Lucy Letby demands public inquiry into her horrific crimes is STOPPED as her lawyers say it’s ‘unfair that she’s guilty’
CONVICTED child serial killer Lucy Letby has called for the public inquiry into events surrounding her crimes to be suspended.
On Monday, her solicitors wrote to inquiry chairwoman Lady Justice Thirlwall insisting her final report would be “likely unreliable” unless it was paused pending the outcome of the killer nurse’s battle to prove her innocence.
Letby, 35, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted across two trials at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
Last month an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists, working pro bono for her defence team, said bad medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths attributed to Letby on the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit in 2015 and 2016.
Those findings will be passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hope her case will eventually be referred back to the Court of Appeal after two previous failed bids.
The letter, seen by the PA news agency, warned the final report would “not only be redundant but likely unreliable” if it was not put on hold.
With an estimated £10million spent so far on the inquiry, the letter added it would be in the taxpayer’s interest to wait for the outcome of the CCRC review before publishing the report.
The letter said: “The terms of reference of the inquiry were drafted on the basis that Lucy Letby is guilty and therefore will not consider any evidence which contradicts this.
“If, given the overwhelming evidence that the convictions are unsafe, they are overturned, then any report produced by the inquiry will be based on the wrong premise.
“This error will pollute the very nature of the report and any conclusions or indeed recommendations will be of little value.
“In short, it will defeat the purpose of a public inquiry, to fully and fearlessly understand the circumstances in which the babies died or became unwell.”
Lady Justice Thirlwall said she had also received a request to halt the inquiry on behalf of former hospital executives whose lawyers have also written to the Secretary of State for Health to seek its suspension.
She added a similar plea had been made in writing by Conservative MP David Davis, who has previously described Letby’s convictions as “one of the major injustices of modern times”.
This week, the Thirlwall Inquiry is hearing closing submissions from interested parties after the conclusion of evidence at the hearings which began last September at Liverpool Town Hall.
Lawyers representing the hospital’s senior management team from the relevant period – chief executive Tony Chambers, medical director Ian Harvey, director of nursing Alison Kelly and HR director Sue Hodkinson – will explain their reasons on Tuesday for wanting a pause to the inquiry.
Families of Letby’s victims will then give their views on the subject through their barristers.
On Monday, Andrew Kennedy KC, in his closing submission for the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, dismissed calls for a suspension.
He told the hearing: “We do not believe that a possibility of a referral by the CCRC to the Court Appeal warrants a pause in proceedings.
“Letby’s convictions stand. They have been tested in two unsuccessful appeals.
“A postponement, which would necessarily be of indeterminate length, is not warranted and it would serve to delay the implementations of recommendations which unhappily the evidence in this inquiry have demonstrated are desperately needed.”
Mr Kennedy added that at the start of the inquiry the trust had conceded failings from March 2016 in terms of the immediate response to the concerns about the increase in mortality and the association with Letby.
However he said the trust now accepts the timeframe should be brought forward in light of the evidence to the inquiry which he said suggested concerns among paediatricians had developed to a point that action was required after the death of Child I, a baby girl, in late October 2015.
Mr Kennedy said: “We accept that the correct course of action at the end of October 2015 was for Letby to be excluded from the neonatal unit.
Timeline of horror - how Letby targeted babies
LUCY Letby carried out her horrific crimes in a year-long period at Countess of Chester Hospital.
She used insulin and air to inject newborns while working on the neo-natal ward.
The collapses and deaths of the children were not “naturally-occurring tragedies” and instead the gruesome work of “poisoner” Letby.
Her rampage was finally uncovered after staff grew suspicious of the “significant rise” in the number of babies dying or suffering “catastrophic” collapses.
Letby was found to be the “common denominator” among the horrifying incidents.
Officers then searched her three-bedroom home in Chester and discovered a chilling cache of evidence.
The nurse had scribbled haunting notes in diaries and on Post-It notes, including one that read: “I am evil I did this.”
The note added: “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.
“I am a horrible person.”
A probe into whether Letby harmed any other babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital is ongoing.
A corporate manslaughter investigation is also ongoing, as is now a gross negligence manslaughter one.
“We recognise the significance of this concession to the parents of children who were harmed or killed by Letby after the beginning of November 2015 and I can only say that the trust is profoundly sorry for the failure to intervene sooner.”
This comes as Cheshire Constabulary have been carrying out an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital and last week said the probe had widened to gross negligence manslaughter.
The force said suspects had been identified and notified in connection with the investigation into baby deaths between 2012 and 2016.
Cheshire Constabulary added that the investigation did not impact on Letby’s convictions for murder and attempted murder.
Letby’s barrister Mark McDonald said the expert medical evidence compiled by her defence team “points the finger in a very different direction” from where the police are looking.
A separate police investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neonatal units of the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital during Letby’s time as a nurse between 2012 to 2016 is also ongoing.
The inquiry resumes on Tuesday.