Lucy Letby: Killer nurse told a colleague on her first day that ‘I cannot wait for my first death’

Lucy Letby told a colleague she ‘couldn’t wait for her first death’ on her first day of work as a nurse, the public inquiry has heard.

She commented when she started at the neo-natal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in January 2012.

Nurse ZC, who started at the same time as the convicted killer, said she was “taken aback”.

But she assumed Letby was simply “trying to make conversation” and didn’t think it had been spoken with “sinister intent”.

“She made a comment, something along the lines of, “I can’t wait for my first death to get it out of the way,” ’ Nurse ZC said.

“Even though I was a trained nurse it’s not something I actively wanted to happen.”

The nurse, who can’t be named for legal reasons, also recounted an episode just weeks after Letby started working at the hospital when a baby girl collapsed unexpectedly during one of Letby’s night shifts.

“She was animated, kind of excited to tell me about it. She didn’t seem upset or traumatised in any way,” added Nurse ZC.

Cheshire police are examining the cases of 4,000 babies Letby looked after during her time as a neo-natal nurse and their investigation remains ongoing.

Another nurse also recalled that Letby ‘couldn’t wait to tell’ her about the death of a different baby – thought to have been Baby E, an infant Letby murdered in August 2015.

And last week, nurse Melanie Taylor told the inquiry that she remembered Letby recounting the death of an infant in ‘an excited and gossipy’ manner.

The inquiry has also heard that babies’ breathing tubes became dislodged on 40 per cent of shifts Letby worked while on placement at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

The average is one per cent, Richard Baker KC, a barrister representing the families, said.

Letby, of Hereford, is serving a whole-life tariff for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others between June 2015 and June 2016.

The inquiry, which is expected to sit until January at Liverpool Town Hall, continues.