Serial killer nurse Lucy Letby was sentenced for murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to kill six others while they were in her care. She was arrested following a string of baby deaths at the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016.
According to a report by BBC, Letby will face a retrial on an outstanding charge of attempting to murder a baby girl. The report says that Letby will not face further action on another five counts of attempted murder that a jury at Manchester Crown Court failed to reach verdicts on.
A provisional trial date of June 10, 2024, at the same court was fixed.
Letby attended the hour-long hearing virtually at HMP New Hall in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it was seeking a retrial on one of the outstanding charges - that Letby attempted to murder a baby girl, known as Baby K, in February 2016, BBC reported.
The media outlet reported that the retrial would last up to three weeks.
Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six other infants. The prosecution said Letby attacked her young and often prematurely born victims by either injecting them with air, overfeeding them with milk or poisoning them with insulin.
Following a trial that started in October, a jury at Manchester Crown Court ended more than 110 hours of deliberations in August, AFP reported.
The first babies Letby was accused of attacking were twins. A baby boy, referred to as Child A, was just a day old when he died in early June 2015, while his elder sister survived a murder attempt.
After the death of two triplet brothers within 24 hours of each other in June 2016, Letby was removed from the neonatal unit and placed on clerical duties.
Two years later, in July 2018, she was arrested for the first time. On her third arrest in November 2020, Letby was formally charged and placed in custody.
Letby's motives remain unclear.
During the trial, the prosecution described Letby as a "calculating" woman, who "gaslighted" her colleagues into believing the rise in baby deaths was "just a run of bad luck".
The jury was told that Letby was on shift when each of the babies collapsed. Some of the newborns were attacked just as their parents left their cots.
