Lucy Letby’s ‘best friend’ last night went on to profess that the baby-killing nurse was innocent of killing seven babies and harming six others.
Janet Cox, who worked alongside the 33-year-old in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said she would continue to support Britain’s most prolific child serial killer while his legal team considered an appeal.
Over ten months of testimony, the jury heard how Letby injected youngsters with air and poisoned them with insulin. She was sentenced to 14 life sentences earlier this week.
Ms Cox spoke briefly on the front door of her semi-detached house in Ellesmere Port on the Wirral when approached by MailOnline.
When asked if she still believed in her friend’s innocence, she replied “Yes”, but refused to elaborate.
For most of Letby’s trial, Ms Cox sat next to the killer’s parents, John, 77, and Susan, 63, in the public gallery of Court 7 at Manchester Crown Court.
Janet Cox (left) worked alongside Letby in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital
Jurors heard ten months of evidence linking Letby to the deaths. But despite this, Mrs. Cox struggles to accept her friend’s guilt.
Their seats were on the other side of the courtroom, from where the police and relatives of Letby’s little victims took their places to listen to the overwhelming evidence against her.
This meant they were behind the murder when she testified in her own defense and under cross-examination by Nick Johnson KC.
On those occasions, Letby sat in a seat in the court well, wedged between two female prison guards and surrounded by lever evidence folders.
Ms Cox was with her friends when the jury delivered their first verdicts and then again when they found her guilty of the first of seven murders.
On that occasion, she comforted Ms Letby as she left court sobbing and shouting, “This can’t be fair.”
A man at Ms Cox’s had previously told The Telegraph the pair were “best friends”.
Letby (right, with Cox) maintained his claims of innocence throughout his trial and refused to appear in the dock for his sentencing on Monday.
Ms Cox was with her friends when the jury delivered their first verdicts and then again when they found her guilty of the first of seven murders.
Letby with Mrs. Cok and a group of their friends at a social occasion
As the trial approached, a number of Letby’s friends remained loyal to him, and this support continued even after his conviction.
The nurse maintained her claims of innocence throughout her trial and refused to appear in the dock for sentencing on Monday.
The killer’s attorney, Ben Myers KC, suggested she was an innocent doctor who was “scapegoated” by a so-called “gang of four” pediatricians in the unit.
The directors of the hospital maintained his formal complaint against the “gang” and at one point asked them to issue a written apology.
They repeatedly refused to call the police and only did so towards the end of the year-long Letby killing spree.
Their support for the killer meant she remained on the unit long after pediatricians pushed for her removal.
As a result, the death toll has steadily risen – a fact that will be central to any investigation into the campaign of deliberate killings she carried out “under the eyes” of her colleagues.
Doctors and nurses found themselves desperately trying to save the lives of infants she had cynically and catastrophically sabotaged.
Mrs. Cox is not the only friend, colleague or Letby to support her despite the overwhelming evidence of her guilt.
Police searches revealed a trove of sinister memorabilia Letby hid from his victims – as well as a post-it note that read: ‘I’m mean, I did this’.
Dr Gilby ‘quickly came to the conclusion’ that failure to address complaints about Letby was ‘more likely than not’ to result in the deaths of babies. Lucy Letby is pictured while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital
“There are still a small number of people in the Countess of Chester’s neonatal unit who believe she is innocent,” a source said. The temperature.
“They find it hard to believe she could have done it because for so long they have been told that Letby was blamed by consultants looking for excuses for their own mistakes.”
Longtime friend of Letby’s, Dawn Howe, is among those refusing to accept the jury’s decision that the nurse is a baby killer.
Speaking to the BBC’s Panorama programme, Ms Howe, 33, said: “Unless Lucy turns around and says ‘I’m guilty’ I will never believe she is guilty.
“We know that she could not have done anything of what she is accused of, so we support her without a doubt.
“I grew up with Lucy and nothing I have seen or seen of Lucy would lead me to believe for a moment that she is capable of what she is accused of.”
“It is the most irrelevant accusation that can ever be leveled against Lucy.
“Think of your nicest, sweetest, sweetest friend and think he’s been accused of hurting babies.”
She also accused the police of “trying to build a case, find someone guilty and find someone to blame”, while claiming Letby’s innocence.
Conspirators who believe Letby was wrongly convicted have launched a campaign to free her.
For most of Letby’s trial, Ms Cox sat next to the killer’s parents, John, 77, and Susan, 63, in the public gallery of Court 7 at Manchester Crown Court.
Sarrita Adams, an American scientific consultant who followed the trial, will soon launch a fundraiser aimed at overturning what she called “the biggest miscarriage of justice the UK has ever witnessed”.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Goss said his colleagues at the Countess of Chester Hospital were forced to “think the unthinkable” when they realized Letby was deliberately harming babies.
Police searches of Letby’s home revealed dark memories of his victims: mountains of discharge notes stolen from the hospital, a journal marking the dates of babies’ deaths, a post-it note that read, “I am bad guy, I did that”.
Judge Goss said: ‘I am satisfied that you began keeping these documents after those initial offenses in June 2015 as morbid records of the terrible events surrounding your victims’ collapses and what you did to them.
“Some of your victims were only a day or a few days old. All were extremely vulnerable.
“Such murders and attempted murders committed by a neonatal nurse responsible for caring for them constitute, by their nature and number, crimes of quite exceptional gravity.
“This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable children, knowing that your actions caused great physical suffering and would cause untold mental suffering.
“You showed no remorse. There are no mitigating factors.
