ANGEL OF DEATH
SIR TREVOR MCDONALD recalls the shocking case of killer nurse Beverley Allitt
‘As a detective, you develop a sixth sense – there was something about her
that didn’t add up’
STUART CLIFTON
NEW CRIME
Trevor Mcdonald and the Killer Nurse Wednesday, ITV HD, 9pm
WHEN BEVERLEY ALLITT arrived at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital during the Spring of 1991, the softly spoken 22-year-old struck staff as a cheerful and attentive nurse.
But in the months that followed, doctors at the Lincolnshire hospital were left puzzled when four babies died in mysterious circumstances.
A police investigation revealed that each fatality occurred when Allitt had been left to attend to the children on her own, and detectives started to suspect there was a killer nurse on the loose.
TRAUMATIC FLASHBACKS
In this new ITV documentary, Sir Trevor Mcdonald looks back at the haunting case – which he covered in his first year as anchor of News at Ten – and meets the people whose lives were changed for ever by it.
‘My daughter was injected with air underneath her armpits that made her lungs collapse,’ says Sharon, the adoptive mother of Kayley, who was attacked when she was 15 months old in March 1991. ‘She still has flashbacks of what happened and looks under her bed for Nurse Allitt. She’s been told she’s not there, but she still looks to this day.’
In 1993, Allitt – who was dubbed the ‘Angel of Death’ – was sentenced to 13 life sentences for murdering four children and attacking countless more during the
Spring of 1991.
One of the most distressing cases Mcdonald uncovers is that of
Becky Phillips,
who died at home two days after Allitt gave her an insulin overdose. The nurse befriended the baby’s parents and, in a heartbreaking twist, they had asked her to be godmother to Becky’s twin sister, Katie.
With doctors believing Becky died of cot death, a few days later they brought Katie into the hospital as a precaution, where Allitt attacked her, leaving her permanently brain-damaged.
Allitt then subjected the families of
her victims to the further agony of pleading innocent during her trial, and she has never confessed or given a motive for her terrible crimes.
Yet, in the course of making this documentary, Mcdonald unearths a fascinating document that shows Allitt has indeed confessed to all the crimes of which she was convicted.
SIXTH SENSE
Mcdonald also meets those responsible for catching the evil nurse, and Detective Supt Stuart Clifton reveals that it was a case he will never forget.
‘There was pressure for me to give up the investigation,’ he explains.‘one very senior officer even said to me, “You’re chasing rainbows.” But experienced detectives develop a sixth sense – and there was something about her that didn’t add up.’