For 10 months, a mountain of clinical evidence has been put before the jury in the trial of Lucy Letby.
But this afternoon the families of her tiny victims were finally given their voice – and it was their emotion that proved most powerful.
The public gallery at Manchester Crown Court was packed – as it has been for the entire 10-month trial – with parents waiting for their moment to tell the killer nurse just how much she has devastated their lives.
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The jury was not required to return to court to see the sentencing, but eight jurors did, taking up the seats they have occupied for the best part of a year, one final time.
Even parents of the four babies who did not receive a verdict for their child were present, in a show of solidarity and defiance.
Pinned on to each of their chests – and on all of the family liaison officers and police who had investigated Letby – was a small badge with 17 blue and pink ribbons. One for each child the prosecution said Letby killed or attacked at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
As expected, Letby refused to leave the cells in a final move of cowardly defiance.
But in the end, it didn’t really matter. This wasn’t her moment – this was theirs.
Some parents addressed the court
Parents cried as they detailed how their children died in their arms or were bathed by the killer nurse. Three chose to address the empty dock themselves. Their voices shook, and one mother had to pause as she detailed losing her much-cherished baby son, but she didn’t stop, her voice stayed strong.
Many blamed themselves – one was too scared to breastfeed her future children, fearing she would kill them – relationships broke down, and their trust in authority was completely severed.
Several of the babies were the result of already difficult journeys with infertility. One couple sought treatment abroad and had planned to return to the European clinic one day to give their daughter a sibling.
Instead, the embryos have been left in storage, the parents so scarred from an interaction with Letby that left their daughter permanently disabled.
Read more on Letby trial:
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Pain of parents was laid bare
Parents passed tissues between them as their shared pain was laid bare. Each baby was unique, each attack and death different, but they all experienced the same pain and cruelty of lives cut short – or irrevocably altered – by someone meant to protect them.
Mitigation was short – Letby’s defence barrister, Ben Myers, could offer up nothing to the judge that may possibly reduce her sentence because she continues to maintain she is innocent.
The prosecution pushed for Letby to receive a whole-life order, (only the third woman alive to receive such a sentence), citing the premeditation of the harrowing campaign of cruelty that targeted the most innocent and the most vulnerable.
And as the judge prepared to sentence Letby, there was no longer the air of anticipation that proceeded all the previous verdicts.
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Instead, there was just a quiet relief of knowing what would happen next.
Parents sobbed and held each other as the judge told the room that Letby would spend the rest of her life in prison.
She received a whole-life order for every offence – 14 in total and will die without ever knowing freedom again.
Some turned to each other and smiled, clasping hands and passing tissues between them.
As a member of the court security – who has escorted Letby in and out of the room daily for the past 10 months – wiped away tears, the only person who was not present to hear her fate was the killer nurse herself.
But today, she was the person who mattered the least.
