Parents: we encountered evil in the guise of a caring nurse

Killer refuses to face court as parents tell of 'trauma that will live with us until we die'

- Josh Halliday

Their words were delivered through tears and trembling hands to a courtroom that, for 10 long months, had choked back the trauma of these horrors. This was the first time the parents of Lucy Letby's victims had been able to express their grief.

The details were harrowing. A triplet boy, now seven, who asks his parents what happened to his two murdered brothers. The mother who, desperate to hold her dying newborn daughter, could only cling to her tiny foot as doctors tried in vain to save her life.

Another parent who allowed Letby to bathe and dress their seven-day-old son in a woollen gown the nurse had chosen for him. The boy's grieving parents buried him in that same gown.

"Not a single day passes without distress over this decision," the boy's mother told the court, adding: "We encountered evil disguised as a caring nurse."

In the packed public gallery, jurors, journalists, police officers and the families leaned on each other and sobbed. The parents, passing a box of tissues between them, had become like one big family, held together by a common unique trauma. They each wore little badges showing a ribbon for each of Letby's victims.

In the dock, where Letby should have sat, two female prison officers sat instead. This was supposed to be Letby's final reckoning but the killer had refused to face up to the victims of her crimes.

She was brought to Manchester crown court from her prison cell at HMP New Hall, near Wakefield, early yesterday morning, as she had been throughout the trial, despite informing the judge that she would not appear in the dock.

Instead, Letby sat in the cells beneath the 1960s building as the judge ordered that she should never be freed. The justice secretary, Alex Chalk, called her non-attendance "an insult" to the families of her victims.