Jurors in the trial of murder-accused nurse Lucy Letby have been told to approach the case in a “fair, calm, objective and analytical way”.
Letby, 33, is accused of murdering seven babies and trying to murder 10 others during the course of her work on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
The defendant, from Hereford, is said to have seriously harmed and killed the babies in various ways, including by injecting air intravenously and administering air and/or milk into the stomach via nasogastric tubes.
She also allegedly added insulin as a poison to intravenous feeds, interfered with breathing tubes and used force to the abdomen.
Some of the babies, the prosecution say, were subjected to repeated attempts to kill them.
On Thursday, trial judge Mr Justice Goss gave his first set of directions of law to the jury of eight women and four men ahead of the prosecution and defence delivering their closing speeches at Manchester Crown Court from next week.
He told jurors, who were sworn in last October, they should decide the case solely on the evidence placed before them.
He said: “As I said at the very beginning of the trial, you must not approach the case with any pre-conceived views and you must cast out of your decision-making process any response or approach to the case based on emotion or any feelings of sympathy or antipathy you may have.
“It is instinctive for anyone to react with horror to any allegation of deliberately harming, let alone killing a child – the more so a vulnerable premature baby.
“You will naturally feel sympathy for all the parents in this case, particularly those who have lost a child and the harrowing circumstances of their deaths.
“You must, however, judge the case on all the evidence in the case in a fair, calm, objective and analytical way – applying your knowledge of human behaviour, how people act and react, using your common sense and collective good judgment in your assessment of the evidence and the conclusions to be drawn from it.”
Letby denies seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder between June 2015 and June 2016.
