Lucy Letby told colleague she 'couldn't wait for her first death'

Lucy Letby told a colleague she ‘couldn’t wait for her first death’ on her first day of work as a nurse, the public inquiry heard today.

She made the comment when she started working at the neo-natal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital after graduating with a degree in children’s nursing from the city’s university, in January 2012.

Nurse ZC, who started at the hospital on the same time as the convicted killer, said she was ‘taken aback’ by the remark.

But she assumed Letby was simply ‘trying to make conversation with someone she didn’t know’ and she didn’t think was ‘alarming’ or that it had been spoken with ‘sinister intent.’

‘She made a comment, something along the lines of, "I can’t wait for my first death to get it out of the way," Nurse ZC said. ‘It took me aback because, even though I was a trained nurse it’s not something I actively wanted to happen.

‘It was said off hand, it was part of a normal conversation and then she moved on.’

Nurse ZC, who can’t be named for legal reasons, also recounted an episode in early 2012 – just weeks after Letby started work and more than three years before she murdered her first victim – when a baby girl collapsed unexpectedly during a nightshift while Letby was on duty.

‘Lucy presented quite animated and she told me everything that had happened with the baby and that she was involved in resuscitation attempts,’ Nurse ZC added. 

‘Again, it was something that took me by surprise. I didn’t feel I would have been as confident in that situation as Lucy.

‘Throughout the whole conversation she was animated, kind of excited to tell me about it. She didn’t seem upset or that it had traumatised her in any way.’

Cheshire police are examining the cases of 4,000 babies Letby looked after during the footprint of her career and their investigation remains ongoing.

Earlier, another nurse, known as Nurse W, also told the inquiry Letby ‘couldn’t wait to tell’ her about the death of a different baby, who she thought could have been Baby E, an infant Letby murdered in August 2015.

She said it was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘unprofessional’ for Letby to break such news in the kitchen of the neo-natal unit, just before she officially started her shift.

‘She couldn’t wait to tell me, it was not easy news to walk into first thing in a morning,’ Nurse W, who had cared for Baby E the day before, added.

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Last week the inquiry heard from another nurse, Melanie Taylor, who also remembered Letby recounting the death of an infant in ‘an excited and gossipy’ manner. Nurse Taylor described Letby’s behaviour as ‘odd and disrespectful.’

Nurse ZC said that, on another occasion, she remembered Letby being ‘overfamiliar’ with the family of another baby she’d cared for while on placement at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Nurse ZC said Letby came back to the Countess and went into detail about discussions she’d had with them and about her experiences which, on reflection, ‘didn’t sit right.’

The inquiry has heard that babies’ breathing tubes became dislodged on 40 per cent of shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. The average is one per cent, Richard Baker KC, a barrister representing the families, said.

Letby, of Hereford, is serving a whole life tariff for the murder of seven babies and attempted murder of seven others between June 2015 and June 2016.

The inquiry, which is expected to sit until January at Liverpool Town Hall, continues.