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The most prolific child killer in modern British history started her life in prison on Monday after killing seven newborn babies and attempted to kill six more while they were in her care.
Nurse Lucy Letby was given a rare whole-life order by a judge in Manchester, northwest England, which means she will never be free. This is the harshest sentence possible and is only given to individuals who commit the most horrific crimes.
Judge James Goss declared, “The court’s order is a whole-life order on each and every offense, and you will spend the rest of your life in prison.”
However, Letby, 33, angered the parents of her child victims by declining to attend the punishment hearing. As a result, legislators made promises to remove the loophole.
Goss said that she had engaged in “pre-meditation, calculation, and cunning” with “malevolence bordering on sadism” during the course of the trial, “coldly” refusing responsibility for her acts.
Although the majority of her young victims experienced severe pain, she misled her coworkers at the Countess of Chester Hospital about what she had actually done.
When Letby was caught, police searched her home and discovered that she had preserved medical records as “morbid records” of what she had done.
The judge remarked, “You show no remorse.” There aren’t any mitigating circumstances.
In addition, he said, “You acted in a way that was grossly in violation of the trust that all citizens place in those who work in the medical and caring professions. Your actions were completely at odds with the normal human instincts of nurturing and caring for babies.”
“Lifelong harm” had been caused to her victims’ families by cutting short young lives “almost as soon as they began”, the judge said.
“Loving parents have been robbed of their cherished children. You have caused deep psychological trauma,” he added.
No motives have emerged for the killings, which took place between June 2015 and June 2016 and have made Letby one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers.
Some 70 criminals are currently serving a whole-life order in the UK.
Only three women have ever received this punishment: serial killers Rose West and Joanna Dennehy, as well as “Moors Murderer” Myra Hindley, who killed five children in the 1960s with her partner Ian Brady. In 2002, Hindley perished.
In 2000, a whole-life sentence was issued to Harold Shipman, a physician who is suspected of having killed up to 250 of his patients but only admitted to killing 15.
In 2004, he committed suicide in his cell.
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