Cruel, calculated and sadistic

Absent murderer will be sent judge's words...Nurse will spend the rest of her life in prison...Cops identify 30 more potential cases of harm

- PAUL BYRNE

AT the age of 33, Lucy Letby this morning wakes to the knowledge that she will spend the rest of her life in prison, justice for a "sadistic" campaign of murder and cruelty against newborn babies.

Letby cowered in a cell in the bowels of Manchester crown court as a judge handed down the whole life term for the murders of seven babies and attempted murders of six more.

Her parents, John, 77, and Susan, 63, attended every day of the trial, but also failed to appear at the sentencing.

There are now growing fears that their daughter harmed other children during her time as a neonatal nurse in hospitals in the North West, with suspicions surrounding her treatment of at least 30 more babies.

Although Letby was not in court to hear the sentencing remarks or the harrowing impact statements from her victims' families, she will be given copies, on orders of the judge.

SICKENED

She will learn how the father of two triplet boys she murdered said: "Lucy Letby has destroyed our lives. The anger and hatred I have towards her will never go away. It has destroyed me as a man and as a father."

And she will know how the mother of a twin boy she killed cannot forget how her son was buried in a gown chosen as a gift by his murderer. She said: "I feel sickened by the choice we made. Not a single day passes without distress over this decision.

Letby will also be told how a father whose daughter is severely disabled due to her actions said: "Every day I would sit there and pray. I would pray for God to save her. He did. He saved her, but the Devil found her."

Letby caused unspeakable suffering by injecting babies with air and insulin, by inflicting injuries on their tiny bodies and by overfeeding them.