| Lucy Letby’s crimes began at least eight years ago, at the Countess of Chester hospital, where she injected a fatal amount of air into the bloodstream of a premature baby who was otherwise healthy. After being handed over to Letby, who was working the overnight shift, Child A deteriorated rapidly and died within 90 minutes of her shift starting. Over a year-long period, Letby would replicate these attacks, murdering and attempting to murder several other babies. The trial found that Letby had force fed milk to one infant and murdered two others by poisoning them with insulin. For more information read the Guardian timeline on Letby’s attacks at the hospital. How did this young nurse, who has been described as “beige”, “average”, and even “nice”, commit such unfathomable crimes? And what, if anything, was done to stop it? The turning points in the case Josh says he remembers Letby’s arrest vividly. It was in 2018, three years after the first crime was committed. Cheshire police announced that they had arrested a woman on suspicion of murdering babies at the Countess of Chester hospital. “The statement dropped quite late in the afternoon, maybe early evening, and it was just an absolute bombshell,” Josh says. It took two years for the police to charge Letby because of the complexity of the case – and she has remained in custody since November 2020, awaiting trial. Even when the trial began, the agonising wait for the victims’ families did not end, with a number of delays. One particularly critical moment in the trial was when it became clear that Letby would be giving evidence herself. Defendants do not have to do this, but Letby, who always maintained her innocence, decided that she would. When she was being questioned by her barrister, Josh says, “she was incredibly believable and she talked convincingly about the impact that the arrest had on her life”. But as soon as the cross examination began, all credibility fell apart. Josh describes how her demeanour changed: “She became colder and gave curt answers.” He adds that Letby never looked the prosecutor in the eye when he was talking to her and stared straight ahead at a fixed point in the wall. She seemed fidgety and nervous and by the end she was just giving “robotic monosyllabic one-word answers to every single question”. The jury deliberated for more than 110 hours. As the days and weeks inched by, it increasingly looked like it could be headed towards a hung jury, Josh says, but in the end they found her guilty. A joint statement released by the victims’ families said that the verdict was “bittersweet” and would not quell their “heartbreak” and “devastation”. Motives Despite years of investigation and 10 months at trial, there is still not a clear explanation for the motive behind these horrifying murders. Unlike Myra Hindley and Rose West, there are no signs of abuse or trauma in Letby’s childhood – quite the opposite, Letby’s parents continue to stand by her side. A few ideas, however, were posited throughout the trial for jurors to mull on: one focused on Letby’s infatuation with a married doctor, with whom, according to the prosecution, she was having an affair. The nature of their relationship is important, as this doctor, who cannot be named due to a court order, was responsible for helping babies who would suddenly deteriorate. The prosecution suggested that this was her way of getting his attention. Other motives that were put forward included the idea Letby enjoyed “playing God”, that she was bored, or that she got a thrill from the “grief and despair” that took place after the death of a baby. Josh wrote a comprehensive rundown on the other possible motives that led Letby to commit these crimes. The hospital | 