by Nurse Lucy Letby wrote a condolence card to the grieving parents of a girl she is said to have murdered, at her trial.
The defendant took a photograph with her mobile phone of the card before the young man’s funeral.
Letby, 33, is accused of killing the premature baby, known as Child I, in the early hours of October 23, 2015, which the Crown has said was the fourth attempt to take her life.
On Thursday, Manchester Crown Court was told that Letby captured a photograph of the card on the morning of November 10 after a night shift ended, hours before Child I’s funeral.
She wrote: “There are no words to make this moment easier.
“It was a true privilege (sic) to take care of (Girl I) and get to know them as family, a family that always put (Girl I) first and did everything possible for her.
“She will always be a part of their lives and we will never forget her.
Thinking of you today and always, sorry I can’t be there to say goodbye.
“Lots of love, Lucy x.”
The card contained the printed message: “Your loved one will be remembered with many smiles.”
Opening the prosecution’s case in October, Nick Johnson KC said the defendant later told detectives that it was “not normal” for a nurse to send such a card.
He added that it was the only time he had done so, but that “it was not often that nurses also knew a family,” he told the court.
Giving evidence, nurse Ashleigh Hudson said she was responsible for the care of Child I on October 22 and 23 and thought the youngster appeared “very stable” at the start of the shift.
Ms. Hudson responded to the cries of the child’s incubator in nursery room 1 shortly before midnight, but was unable to calm her down.
She told junior prosecutor Simon Driver: “It was the kind of screaming I hadn’t experienced before myself.
“It was very loud. He was relentless, almost constant. There were no stops and starts, no fluctuations and constantly very noisy.
Letby came to her aid when she yelled for help, Hudson said.
She said doctors received an “emergency signal” when there was no initial response from Child I, who later made a quick recovery after being put on a ventilator.
She said she was near Room 1 at 1:06 am when she was alerted by the sound of the monitor’s alarm or Child I crying again.
She told the court: “I went back into the nursery and by this time Lucy was already there trying to comfort her, trying to calm her down.”
Ms Hudson said Letby had his hands in the incubator and was offering a dummy but crying child who was “not interested”.
She continued: “My concern was that this crying was the same and that I was going to have another episode.
“That’s when I said something like ‘he’s going to do it again, it’s the same scream.’
“I think Lucy was trying to calm me down and said she just needed to calm down.”
He said Child I’s heart rate and blood oxygen levels “began to drop” and he ran through the double doors of the operating room adjoining the delivery room to find a doctor.
A prolonged period of resuscitation attempts by doctors followed, lasting up to an hour, before Child I was pronounced dead at 2:30 a.m.
Miss Hudson said that Child I’s crying and behavior before the second collapse “appeared to mimic” the first deterioration before midnight.
Mr. Driver asked, “What was the nature of the sound of that scream?”
Miss Hudson replied: “It was noisy. It was almost like a repetitive noise. Relentless.
“According to my interpretation, it would indicate anguish. The cause of that, I cannot be sure.”
She said the crying was “markedly different” from the noise I made when I was hungry.
On the afternoon of October 23, Letby texted a colleague: “Dr. Gibbs (consultant) was great, we tried everything. Just don’t think she was strong enough this time.
“Sad, isn’t it?”
Another nursing colleague later messaged: “Yeah, they (Child I’s parents) weren’t happy that she had to have an x autopsy.”
Letby responded, “Hmm, I can understand that, but I think it’s beneficial to know x.”
The prosecution says that the defendant made previous offers to deliberately harm Child I on September 30, October 13 and 14.
Child I was transferred from the Countess of Chester Hospital to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral on 15 October, where she improved before returning on 17 October.
Letby was absent from work from Oct. 17 until the night of Child I’s fatal collapse, the court heard.
The defendant, originally from Hereford, denies murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others in the Countess of Chester’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.
The trial continues on Friday.
