Lucy Letby’s boss reveals secret side unseen by jury and why she thinks she’s innocent

The former nurse, who is serving 15 life sentences for murdering seven babies, was described as cold and emotionless in court – but a former colleague says the woman she knows is very different

When Britain’s most prolific child killer Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others, she showed no emotion in the dock.

That she could be so devoid of feelings was taken by many as proof of the 35-year-old’s guilt. But now her former boss has spoken of her relationship with Letby, and revealed a very different person to the woman witnessed in court.

Evidence heard at the Thirlwall Inquiry – which is investigating the circumstances around the murders – suggested that Letby was “cold” and lacking in the expected attributes of a nurse. And judge Justice Goss, who sentenced her to 15th whole life term last July, described the former nurse as “cruel” and “calculated” and told her: “You have no remorse”.

However Karen Rees, the head of nursing at the Countess of Chester hospital before her retirement in March 2018, said she had always believed in Letby’s innocence. The pair became close in the months after Letby was removed from the ward over concerns she was connected to a sharp rise in infant deaths.

In weekly meetings to check on Letby’s wellbeing after she was removed from the ward, Rees described how she “cried in my arms”. Ms Rees told the Sunday Times: “She was crying … very distressed every time we met her, saying: ‘Why is this happening to me?’

“She kept saying to me: ‘I am not going to let them drive me out of the job that I love. I worked hard. I’ve done nothing wrong.’ That’s what she kept repeating to me. It was harrowing.”

She added: “People say she’s not emotional. Trust me, she is emotional. I know that they say psychopaths are clever. But if she was acting she deserves an Oscar because she was so convincing. She was really hurt when she was told about the consultants’ allegations because she thought they were friends, not just colleagues, and she could not understand why they were doing this to her.”

After Letby’s conviction in 2023, Rees issued a statement saying she had “no doubt at all that she was guilty of these despicable crimes, having seen the reports of the evidence” and that she “was deceived, as were so many others”. But she now claims her lawyers advised her to publicly denounce the nurse and says she regrets these words.

Letby was found to have poisoned babies with insulin and injected air into them to cause a fatal air embolism. She has always maintained her innocence, but the court of appeal has twice refused her permission to appeal against her convictions.

Ms Rees’ intervention is the latest boost for Letby. Earlier this month, an international panel of experts said they had found no evidence Letby murdered or harmed any of the babies she was accused of attacking. They claimed instead that they had suffered from a catalogue of “bad medical care” or deteriorated as a result of natural causes.