THERE are five little boys and two little girls who should be, together with their parents, excitedly preparing for the next year at primary school.
But instead of buying uniforms and filling book bags, those parents have spent months in court listening to how nurse Lucy Letby murdered their tiny, precious babies.
The Angel of Death snuffed out their lives after being given the responsibility of caring for them in a neonatal unit between 2015 and 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
They listened as the horrific details about their children’s final moments were discussed by the prosecution as it tried to prove the case against the 33-year-old.
In a sterile room in Manchester Crown Court they heard how those tiny tots were poisoned with insulin and injected with air.
Those brave, devastated parents sat through it for their babies, for justice.
They waited patiently every day during jurors’ deliberations to try to find out what truly had happened.
On Friday they were there for the final verdict — when Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six other infants.
They sobbed, clutched babies’ toys and struggled to hold back tears as Letby became the UK’s most prolific child serial killer in modern times.
But the ONE person who should have been there wasn’t. Letby herself.
Days before, when earlier verdicts were returned, she had sobbed loudly.
And then she had decided she really couldn’t be bothered to face the music any more.
She wasn’t returning.
So she was able to sit in her cosy cell, far away from glaring eyes, while the pain of those parents continued.
What a vile, final insult to her victims.
She isn’t expected to turn up for sentencing next week when she will, no doubt, be handed a whole-life term.
Judges only have the power to make defendants attend court up until the verdict is passed.
After that they have no powers, this is why the Government wants to change the law.
It is disgusting that she can choose not to.
The trial judge said: “The sentencing hearing will take place whether she is present or not.
“The court has no power to force her to attend . . . therefore there is nothing I can do about it.”
She is not the first to pick and choose what pain they can be bothered to endure — despite killing others.
Serial killer Levi Bellfield refused to leave his cell as he was sentenced to life without parole for the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002.
That was more than 20 years ago and nothing’s changed.
In recent months a string of killers have done the same thing.
In April this year Thomas Cashman, the killer of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, refused to be in court as he was sentenced to a minimum of 42 years in prison.
Olivia’s mum Cheryl is campaigning for a change in the law, saying the sentencing hearing was the opportunity for her and the rest of the family to have a voice.
She said: “I wanted to see if he was taking any accountability for it, but I never got that chance. He’s a coward.”
The then Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said he planned to change legislation.
But that still hasn’t happened.
On Friday after the verdicts on Letby were returned, a statement was released saying that the Lord Chancellor — Justice Secretary Alex Chalk — wants “those found guilty to hear society’s condemnation at their sentencing hearing”.
He added: “Defendants can already be ordered by a judge to attend court with those who fail facing up to two years in prison.”
But if you’re going down for life, what’s another two years on top?
Why would you bother doing the right thing if you are such a vile human being you kill children?
Letby should be dragged back there. Kicking and screaming if necessary. It should be part of her punishment.
She should be forced to face those glaring eyes and have people jeering at her. It is what she deserves.
Killers being able to be cowards has to stop.
THERE have been a lot of tributes to Sir Michael Parkinson following his death at 88.
But Sir David Attenborough’s words surely sum up what a wonderfully kind and selfless man he was.
Sir David, 97, said: “He was always generous in the way he framed his questions.
“He wanted you to shine, he wanted his interviewee to shine.”
RIP, Parky.
A DAD has called for Prime Energy to be pulled from supermarket shelves after his eight-year-old son “nearly died” from drinking a can.
It contains nearly double the amount of caffeine as in Red Bull so it’s no surprise Fabian Tusha was so unwell.
I am pleased he is OK.
Prime sounds terrifying. But what is also terrifying is that parents don’t take responsibility for their own stuff-ups.
Surely you should read the label before letting kids guzzle food or drinks you are not sure about.
IN the tiny Yorkshire village where I grew up, going to university wasn’t even discussed.
In a rural hill-farming community back then, a degree was pretty much superfluous to requirements.
So when I flunked my A-levels I never dwelt on it and turned to the media studies course I’d actually passed to try my hand at journalism.
By 20 I was proud to be working for national newspapers.
This week plenty of kids didn’t get their A-level grades either, because the Government has returned to tougher pre-pandemic grading, so their uni dream is over.
But they have plenty to celebrate.
The number of job vacancies that require no degrees has soared by 90 per cent in a year.
And those who start off as apprentices in jobs such as bricklaying are earning £2,500 a week once they’re qualified because of a lack of workers.
On the flip side, three years at uni gives an average debt of £45,000 and there’s such a lack of accommodation that students are living in the grottiest of digs.
And, after years on a career-focused uni course many employers actually prefer someone with five years of industry experience anyway.
So you’ve no guarantee of a job – but you are guaranteed a hell of a lot of debt.
MORE nanny-state decisions.
The Government is to put messages inside cigarette packets telling smokers to give up.
Fag packets already contain health warnings and gruesome photographs of the impacts of smoking on the outside.
Smoking costs the NHS a fortune, but what’s next? “Just Don’t Eat” signs on the door of your favourite takeaway?
For those of us who drink, smoke or shovel kebabs down our necks, we know the risks, and a piece of paper isn’t going to be the thing that actually stops us.
WAGATHA Christie lives on . . .
Coleen Rooney did a chat with Vogue this week speaking out about her libel case with Becky Vardy for the first time.
It was classy and dignified. It was, after all, Vogue.
Becky retaliated on Instagram, using a photo of herself when she was a little girl, with a pigeon on her head.
Not so dignified.
Let’s just stop it now, eh, ladies?
POLICE had forensic evidence that Andrew Malkinson could not possibly have committed a rape crime, four years after he was put behind bars.
Because someone else’s DNA was found.
But as they didn’t have a match, they didn’t do the decent thing and release him.
He spent 17 years in jail, 13 years longer than this innocent man ever needed to.
Ken Macdonald, who ran the Crown Prosecution Service at the time of the conviction, admits Mr Malkinson was the victim of “a perfect storm of injustice”.
Now surely Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Macdonald’s successor at the CPS, should be talking about what happened to this poor man.
His silence is disgusting.
FORMER Manchester United player Paul Pogba has put his mansion back up for rent after Manchester City striker Erling Haaland failed to buy it.
The monthly rental price tag is £27,500.
I bet it’s amazing.
But who on earth, apart from overpaid footballers, obviously, could afford that?
