Lucy Letby will face a retrial next year on one charge of the attempted murder of a baby girl.
The former nurse, 33, was sentenced in August to jail for life, with a whole life order, after being found guilty of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others at the Countess of Chester hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.
Jurors were unable to reach verdicts on six charges of attempted murder relating to three baby girls and two baby boys. She was cleared of two other charges of attempted murder.
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Today, Manchester crown court heard that the Crown Prosecution Service intends to retry Letby on one of the outstanding charges relating to Baby K, a baby girl born in February 2016.
A provisional trial date of June 10, 2024 was given and it is expected to last between two and three weeks.
Lawyers representing the families whose children’s cases the prosecution did not seek to retry voiced their disappointment.
“We believe that the families of the further alleged victims still have questions that are unanswered, and they deserve to know what happened to their children,” a spokeswoman for Switalskis Solicitors said. She added that the families would now consider civil action against the Countess of Chester.
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Letby, who worked as a neonatal nurse at the trust from 2012 to 2016, appeared in court via a video link from HMP New Hall, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, and spoke only to confirm her name.
Flanked by a prison officer, she sat at a desk with a glass of water and a roll of tissue paper before her and remained impassive. She had earlier refused to appear at her sentencing hearing.
Letby, originally from Hereford, has denied all charges and last month formally lodged an appeal against her conviction at the Court of Appeal.
Judge Justice Goss KC said any new trial should not take place before judges had decided whether to give Letby permission to appeal against the convictions from her first trial.
