Lucy Letby: Seven key moments from nurse's murder trial on Tuesday

The nurse accused of murdering seven babies entered the witness box to give evidence for the first time on Tuesday.

Lucy Letby is alleged to have murdered five boys and two girls, and attempted to murder another five boys and five girls, between June 2015 and June 2016.

Seven months after the start of her trial, Letby told Manchester Crown Court that she had never hurt any of the children while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital, including the “hundreds” she had cared for in the same period.

Read more: Letby defends Facebook searches for parents of babies

Several pieces of evidence were heard during the sitting on Tuesday.

Notes about colleagues

Letby is said to have described two consultant colleagues as “b**tards” in one of several notes recovered from her home.

The nurse said it was “not language I would use” – but it was “how I thought about some people”.

Letby said that the word was directed at Ravi Jayaram and Stephen Brearey “because of things they had been saying about me”.

Dr Brearey and Dr Jayaram had met hospital bosses and told them they did not want Letby working there her after an “accumulating” number of deaths and collapses of babies on the unit.

‘Love was all we needed’ Post-it

Letby said writing ‘love was all we needed’ – a Craig David song lyric – on a Post-it note was “just an outlet” and “a release of sorts” to things that “were in my mind”.

Letby said: “It was very repetitive, very random.

“Things that were in my mind would just come out on paper. There is no structure. It was just a release of sorts.”

‘I don’t know if I killed them’

On another note Letby’s barrister asked her why she wrote: “I don’t know if I killed them, maybe I did, maybe that’s all down to me.”

Letby replied: “That’s how I was feeling at that time.”

Asked why it was crossed out, Letby said: “I would cross out certain things. It was a way of me processing things and dealing with things.”

‘I am evil, I did this’

Among items recovered at her then home in Chester was a Post-it note found in a diary.

Among words written on the note were, in capitals, “I am evil I did this”.

She also wrote: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them. I am a horrible evil person.”

Letby said she wrote the words because she “felt at the time I had done something wrong”, and thought that she was an “awful, evil person” that “had made mistakes and not known”.

Letby felt she “must be responsible in some way” and that her mental health was “poor” when she wrote the notes.

Watch: Nurse accused of killing babies stands trial

How she felt about being accused of murder

Asked how she felt when she first realised in September 2016 she was being blamed for a number of baby deaths, Letby replied: “It was sickening. I just could not believe it. It was devastating. I don’t think you could be accused of anything worse than that.”

She said she was also “devastated” when she was removed from clinical duties in July 2016 and told that her work “competencies” needed to be checked.

Letby said: “It was life-changing, in that moment I was taken away from the support system I had on the unit, I was put in a role I did not enjoy and I had to pretend it was voluntary.”

Letby said her “whole world stopped” and she had “thought of killing myself” because of “what was being inferred”.

Denying harming babies in her care

Letby denied she had ever introduced air intravenously, or forced air down a nasogastric tube.

She also told her barrister she had never overfed a baby or used insulin with the intention of harming them.

Letby added she had also never physically assaulted a baby in her care.

She insisted she wanted to “care” and “help” the babies, adding: “I’m there to help and care, not to hurt.”

How she felt about being arrested

Letby recalled the three times she was arrested by police, on suspicion of murder and attempted murder of babies, the first time in July 2018 at 6am when she was in her pyjamas.

She described her arrests as “traumatising” and “the scariest thing I have ever been through”, and said she had now been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Letby, 33, from Hereford, denies all the allegations. The trial continues.