I will not allow evil to taint the love for my son – victim’s mother

Child C’s mother told Manchester Crown Court how she had stopped wearing her son’s hand and footprint round her neck as Lucy Letby had ‘tainted’ them.

A court sketch of Lucy Letby (centre) listening to the verdicts being read at Manchester Crown Court (Elizabeth Cook/PA) (PA Wire)

The mother of one of Lucy Letby’s “defenceless” victims described how she has resumed wearing mementos of her child, saying “they represent the love that I have for my son and I will not allow evil to taint that”.

Child C’s mother told Manchester Crown Court how she had her son’s hand and footprint made into a pendant after he died in 2015 and she wore this round her neck as it “made me feel closer to him”.

She said: “On July 3 2018, when Lucy Letby was first arrested, these few tangible memories I had of my son felt tainted.

“She took those hand and footprints. I felt so conflicted as to what that meant, so I stopped wearing them.

Now we know as much about (my son's) death as I believe we ever will, I feel able to wear his hand and footprints for the first time in five years

Child C's mother

“I needed to understand what part Lucy Letby had played in the death of my defenceless baby boy.”

The woman told the court in an emotional statement: “Now we know as much about (my son’s) death as I believe we ever will, I feel able to wear his hand and footprints for the first time in five years.

“I know now that they represent the love that I have for my son and I will not allow evil to taint that.”

She said: “They represent justice and the truth.”

Letby was found guilty of murdering Child C by forcing air down a feeding tube and into the baby boy’s stomach.

His mother told Letby in her absence: “To think that you could get any kind of gratification from inflicting pain on (my son) and from watching our suffering in the aftermath goes against everything I believe it is to be human.

“I am horrified that someone so evil exists.

“To you, our son’s life was collateral damage in your persistent desire for drama, attention, praise and sympathy.”

The woman said: “There is no sentence that will ever compare to the excruciating agony we have suffered as a consequence of your murder of our son. But at least now there is no debate – that, in your own words, you killed them on purpose. You are evil. You did this.”

Retelling the horrific story of her son’s death, the mother recalled her joy when Child C was born.

She said: “I understood right there and then the bond and immediate love between a mother and their baby.

“That moment I will never forget. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. The way he smelt, the feel of his fine blonde hair on my chin. My tiny feisty boy, my first-born, my son.”

The woman described the terrible day her son died, telling the court: “The trauma of that night will live with all of us until the day we die – knowing now that his murderer was watching us throughout these traumatic hours is like something out of a horror story.”

She said: “I miss (my son) every day.

“I miss everything that we should have had – first smile, first word, birthdays, Christmases and the physical feeling of that bond. I think about what his voice would have sounded like, what he might have looked like now, who he would have been.”