UK nurse accused of murdering 7 babies in hospital ward and poisoning 2 more with insulin injections

• A nurse at a UK neonatal unit is on trial, accused of deliberately killing seven babies at work.
• Lucy Letby, 32, is also accused of attempting to murder ten others.

A nurse is on trial in the UK, accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder ten more at her neonatal unit.

"A poisoner was at work" at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England, said prosecutor Nick Johnson at a Monday hearing at Manchester Crown Court Monday, the BBC reported.

"We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 children named on the indictment were not normally occurring tragedies," he said, per The Guardian..

"They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock who we say was a constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these children."

Letby has denied the 22 charges against her: seven of murder and 15 charges of attempted murder on ten infants.

Between June 2015 and June 2016, when Letby was working at the hospital, consultants at the hospital noticed a "significant rise" in the number of babies who were dying unexpectedly and in the number of babies with "serious catastrophic collapses," Johnson said, per Yahoo News.

The "common denominator" in the deaths was Letby, Johnson said.

Per the BBC, a police review showed that two of the deaths involved a baby being poisoned with insulin.

The babies' blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels but other medical staff were able to save them, the network reported.

The attacks on babies were carried out with "varying means,", Johnson said, per Yahoo News.

Some were injected with air, while others were allegedly given too much milk or air down their feeding tubes which would have "catastrophic effects" on the newborns, Johnson said, per The Guardian.

One baby was said to be 24 hours old when he died after Letby injected him with air, per the Guardian. Letby is accused of trying to kill his twin sister the next day, The Guardian reported.

Letby is also accused of trying to kill one baby three times, per the BBC.

The trial continues on Tuesday.