A mother who discovered Lucy Letby looming over her premature daughter’s cot in the early hours of the morning has revealed how she felt “sick to stomach” seeing the killer nurse’s “stare”.
When Letby left that night Vicky Whitfield said medical alarms started sounding and doctors raced to stabilise her child.
Mrs Whitfield and husband Mike, from Chester, revealed the serial killer had been a nurse when their daughter Felicity was born prematurely at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2013.
The couple gave a chilling account of how they raised concerns over their daughter’s treatment five years before Letby was first investigated.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain on ITV this morning Mrs Whitfield recalled the horrific moment when the pair nearly lost their daughter who was born prematurely and then unexpectedly suffered a collapsed lung.
She said when she first saw Letby on the TV years later being investigated it catapulted her back to one night when she found the murderer near her baby.
Mrs Whitfield explained her “mother’s instinct” compelled her to go and check on baby Felicity in the night during her stay at Countess of Chester.
When she found her child, she also discovered Letby watching over her.
She said: “It was around three o’clock in the morning. I just got a mother’s instincts to go downstairs to see her. She was doing fine the days before. She was breathing for herself when she was first born.
“As I was walking towards the cot Lucy was standing over it. There was no smile when she looked up. It was just a really blank look on her face. And then she just walked off. Within seconds all the beepers started going off and all hell broke loose.
“As soon as I saw the image on the TV (of Letby) it was that exact same stare. It just made me sick to the stomach the thought that it could have been her that did something.”
Felicity was moved to Arrowe Park Hospital, Wirral, where the Whitfields were told to prepare for the worst-case scenario and to have her baptised. Thankfully though, Felicity went on to make a full recovery and is now nine years old.
The Whitfields have welcomed the police investigation now widening their review to consider 4,000 other cases following Letby’s conviction. At the time though Mrs Whitfield said they received no answers from the Countess of Chester.
Mr Whitfield said: “When we saw her photo in 2018, we just started to piece the information together.
“But we didn’t like to think back on it because it was such a harrowing experience. We just tried to put it to the back of our mind until it became a topic of news.
“We called for a meeting back in 2014 with the Countess and raised our concerns with them. We were basically told it was one of those things that sometimes happens in premature babies.”
Letby, 33, was given a whole-life order after being convicted of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six more.
