Senior doctor’s claims about Lucy Letby ‘not worthy of belief’ (Picture: SWNS/REX)
A senior doctor’s claim that he caught nurse Lucy Letby ‘doing nothing’ as a baby girl’s oxygen levels dipped is ‘not worthy of belief,’ a jury has been told.
Letby, 33, is accused of attempting to murder the infant by dislodging her breathing tube while she was being treated at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit in February 2016.
The prosecution claimed Letby was interrupted by consultant Dr Ravi Jayaram, who said he walked in to find Letby standing by Child K’s incubator with no alarm sounding.
Dr Jayaram previously told the court he felt ‘extremely uncomfortable’ at the thought of leaving Ms Letby alone with Child K in February 2016.
Dr Ravi Jayaram claims he walked in on Lucy Letby ‘mid-attack’ (Picture: Shutterstock)
‘At this point, in mid-February, we were aware as a team of a number of unexpected and unusual events and we were aware of an association with Lucy Letby,’ he said.
Dr Jayaram told the jury that he went to check on Child K, in the early hours of 17 February 2016, and when he arrived in the nursery he saw Ms Letby ‘standing by the incubator and the ventilator’.
He said he noticed that the infant’s blood oxygen levels were in the 80s and dropping and that Ms Letby was ‘doing nothing’ to respond.
But Ms Letby’s defence barrister Ben Myers KC told the jury that Dr Ravi Jayaram’s evidence about the alleged attack was ‘unbelievable’.
Continuing his defence closing speech at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday, Mr Myers said: ‘The accusation is that Lucy Letby interfered with the tube and interfered with the alarm knowing it would not go off.
‘We say the fact that blame has been directed at Ms Letby by Dr Jayaram, the consultant responsible for (Child K) on that unit, is no mere coincidence – directed long after the time of these events.
‘She doesn’t accept that is anything she ever did.
Ms Letby is accused of murdering seven infants and attempting to kill 10 others (Picture: SWNS)
‘She doesn’t accept she has done anything to harm these children.
‘The allegation relies on the credibility and reliability of Dr Jayaram, as it always has done.
‘We say the most striking feature of this allegation is he did nothing despite what he claimed to the police nearly a year later.
‘That is not worthy of belief, it’s incredible.’
Manchester Crown Court has heard that by this stage Dr Jayaram and head consultant Dr Stephen Brearey had suspicions about Letby’s presence at a number of collapses.
Mr Myers said: ‘If you strip this back to what’s being alleged he would call the police.
‘Dr Jayaram said he didn’t have the training. Well, I don’t know what they teach you at consultant school, but how so many of them were struck silent during the course of these events is amazing.’
The 33-year-old denies all the charges against her (Picture: SWNS)
The barrister also questioned why Dr Jayaram did not act as a ‘whistle-blower in the NHS’.
Mr Myers said: ‘Let people know. You hardly need a policy for that.
‘How about asking Lucy Letby what happened at the very least?
‘Dr Jayaram and others have a duty to look after children in their care and he did nothing.’
The barrister told the jury of eight women and four men that Dr Jayaram initially told police that Child K was sedated at the time and that was the “primary basis” for blaming Letby.
He said it later emerged the sedation took place after the alleged event.
Mr Myers said: ‘Not for the first time we say the prosecution case simply changes shape to keep the allegation in place. They say Lucy Letby tried to cover her tracks by making it look like she (Child K) had a problem by interfering with tubes twice more on the same night shift.
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‘The accusation is unsupportable and makes no sense.
‘If Ms Letby had been caught in the compromising position as alleged she is hardly going to risk doing the same again two more times with Ravi Jayaram and others about.’
Mr Myers said Child K was a ‘very poorly baby’ due to her extreme prematurity and should have instead been treated at a specialist tertiary care unit.
He said she had received ‘suboptimal care’ during her stay at the Countess of Chester.
Letby, from Hereford, denies the murders of seven babies and the attempted murder of 10 others between June 2015 and June 2016.
The trial continues.
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Dr Ravi Jayaram told the court he walked in on Lucy Letby ‘mid-attack’.
