Mother of Lucy Letby victim feels ‘very painful’ guilt over lack of postmortem

Lady Justice Thirlwall told Child E’s mother: ‘You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about and you have nothing to blame yourself for.’ Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

The mother of a newborn boy murdered by Lucy Letby has told an inquiry into the crimes of the killer nurse that she carries the “very, very painful” guilt that other babies may have survived if she had agreed to a postmortem examination of her son.

The woman, whose twin boys were attacked by the neonatal nurse, told the Thirlwall inquiry she was informed as she cradled her dead son that a postmortem was unnecessary because his cause of death was known.