BARBARA DAVIES: Lucy Letby’s parents shared loving glances with their daughter in court… So how COULD a child raised by such adoring parents become a serial killer?

Having been a constant presence throughout his ten-month trial, at the final moment of judgment, John and Susan Letby were unable to face the truth about their only child’s heinous crimes.

Like Lucy, who cowered in her cell yesterday and refused to come to Manchester Crown Court to be sentenced, Mr and Mrs Letby have also chosen to stay away.

They weren’t there to hear the heartbreaking statements from the grieving parents of the long-awaited precious babies murdered by their 33-year-old daughter. Or listen to Judge Goss declare that she will now spend the rest of her life behind bars.

But then, from the start of this hideous saga, the couple have been in complete denial about their precious daughter; unable or unwilling to accept that she may have committed the heinous crimes of which she was accused and, above all, never having been afraid to come to her defence.

It was Mr and Mrs Letby who accompanied their daughter to a key meeting with hospital bosses in January 2017, six months after she was removed from the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital following the death of two triplets.

Convinced of her innocence, the couple helped her get a letter of apology from experienced doctors who had raised concerns about their beloved daughter and threatened to report them to the General Medical Council.

As devoted parents, their blind belief in their child is hardly surprising. Letby is only the fourth woman in British criminal history to receive a lifetime tariff but, unlike killers such as Myra Hindley and Rose West, there is no suggestion that she endured a brutal or disadvantaged childhood.

Far from there. Those who know the family say 77-year-old former store manager John and 63-year-old retired accountant Susan adored their daughter. Some might even say too much.

Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents married and shortly after they bought the house they still live in, a 1930s tractor-trailer on a cul-de-sac in Hereford.

Their daughter, neighbors say, has always been a “delight” to her parents. They saw her flourish at Aylestone Comprehensive School and then Hereford Sixth Form College. His first part-time job was as a teenager at WH Smith.

When she became the first member of the family to graduate – with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Chester in 2011 – the couple were so thrilled they placed an advert in the local newspaper. “We are so proud of you after all your hard work,” he said. They did the same when she turned 21, accompanying the birthday notice with a photo of their daughter as an adorable child.

And while they were said to be unhappy with her leaving Hereford to start her new job, they helped Letby buy her first house; a £179,000 three-bedroom tractor-trailer, just a mile from the Countess of Chester’s Hospital, where she lived alone with her two rescue cats, Tigger and Smudge.

During her trial, the emergence of texts that Letby exchanged with colleagues suggested that she sometimes felt smothered by her parents and also guilty of being away from them.

Like Lucy (pictured as a child), who cowered in her cell yesterday and refused to come to Manchester Crown Court to be sentenced, Mr and Mrs Letby have also chosen to stay away

She continued to holiday with them, making the three times a year trips to Torquay that the family had enjoyed since early childhood. She told a doctor, who was moving to New Zealand, that she could never have made such a move as it would “completely devastate” them, adding: “(They) find it difficult enough to be away from me now and it’s only 100 miles.

Another time, she messaged, “My parents are massively worried about anything and everything, hate that I live alone, etc.

“I feel bad because I know it’s really hard for them, especially since I’m an only child, and they’re well-meaning, just a little smothered at times and constantly feeling guilty.”

Ironically, given the nature of Letby’s crimes, the key to understanding her sometimes claustrophobic relationship with her parents may well lie in her own childhood years. One of the killer’s closest friends, who went to school with her and also refuses to accept his classmate’s guilt, told BBC’s Panorama show last week that Letby wanted become a neonatal nurse because she herself had survived a traumatic birth.

If true, this could partly explain why John and Susan Letby tended to be overprotective of their daughter. What effect that might have had on Letby as she entered adulthood is another matter altogether.

A psychologist linked to the case told the Mail Letby he was a ‘hidden narcissist’. Having been at the center of her parents’ universe for so long, she needed the attention she had received since childhood and, once living away from them, needed to find it elsewhere. .

Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents married and shortly after they bought the house they still live in, a 1930s tractor-trailer on a cul-de-sac in Hereford.

Other text messages sent throughout her killing spree reveal how she sought the sympathy and admiration of her colleagues.

After the death of his first victim – Baby A – in June 2015, a fellow nurse sent him a message that read, “Hope you’re doing well, you’ve been brilliant.”

Letby replied, “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do… Just a big shock for all of us.” Difficult to enter tonight and see the parents.

According to Dominic Willmott, a lecturer in criminology at Loughborough University, some of the nurse’s texts suggest she wanted to “gain sympathy” after the babies died. He said last week she may have been driven by a ‘pathological craving for attention and sympathy’.

Another key prosecution argument throughout her trial was that Letby wanted to win the sympathy of a doctor with whom she had become “infatuated.”

It has even been suggested that Letby suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which caregivers may intentionally harm children in order to draw attention to themselves. It is claimed that she was animated after some of the murders, as if reveling in the drama she had created.

John Letby was present when his daughter was first arrested on July 4, 2018.

He had stayed the night after driving her home the night before, after one of the family’s holidays in Torquay, and watched her being led out of the house by police officers.

A psychologist linked to the case told the Mail Letby (pictured younger) he was a ‘hidden narcissist’

In court, Letby was on the verge of tears when she said that after her arrest, her father made her bed.

Her bedroom, as the jury saw in photographs shown in court, was rather childish, full of stuffed toys, fairy lights and a saccharine sign on a wall that read, “Leave sparkles everywhere you go. Go on”. In her kitchen was a “Happy Birthday Mom” ​​note from her cats, sent by her own mother.

Letby was released on bail before being arrested twice, in June 2019 and November 2020, as investigations continued.

On one occasion, when she was arrested at her childhood home, her distraught mother allegedly pleaded with the police: “I did it. Take me instead.

Before their daughter’s trial began last October, the couple, who still run a family radiator business, moved from Hereford, renting a flat near Manchester Crown Court.

They can now choose to move once again, to be near Letby as she begins her life sentence in a prison likely to be far from the family home.

Throughout the trial, the couple were seen exchanging loving glances with their daughter, who often sought to make eye contact with them.

Determined to hear every last piece of evidence against her, they have at times been an irascible presence in court, lambasting reporters for their coverage of the trial and bemoaning its length, which forced them to extend the lease on their rented apartment.

They became a familiar sight during breaks in the proceedings, both smoking cigarettes on the steps of the courthouse.

Letby (pictured in 2007) was released on bail before being arrested on two further occasions, in June 2019 and November 2020, as investigations continued.

Despite all they heard about Letby’s evil actions, the couple’s faith in her proved unshakeable.

Last Friday, when all the verdicts were made public, Ms Letby’s disbelief was on full display in court when she collapsed sobbing in her husband’s arms, at one point shouting: ‘You can’t be serious. It can’t be right.

Their decision to stay away from court yesterday was another clear sign of their continued solidarity with their daughter.

Having to listen day in and day out to the details of the wrong she has done is more than most parents could bear. And yet, it’s still nothing compared to the heartache of those whose innocent premature babies had a chance to live, only to have it snatched away in murderous fashion.

At the heart of this monstrous tale stands a simple question.

How could a child raised by such adoring parents become one of the worst serial child killers in modern British history?

If John and Susan Letby end up accepting their daughter’s guilt, it’s a question they’ll be asking for the rest of their lives.