A doctor who treated a baby allegedly attacked by killer nurse Lucy Letby stood by her call not to transfer the infant’s mother to a specialist hospital earlier, a court has heard.

Letby, 34, is accused of deliberately displacing a breathing tube attached to the youngster, known as Child K, within two hours of her birth at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Child K was born “extremely premature” at 2.12am on February 17, 2016 and weighed just 1lb 8oz (692g), a jury at Manchester Crown Court has been told.

On Monday, June 17, jurors were told that plans to move Child K’s mother’s to the nearest available hospital at Preston, Lancashire, were cancelled some 35 hours earlier.

Giving evidence, consultant obstetrician Dr Sara Brigham said: “It was felt she was advancing in labour so was unsuitable to transfer because of the risk that she could deliver in the back of an ambulance.

“Based on the clinical situation at the time it was the right decision not to transfer her at the time.”

Junior prosecutor Simon Driver asked: “Do you stand by your clinical judgment at the time?”

Dr Brigham replied: “I do.”

Ben Myers KC, defending, asked the witness: “With regard to the transfer, that would be something in an ideal world you would have wanted to take place?”

Dr Brigham said: “It would, yes.”

Mr Myers said: “As it happened, hindsight being a wonderful thing, (Child K) was not born for another 35 hours so in fact there would have been time if that decision had not been taken?”

Dr Brigham said: “I don’t think you can say that because she was lying in a bed. The act of transferring to a trolley and into an ambulance may have caused the membranes to rupture.”

The prosecution say the defendant was “caught virtually red-handed” by senior consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram when he entered nursery one on February 17 and saw Letby standing over Child K’s cot “doing nothing” as the baby’s blood oxygen levels dipped.

Senior neo-natal nurse Yvonne Griffiths told the court that such falls, known as desaturations”, were “not uncommon” in newborns.

Mr Myers asked Ms Griffiths why it was necessary to have “almost continual observations” of high-risk babies like Child K.

She said: “Because they are so fragile.”

Mr Myers said: “It’s the case that even when apparently stable you have to watch them to make sure they don’t deteriorate, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Ms Griffiths.

Mr Myers went on: “Because as fragile as they are they can deteriorate and when that happens it can be rapid, is that right?”

“Yes,” repeated Ms Griffiths.

The witness later told Mr Driver any desaturation of a baby of Child K’s gestation needed to be watched closely and rated as “very high on the spectrum of caution”.

Child K was eventually transported to Wirral’s Arrowe Park Hospital later on February 17.

She died there three days later although the prosecution does not allege Letby caused her death.

Letby, of Hereford, denies a single count of attempted murder.

The jury of six men and six women has been told that Letby was convicted at a trial last year of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six other infants at the Countess of Chester between June 2015 and June 2016.

A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children involved in the case.

The trial continues on Tuesday.