Lucy Letby trial: Baby girl 'killed by injection of air into her stomach'

A baby girl died after having air injected into her bloodstream, the murder trial of Lucy Letby has heard.

It is alleged Letby, 33, attempted three times to murder the child by administering a fatal dose of air via a feeding tube.

Prosecutors say she succeeded on her fourth attempt.

The child, who prosecutors are calling Child I, died in the early hours of 23 October 2015 at Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.

She had several sudden collapses on 30 September, 13 and 14 October.

During the trial on Thursday jurors heard from retired consultant paediatrician Dr Dewi Evans who gave expert evidence at Manchester Crown Court.

He stated that, in his opinion, Child I had on the first three occasions been injected with air into her stomach via a feeding tube.

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But an "extremely disturbing phenomenon" of Child I’s noted "relentless, loud" crying prior to her final collapse led him to believe a different method was used.

The first collapse, he told the court, was "out of the blue."

Dr Evans said: "She was entirely stable right up to the point of collapse.

"My opinion was that (Child I) had been subjected to an infusion of air. In other words, air had been injected into her stomach.

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"That interferes with your ability to move your diaphragm up and down, and that interferes with your breathing."

He said there was "striking evidence" from an abdominal X-ray which showed "lots of air".

Dr Evans said he came to the same conclusion that Child I had suffered "splintering of the diaphragm" in the early hours of 13 October.

On the following night shift he said her condition deteriorated again "as a result of some kind of event that had interfered with her breathing".

In one report he prepared, Dr Evans wrote this collapse was "also suspicious and suggestive of inappropriate care, most likely due to the perpetrator injecting a large amount of air via the nasogastric tube."

He told the court an X-ray showed an “astonishingly large amount of air” in her stomach.

Dr Evans said Child I was again stable prior to a sudden deterioration shortly before midnight on 22 October.

The court has heard Child I quickly recovered after medical staff gave her breathing support but less than an hour later she deteriorated again.

Nurse Ashleigh Hudson told jurors about Child I’s "relentless" and "very loud" crying from her incubator at just before midnight.

Dr Evans said: "Ashleigh Hudson’s evidence was very moving because nurses and doctors know what a normal cry sounds like.

"Babies will cry if they are hungry, or if you take a blood test because it hurts.

"This was very abnormal. A different kind of a cry. I interpreted it as the cry of a baby in pain and in severe distress.

"That is an extremely disturbing phenomenon. There was no obvious explanation why she was crying relentlessly and it was very loud."

Asked by prosecutor Nick Johnson KC as to what his conclusion was for the cause of the fatal collapse, Dr Evans replied: "I think she was the victim of air being injected into her blood circulation. This probably explains her crying and distress, and the failure of the medical team second time round to save her life."

Letby, originally from Hereford, denies murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at the Countess of Chester’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

The trial continues.