Lucy Letby, a nurse accused of killing seven babies and attempting to kill 10 more left a handwritten note that read "I AM EVIL I DID THIS,” a court has heard.

In notes found during a police search of her house, another added: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them. I am a horrible evil person,” the court was told.

32-year-old Letby denies attacking newborn children in a variety of ways, including poisoning, during an alleged killing spree on the neonatal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.

The messages were among other notes which also contained “many protestations of innocence” prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the jury.

After her house on Westbourne Road in Chester was searched, “interesting items” were found, Mr Johnson said.

Paperwork relating to many of the children who died or suffered collapses was found along with Post-it notes with closely written words which included the names of some of her colleagues, the court heard.

“But I want to show you one note in particular,” Mr Johnson told jurors.

Highlighting a yellow Post-it note shown on TV screens to the jury, he focused on some of the words written in ink by Letby.

Mr Johnson said: “She wrote, ‘I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them’, ‘I am a horrible evil person” and in capital letters ‘I am evil I did this.’

Mr Johnson added: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that in a nutshell is your task in this case. Whether or not she did these dreadful things is the decision you will have to make when you have heard all the evidence.”

Jurors also heard Letby sent a sympathy card to the parents of a baby she allegedly murdered at the fourth attempt and was allegedly interrupted in the act of attacking children by unsuspecting parents and medics.

Letby denies all the allegations, the trial continues, follow it live here.