Police to probe deaths of two more babies at hospital where Letby trained
POLICE are investigating whether Britain’s worst baby killer first struck at another hospital and could face more charges.
They will examine Lucy Letby’s entire career, focusing not only on the Chester hospital where she murdered seven babies and tried to kill six more, but Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where two babies died during her training placement.
She already faces a lifetime behind bars. The investigation widened yesterday as victims’ families criticised a proposed Department of Health inquiry into why hospital managers failed to stop the 33-year-old neonatal nurse’s killing spree despite warnings.
Lawyers for the families, who fear a whitewash, called the inquiry ‘inadequate’ because it will not have the power to compel people to give evidence. ‘This is not good enough,’ they said in a statement. ‘The failings here are very serious and an inquiry needs to have a statutory basis to have real teeth.’
It added that Countess of Chester Hospital had seemingly tried to put its own reputation above child safety.
Since Letby’s ten-month trial ended last week, other parents have come forward expressing concerns about their infants, with one mother claiming that her son died at the Chester hospital in March 2014 – a year before police say Letby’s killing spree began.
Her son was in Letby’s care and she fears this may have been one of the nurse’s first attacks as she began ‘honing her technique’.
In all, police are reviewing the care of around 4,000 babies admitted to hospital while Letby was working. The period covers her spell at Countess of Chester Hospital from January 2012 to the end of 2016, and two work placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
Police emphasised that only those cases deemed medically concerning would be investigated further.
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes said: ‘This does not mean we are investigating all 4,000. It just means that we are committed to a thorough review of every admission from a medical perspective to ensure that nothing is missed throughout her employment.’
A consultant who blew the whistle on Letby urged hospital bosses to apologise for ‘potentially facilitating a mass-murderer’.
Ravi Jayaram, a paediatrician and one of the ‘gang of four’ who raised concerns, said: ‘There are people out there earning six-figure sums of taxpayers’ money, or retired with their gold-plated pensions, who need to stand up in public to explain why they did not want to listen and do the right thing.’ Describing the way warnings to bosses were handled as ‘Kafkaesque’, he added that he was told not to report Letby to police as ‘it would be really bad for the reputation of the trust’.
It has also been reported that in January 2017, after two reviews found no wrongdoing against the nurse, the chief executive of the hospital ordered doctors who raised concerns about her to apologise.
Consultants warned for months that she had been the only medic present when a number of premature babies died. But after one review, Tony Chambers, the chief executive at the time, said he had spent hours talking to Letby and her father and believed she was innocent. Four months later, the police investigation began.
The Department of Health said its inquiry would provide answers to the babies’ parents and ensure lessons were learnt. A chairman has yet to be appointed, and its terms of reference have not been set out.
But City of Chester MP Samantha Dixon said it should be chaired by a judge with the power to compel witnesses to give evidence, adding: ‘I think in a case as grave as this a judge would need to do that.’
Elkan Abrahamson, of the law firm Broudie Jackson Canter, said a statutory public inquiry, which can make witnesses attend, was ‘the best way of reaching the truth’. He said: ‘We know from bitter experience people can lie to non-statutory inquiries without accountability. They can destroy documents. They can refuse to co-operate.’
Nazir Afzal, former chief prosecutor for the North West, called the decision to have a non-statutory inquiry ‘hugely disappointing’, adding: ‘You have to compel people. People need to be held to account.’
‘People need to explain why they did not listen’