Letby, who is Britain's most prolific child serial killer, refused to leave the court cells as the parents of her newborn victims described the horrifying impact of her crimes.
One bereaved mother called Letby's absence "one final act of wickedness from a coward".
A father, sobbing, said the murder of his two identical triplet sons had torn his family apart, leaving him suicidal and ruining their trust in medical professionals. "It has destroyed me as a man and as a father," he said.
Letby, 33, became only the third woman alive to be handed a wholelife jail term as she was sentenced for murdering seven babies and trying to kill another six. Some of her surviving victims have been left with life-changing disabilities, Manchester crown court was told.
One girl, now seven, is blind and has been diagnosed with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She is nil-by-mouth and requires major spinal surgery.
Her father described how his daughter was born 15 weeks early, weighing 535g (1lb 30z) and given just a 5% chance of survival. He told the court that "God saved her" but then "the devil found her".
The judge, James Goss KC, described Letby's crimes as a "cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children".
This story is from the August 22, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the August 22, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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