What Lucy Letby did when we thought our baby was dying was 'not normal'

A mum and dad whose baby son nearly died while in the care of Lucy Letby have recalled their unsettling experience with the nurse, revealing that they feel a doctor's decision ultimately saved their son.

The parents, who wish to remain anonymous, welcomed their newborn at Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015. He was born full-term and healthy, however he was later taken away and they were told he needed some help breathing.

Appearing on Channel 4's new documentary Lucy Letby: Murder or Mistake? this evening, the parents spoke about the scary experience as they were taken back to the labour ward and left there, not knowing what was going on.

"We were obviously worried," the dad said. "We were there for a couple of hours or something.."

"It seemed to last forever, didn’t it," the mum said. "Then a nurse came in with the box - I didn’t really see her, I just saw the box and I just burst into tears. I remember saying to her, ‘Oh my god, is he dead?’ And she just laughed, she was just laughing when we thought the worst had happened. And she said no, we just give these boxes out to all the parents of babies who have been really poorly.

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"When she offered to take us to go and see him, Dr Brearey was there and he just explained that he didn’t know what was really the issue. Three times he had been resuscitated - they couldn’t explain why. I was very upset, I was frightened."

The dad said that he was "confused" as it "didn't make any sense".

"Dr Brearey told us he felt that with his condition, our son would be better cared for if he was sent to Liverpool Women’s Hospital," the heartbroken mum continued.

"Personally, I feel like if he’d stayed at Chester, he would have died," the dad added.

The baby's mum continued: "That decision is what saved him, I think. We’ll always be grateful to that doctor, won’t we? Away from Chester, he picked up very quickly and we were sent back home again. It was only when we saw her face in the newspaper later on that we recognised her straight away. The nurse who gave us the box was Lucy Letby."

Ten years later, the parents still have the box that Letby - who is serving a life sentence with a whole life order after being found guilty of seven counts each of murder and attempted murder in 2023 - gave them that day. Among the contents includes a baby hat, a blanket and a notepad.

They are convinced that her actions that day were "not normal", though said that there was no "concrete evidence" to suggest she had anything to do with their son suddenly becoming ill.

While their son recovered, they explained that he sadly began to suffer with "serious issues" from the age of five.

"He is delayed at school by about two years from where he should be, he still can’t write very well and he’s had really bad seizures where they’ve not stopped for 15, 20 minutes. The first one was horrific, wasn’t it," they said. "This weekend he said to me, I wish I was normal, I wish I was normal’... he just wants to be like everyone else."

Opening up about their son's reaction to seeing Letby on TV, they recalled him saying: "That’s the naughty nurse that tried to kill me!"

The subject of the documentary tonight centres around whether a mistake was made in the conviction of Lucy Letby, particularly regarding the validity of the evidence presented by the prosecution.

"Our son is always going to know and she'll always probably be in and out of the news," the mum continued. "And I don't know when he's older how that's going to make him feel or what effect that has on him. But it is one of the biggest cases in the world and people do have a right to know what had happened. There's always going to be two sides to it, isn't there?"

While the dad said he reckons she's "100% guilty", the mum said: "I veer from being guilty to not guilty depending on how I feel that day because I definitely feel something went on at the hospital, but then I find it so hard to believe somebody could actually do something like that. But obviously, we'll never know the whole truth."

*Lucy Letby: Murder or Mistake airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4

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