A series of confessional notes written by neonatal nurse Lucy Letby that prosecutors used to convict her of murdering seven infants, were originally written on the advice of counsellors to help cope with stress, it has been reported.
The notes were a key piece of evidence used in the initial trial to convict her and also in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case have since revealed to The Guardian that the notes were produced after attending counselling sessions to process her “troubling feelings”.
Written on post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, the notes were over-written ins several places, sometimes highlighting certain words in capitals while also making statements such as “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”
The prosecution who sought to bring the serial killer to justice, used the notes to pull together the case against her, and even closed their opening argument by highlighting the phrase: “I am evil I did this”. The CPS then also went on to refer to the notes multiple times throughout the trial.
Yet the same notes also conveyed a different perspective, with several phrases written such as “Not good enough”, “Why me?”, “I haven’t done anything wrong” and “Police investigation slander discrimination victimisation”.
Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies, with a further conviction secured in July
In addition to seemingly referencing the crime, Lucy also made several comments about her family, pets, colleagues and expressed multiple instances of suicidal ideation, with words such as: “Kill myself right now”, “help”, “despair panic fear lost” and “I feel very alone and scared” giving an insight into her mental health at the time.
The letters were presented to the jury as clear admissions of guilt, however they were written after advice from Countess of Chester Hospital’s Occupational Health head, Kathryn de Beger, to help her cope with extreme stress.
Letby’s Chester GP is also said to have advised her to write down thoughts she was struggling to process, according to sources cited by the newspaper.
However, none of this context was given during her eight-month long trial at Manchester Crown Court last year, or cited by her defence lawyers.
Convicted as Britain’s most notorious serial killer of children last year, Letby was found guilty of an eighth murder in July following a retrial, with Police having discovered a cache of notes in her personal diary while searching her Blacon, home.
Alongside these notes, she also wrote numerous diary entries detailing the police investigation into the murders, with detectives reportedly blindsided by the sheer volume of writing about the dead children when she was first arrested in June 2018.
Reflecting on the case in a documentary madly Cheshire constabulary, Det Insp Rob Woods said he believed the notes were a “coded system” of her crimes.
He said: “It gave us a really good steer for the second occasion as to what sort of things we were looking for. So, as an example, something that’s been very useful to the inquiry has been Miss Letby’s diaries.
“They appeared to be and it became clear later that it was almost a code of coloured asterisks and various other things put in a diary that marked significant events.”
Yet, David Wilson, a professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, who specialises in serial killers, said in his view the so-called confession notes were “meaningless”.
Lucy was first arrested in 2018 over the crimes, but only convicted in 2023
“Many people will say things when they are under stress and feeling bereft, that seem to imply one thing but mean nothing at all, other than reflecting the underlying stress.”
“I always thought Letby’s notes were meaningless as evidence. If they were written as part of therapy you can underline that point three times and write it in bold and capital letters,” he added.
Journalling and writing down disturbing thoughts has long been a widely encouraged component of general psychotherapy, and allows patients to take control over their own thoughts and feelings and vent them in a safe manner.
Weighing in on the situation, Richard Curen, the chair of the Forensic Psychotherapy Society also admitted he didn’t think Letby’s letters were related to a confession. “Doodling, journalling is a way of taking control of your thoughts. I don’t think it relates to a confession of any kind,” he said.
Lucy Letby herself also refuted the letters as a confession during her trial, when she explained how she had used them as a tool to help her understand her feelings.
She said she was questioning herself and asking whether she had unintentionally done harm by not knowing enough or not being a good enough nurse, because of what was being said about her by doctors after they speculated a serial killer was present on the ward.
The defence also made reference to them during the trial, when they argued that they expressed: “Anguish not guilt. A young woman who trained hard to be a nurse … who loved what she did, and found she was being blamed for the deaths of the babies she cared for.”
The Countess of Chester Hospital said it could not comment while the inquiry and further investigations were ongoing.