Nurse Lucy Letby is due to be sentenced later after being found guilty of murdering seven babies, making her the UK’s most prolific child serial killer in modern times.

The 33-year-old was also convicted of trying to kill six other infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

The trial lasted for more than 10 months and is believed to be the longest murder trial in the UK.

She has indicated she will not be in court for the hearing.

Her legal team said she also does not want to follow proceedings via a videolink from prison, the reasons for her non-attendance at Manchester Crown Court have not been disclosed.

Letby – who deliberately injected babies with air, force fed others milk and poisoned two of the infants with insulin between June 2015 and June 2016 – refused to appear in the dock as the latest verdicts were read out on Friday.

They had been delivered over several hearings, but could not be reported until all the verdicts were returned.

Letby, originally of Hereford, broke down in tears as the first guilty verdicts were read out by the jury’s foreman on 8 August after 76 hours of deliberations.

She cried with her head bowed as the second set of guilty verdicts were returned on 11 August.

Families of victims said they will “forever be grateful” to jurors who had to sit through 145 days of “gruelling” evidence.

The defendant was found not guilty of two attempted murder charges and the jury was undecided on further attempted murder charges relating to four babies.

Nicholas Johnson KC, prosecuting, asked the court for 28 days to consider whether a retrial would be sought for the remaining six counts of attempted murder.

During the trial, which started in October, the prosecution labelled Letby as a “calculating and devious” opportunist who “gaslighted” colleagues to cover her “murderous assaults”.

She was convicted following a two-year investigation by Cheshire Police into the alarming and unexplained rise in deaths and near-fatal collapses of premature babies at the hospital.

The government has ordered an independent inquiry into the circumstances behind the baby murders.

Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [email protected]