ALARMS sounded at a baby’s cot shortly after nurse Lucy Letby left the room, her murder trial has heard.

Letby, 33, is alleged to have attacked the infant – allegedly her 17th and final victim – by injecting air into his stomach.

Nursing staff, including Letby, and doctors rushed into nursery two at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit to attend to the baby boy, who went on to recover from the incident just after 9am on June 25, 2016.

The Crown alleges that Letby had attempted to murder the youngster, Child Q, and that it was the culmination of a three-day attack spree in which she murdered two triplet brothers on the previous two days.

Giving evidence at Manchester Crown Court on Monday, April 3, during the 23rd week of the trial before a jury, nurse Mary Griffith said Letby had asked if she could keep an eye on Child Q while she went to check on another baby in a different nursery.

Mrs Griffith said she had started feeding the baby in her care when she heard an alarm go off at Child Q’s incubator.

She told the court: “I looked over my shoulder and I noticed his saturations had dropped.”

She said she called for help from nursing shift leader Minna Lappalainen, who was at the nursing desk station opposite.

Mrs Griffith said the passage of time between Letby leaving and the alarm sounding was “minutes” but she could not say exactly how many.

Asked what she saw when she was first to arrive at the incubator, Ms Lappalainen said: “He had been sick. I turned him on his side and made sure his airway was alright.”

She had noted clear mucous coming from the baby’s mouth and nose which was suctioned clean.

Asked why she recorded “clear fluid +++”, she said: “The clear fluid means the mucous I’m cleaning. There is no feed in it, no milk in it. It’s like saliva.”

A face mask was then used on Child Q to help pick up his blood oxygen levels, the court heard, and an emergency call was put out for a registrar to attend.

Ms Lappalainen also recorded Child Q’s nasogastric tube was used to aspirate his stomach by “Nurse L Letby”.

The court heard the defendant made a separate note of “air++ aspirated from tube”.

Ms Lappalainen said, according to her notes, Child Q recovered from the episode – which lasted three minutes “intermittently”.

She said she was not aware of any further incident on the day shift involving Child Q.

The court heard Child Q was moved to intensive care nursery one after the incident and Ms Lappalainen took over the care of Letby’s second designated baby.

Nick Johnson KC pointed out an unsigned observation chart entry for this baby was made at 8.30am.

He asked Ms Lappalainen: “If this child had observations at 8.30am, would you expect the child to be observed at 9am?”

The witness replied: “Not necessarily if the patient is stable.”

Ms Lappalainen agreed with Ben Myers KC, defending, that Child Q stabilised “relatively quickly”.

Mr Myers said: “And the doctors were called because this was an appropriate thing to do?”

“Yes,” said the witness.

Mr Myers went on: “It was not the type of incident where you were overly concerned.”

Ms Lappalainen said: “I was not overly concerned but I wanted him to be checked out.”

She said it was “perfectly acceptable” for nurses to ask a colleague to keep an eye on a baby if they had to leave a nursery.

Letby, originally from Hereford, denies the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others between June 2015 and June 2016.

The trial continues on Tuesday, April 4.