Haunted by the ‘Angel of Death’
Sir Trevor Mcdonald traces the story of a killer
Certain stories stay with you for different reasons. Some are moments of historical significance and global importance; some are uplifting, inspirational tales of heroism and courage. Others are so unpredictable and unpalatable they defy explanation; yet stick in the mind for weeks, months; even decades. When I began presenting News at Ten, in the early Nineties, we reported on just such a story. It was the first of its kind, yet – tragically – has failed to remain unique.
It began with the mysterious collapses and deaths of children, some just a few months old, at a hospital in Lincolnshire. It ended in the conviction of 22-year-old nurse Beverley Allitt, as one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers.
It’s a story that appalled the whole country at the time, and has remained with me ever since.
On May 17 1993, the lead story on News at Ten began with these facts: “Guilty of murdering four children. Guilty of three attempted murders. Guilty six times of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.”
Journalists tend to move on once the story is told; we rarely look back. And yet, those verdicts were not the
I went back to the ITN archives to watch the recordings of my bulletins
In pursuit: Sir Trevor Mcdonald is presenting a documentary on the case of serial child killer Beverley Allitt, below end of the story for Allitt’s victims; for those who survived her attacks; for those who worked alongside her; even for the town of Grantham itself, previously best known as the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher.
That is why, 25 years on, I decided to make a documentary, looking again at this awful case. It seemed to defy belief that someone who had trained in a caring profession, who spent their days and nights making children better, should suddenly start to hurt, and even murder child after child.
For the most trusted of people to harm the most innocent and vulnerable was almost unthinkable.
This case was a watershed moment for hospitals in Britain. After Allitt, whose crimes were committed over a period of only 59 days between February and April 1991, they could no longer entirely be considered the sanctuary they once were.
So, 25 years after her conviction, I returned to Grantham and to the story of Beverley Allitt, in an attempt to find out why she did what she did, and to discover the lasting impact of her crimes. What I discovered during the course of filming was both shocking and incredibly sad.
Allitt’s surviving victims have now grown up, and some agreed to talk to me about their experiences, and the effect of her actions. I was also able to speak to the lead detective on the case, to doctors who had worked on the ward alongside her, and to family friends of Allitt, to build a better picture of someone inevitably labelled: the “Angel of Death”.
This programme also took me back to ITN, my “home” for 40 years. I went to the archives to watch the recordings of my bulletins; from the start of the story, the mysterious collapses at Grantham Hospital, through to the sinister and
devastating conclusion. “Nurse Beverley Allitt begins a sentence without end tonight for murdering four children in her care and for injuring nine others.”
Allitt had originally been wellliked on the children’s ward. Doctors found the quietly spoken young nurse helpful, and the parents of her patients adored her. When their children were unexpectedly collapsing at an alarming rate, Nurse Beverley was always there to help, it seemed. One family asked her to become godmother to one of their children. But that adoration had grown – ironically, tragically – because of her evil deeds.
Every time a child fell seriously ill, she seemed to be there to save them. It was discovered later that she had administered doses of insulin, potassium and even air to her victims.
In her home village of Corby Glen, Allitt had been considered pleasant and quiet. She would often volunteer for babysitting jobs. After leaving school she took a course in nursing. However, her ordinary exterior concealed a secret side. Violent episodes and faked injuries suggested an attention-seeking personality.
I did not appreciate how close she came to getting away with her crimes. Stuart Clifton, the nowretired detective in charge of this career-defining case, told me, with meticulous recall, that some of his colleagues laughed off the idea of securing a conviction.
The case could have been shut down but for the fortitude of his team, and a dose of good fortune.
Detective Clifton told me he always had a “sixth sense” about the case. If she had not been caught, how many more children would Beverley Allitt have harmed or killed?
To Grantham I carried with me hours and hours of audio tapes; recordings of Allitt’s police interviews from 1991. They revealed a manipulative, cunning woman who could play a variety of roles. Confident and cocky; defensive and defiant. And, finally, cold and heartless.
Before her first court hearing, charged with multiple counts of murder, Allitt had to be woken in her cell, having apparently had an untroubled night’s sleep.
I played those tapes to the detectives who finally brought her to justice. They told me they had been surprised at how tough she was during questioning. Naively, perhaps, they had assumed she’d confess quickly. How wrong they were.
Some of those she attacked, and the parents of her victims, wanted to hear those tapes, too. Maybe because Allitt never spoke at her trial. Maybe because they still, to this day, search for closure: Michael Davidson, who was attacked as his unsuspecting brother, Mark, sat by his bedside; and David Crampton, whose son Paul’s collapses helped to provide detectives with the first clues that set them on the trail of the killer nurse.
Bradley Gibson was five years old when his heart stopped for more than 30 minutes after Allitt apparently injected him with potassium. When he watched Allitt’s interview, he told me: “She’s trying to get away with it any way she can. To me that screams out almost psychotic.”
The victims I met were troubled by the fact that Allitt remains in a secure hospital, not jail. She is detained, true, and has been diagnosed with psychopathic and personality disorders, but some still feel her punishment does not fit
her crimes. In the programme, we also come across a document that suggested Allitt may have been faking the original symptoms that had her transferred from jail to hospital while on remand. Some experts suggest she should be in prison, rather than Rampton Secure Hospital.
Many of her victims were saddened by her failure to confess all that she did. At trial, she pleaded not guilty. Even though she later admitted nine of the 13 attacks, she would not take responsibility for all of them. In this programme, I was, at least, able to reveal information that gave some families a little more of the closure they craved – a document that shows that she has since, in fact, confessed to all the crimes of which she was convicted.
Most of all, the surviving victims I met were burdened by Allitt’s lack of regret, and the absence of both motive and explanation. It bothered Detective Clifton, too, who in 1993 visited her in Rampton. He wanted to find any degree of remorse in this woman, and to understand why she did what she did. It is the one piece of the jigsaw that even he could not find and that Allitt, who turned 50 this month, keeps hidden still. But as Sir Cecil Clothier QC concluded in his inquiry into the case, it is often impossible to apply reason to such horrors. He wrote: “Civilised society has very little defence against the aimless malice of a deranged mind.”
In retracing my steps, from the studio of News at Ten to the town of Grantham, I discovered many things about a case that has always fascinated me, and about the woman who still casts a shadow over so many lives. Among them, Kayley Asher. She was just 15 months old, and battling a rare medical condition since birth, when she became one of Allitt’s victims.
Even now, she still carries out a regular night-time ritual… looking in her wardrobe and under her bed. She is looking for a real-life monster, the stuff of real-life nightmares.
“In case Nurse Allitt comes back for me,” she told me.
Trevor Mcdonald and the Killer Nurse airs
tomorrow on ITV at 9pm
‘She was trying to get away with it any way she could. To me, that’s almost psychotic’