Summary of the day …
Comments on the validity of Lucy Letby’s convictions for murder and attempted murder have created “an enormous amount of stress” for the parents of her victims, Lady Justice Thirlwall has said on the opening day of a public inquiry into events surrounding the deaths
Thirlwall said the inquiry bore her name to avoid the bereaved parents having to repeatedly see the name of the person convicted of killing and harming their infants. “It is not for me to set about reviewing the convictions,” she said, adding “The court of appeal has done that with a very clear result”
Rachel Langdale KC, counsel to the inquiry, has said that the purpose of it is “keeping babies safe in future from a healthcare professional who seeks to harm them”
The inquiry has already heard of what are now considered missed opportunities to have halted Letby, with warnings by a senior consultant dismissed, and a failure to take into account similar near fatal collapses when looking at the pattern of deaths in the neonatal unit
The inquiry was told it was a year between the first mention of maybe involving police and them being contacted over Letby. For months it seemed like the hospital was treating the situation like a HR issue rather than a potential criminal case
Langdale suggested that Letby had utilised the grievance process at the hospital in order to evade scrutiny
Counsel to the inquiry also said it was of “considerable concern” to the inquiry that evidence given to it suggests that a report by Dr Hawdon sent to the senior hospital management may have been altered after it was written, but before it was sent to them
The inquiry at Liverpool town hall will examine events at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit where Letby was a nurse between 2015 and 2016. The 34-year-old, was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted across two trials of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others
It will cover three broad areas: the experiences of the parents of the babies who featured on the criminal indictment that Letby faced, the conduct of those working at the Countess of Chester and how Letby was allowed to repeatedly kill, and the wider NHS culture and governance
The inquiry resumes tomorrow at 10am
Rachel Langdale KC has finished the session for the day by asking a long series of questions that the inquiry will have to consider about the grievance process used by Lucy Letby and the whistleblowing procedures in place in Countess of Chester hospital.
In particular she asks whether undue pressure was applied to consultants who had raised issues about Letby, including the suggestion complaints might in turn be made about them to the GMC. Langdale also asked whether the person running the process – a nurse from a neighbouring trust – was truly independent and empowered to carry out an independent investigation.
She also questioned why so little legal advice was taken during the process, and why the advice that was taken appears to have been commissioned by the HR department on an ad hoc basis rather than by the legal department.
Langdale ended by asking the inquiry whether the evidence in fact reveals what she called an “abject failure” by those investigating the case to engage with the most basic safeguarding requirements and the need to keep babies in the care of the hospital safe.
