'Lucy Letby cried in my arms on a weekly basis, if she's guilty she deserves an Oscar'

An ex-boss at the hospital where Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering and injuring babies has said she believes the neonatal nurse is innocent.

Karen Rees, a now-retired head of nursing at Countess of Chester Hospital, has described 'shocking' meetings with Letby who she said 'cried in my arms on a weekly basis.' Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted across two trials at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.

She lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal – in May for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl, which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.

Ms Rees, now 62, met Letby for the first time in the summer of 2016 when she had to tell the nurse she was being removed from the neonatal ward after concerns about her 'clinical practice' according to The Sunday Times. “What I saw was a very frightened young woman who was shocked and bewildered” she said.

Over the next two years, Ms Rees met with Letby regularly and developed a close relationship with the nurse. At her first meeting with her, the retired head of nursing claimed she was shocked and sympathetic to see the broken woman before her, but that she had a job to do.

She reportedly told Letby: “I’ve been given a management instruction that I have to remove you from your clinical practice. This is a neutral act. It’s to protect you as well as the babies. But until this is investigated, you’re going to do a non-clinical role.”

As the investigation continued, Ms Rees said she was given a