The 33-year-old, from Hereford, has also been convicted of seven counts of attempted murder on six babies that happened at the neonatal department department of the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. 

Pascale Jones, senior Crown prosecutor with the Complex Casework Unit of CPS Mersey Cheshire, said: "Lucy Letby was entrusted to protect some of the most vulnerable babies. Little did those working alongside her know that there was a murderer in their midst. 

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"She did her utmost to conceal her crimes, by varying the ways in which she repeatedly harmed babies in her care.

"She sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability.

"In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids - or medication like insulin - would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponised her craft to inflict harm, grief and death.

"Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families.

"Parents were exposed to her morbid curiosity and her fake compassion. Too many of them returned home to empty baby rooms. Many surviving children live with permanent consequences of her assaults upon their lives.

"Her attacks were a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her.

"My thoughts are with families of the victims who may never have closure, but who now have answers to questions which had troubled them for years.”