noticed it right away because you have caused what you were purporting to notice isn’t it?
LL: No
Johnson showed the photo reconstruction, and the baby’s cot, which had a canvas canopy to protect the baby’s head from bright lights…he said it showed how the nursery was lit on the night of the alleged attack but Lucy told the jury the picture was not accurate
LL: The room will be lighter and the cots would be nearer the workbench
Q: How big are the hands of a child of Baby I’s age?
LL: small
Q: tiny aren’t they?
LL: yes
Q: And her head is small as well, isn’t it?
LL Yes
Q: She was covered in a baby throw?
LL: Yes
Q: There was almost nothing to see, was there?
LL: No, just her hands and face
Q: Which would have been covered by that tent-like structure
LL: Not entirely, no
Q: Ashley Hudson was right when she said you couldn’t see anything from that doorway
LL: No
Q: Do you remember what you told the police when they asked you about this? They asked ‘how could you see Baby I was pale?’ You said what…
LL: Maybe I spotted something that Ashley wasn’t able to spot —the rooms aren’t always dark so you couldn’t see the bay at all…
Q: You don’t have better eyesight than Ashley do you?
LL: No
Q: You were putting all this down to your greater experience, is that right?
LL: No
Q: How are you able to spot it if you’re both in the same place?
LL: I had more experience so I knew what I was looking for—at
Q: What do you mean, looking for?
LL: I don’t mean it like that—I’m finding it quite hard to concentrate on all these dates at the minute..
At this point LL appeared upset and agitated so the judge halted proceedings for the day, about a half an hour early…telling the jurors it had been a long day for the witness
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