Manchester Arena victims slam 'diabolical' Lucy Letby and demand change after she refuses to face justice
22.08.2023 - 11:27
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Families who lost loved ones in the Manchester Arena bombing have joined growing calls for the most serious criminals to be forced to attend sentencing hearings.
They spoke out a day after killer nurse Lucy Letby refused to leave her holding cell at Manchester Crown Court and was allowed to snub her sentencing hearing.
It meant the defendant was not in the dock as gut-wrenching victim personal statements were read out and when the judge, Mr Justice Goss, handed out a whole life term, meaning Letby will never be released from prison for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
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For victims of the Arena bombing in 2017 - in which 22 innocents were killed by suicide bomber Hashem Abedi - it was a familiar story.
In 2020, Abedi's brother and accomplice Hashem also refused to leave his cell when he was handed a minimum 55 year jail sentence at the Old Bailey for helping his sibling prepare for the attack.
Steve Howe, from Royton, whose wife Alison died in the attack aged 45, told the M.E.N. said it was 'diabolical' Letby could snub her sentencing hearing.
He added: "But what do you do? Drag them into court screaming and shouting? Capital punishment would cure it."
"Albert Pierpoint wouldn't think twice," he added, a reference to the hangman who executed up to 400 murderers and other serious criminals before capital punishment was outlawed in the UK in 1969.
Mr Howe said he was 'horrified' at at Letby's crimes and, asked what he thought when he learned she had snubbed her own sentencing hearing, said: "Here we go again. And not only that because she will probably end up in a psychiatric