Lawyers for former senior executives at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England have asked for a halt to the public inquiry into the murders of babies by Lucy Letby, a former nurse, citing new evidence that they said called her guilt into question.
Speaking in front of the inquiry on Tuesday, Kate Blackwell, a lawyer representing those executives, said that new evidence that has emerged in recent months suggested that the babies that died or collapsed unexpectedly in 2015 and 2016 had not been intentionally harmed but had died of other causes.
“There now appears to be a real likelihood that there are alternative explanations for these deaths and unexplained collapses, namely poor clinical management and care and natural causes,” Ms. Blackwell said. To continue the inquiry without considering these alternative explanations, she argued, “defeats the very purpose of any public inquiry which must be to fully and fearlessly understand the circumstances in which these babies came to die.”
Ms. Letby, 35, a former nurse in a neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England, was found guilty in two trials in 2023 and 2024 of the murder and attempted murder of 14 babies in her care. She has always maintained her innocence. After Ms. Letby was found guilty, Britain’s health secretary announced a public inquiry — an official investigation conducted by a judge, with hearings in public — to discover how a serial killer could get away with such crimes for so long.
Crucially, the inquiry was predicated on Ms. Letby’s guilt, even as serious questions began to be raised last year over the validity of her convictions, first in a 13,000-word New Yorker article in May, then by dozens of statisticians and medical experts.
Last month, an independent panel of neonatal experts said that it had found no evidence that Ms. Letby had murdered or attempted to kill any of the infants in her care. Instead, “in all cases death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care,” the head of the panel, Dr. Shoo Lee, told a news conference.
Ms. Letby has exhausted all of her legal appeals in the courts. But last month, a lawyer for Ms. Letby filed a preliminary application to Britain’s Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body that is responsible for investigating claims of miscarriage of justice, and that can refer cases back to the Court of Appeal.
In her request to halt the inquiry on Tuesday, Ms. Blackwell represented the senior management team of the Countess of Chester Hospital, including Ian Harvey, its former medical director; Alison Kelly, the former director of nursing; Antony Chambers, the hospital’s former chief executive; and Susan Hodkinson, its former director of people.
Ms. Blackwell pointed to the report from Dr. Lee’s panel as a reason to pause the inquiry, alongside Ms. Letby’s application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
“This new evidence merits and is therefore being given serious consideration by the C.C.R.C.,” Ms. Blackwell said. “Where there is a real possibility, as appears to be the case here, that Ms. Letby’s convictions may be referred by the C.C.R.C. to the Court of Appeal and there quashed, we submit that the inquiry proceedings must be paused.”
Ms. Blackwell also argued that there had been an “overwhelming likelihood” that recollections contained in witness statements, delivered to the inquiry nearly a decade after the events examined, had been “tainted” by Ms. Letby’s murder convictions.
The inquiry — known as the Thirlwall Inquiry after the senior judge who is leading it, Kathryn Thirlwall — began last autumn. It is scheduled to hear a series of closing arguments this week from the lawyers for the core participants in the proceedings, including the families of children who died or were harmed at the hospital as well as staff and administrators. Justice Thirlwall is expected to prepare a report to be published later this year.
Last week, the Cheshire Constabulary, the police force responsible for the investigation into Ms. Letby, said it was widening its own ongoing inquiry into hospital leaders’ response to the fatalities to include an investigation into potential gross negligence manslaughter.
“This is a separate offense to corporate manslaughter and focuses on the grossly negligent action or inaction of individuals,” the police said in their statement. “It is important to note that this does not impact on the convictions of Lucy Letby for multiple offenses of murder and attempted murder.”
Speaking ahead of the hearings this week, Mark McDonald, the defense lawyer currently representing Ms. Letby, who had filed her appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, said he took issue with the police releasing information about the gross negligence manslaughter investigation.
“Why is it that on the eve of this legal argument taking place that the police issued a press statement saying they are going to investigate?” Mr. McDonald said. “I think it’s an attempt to control the narrative before the legal argument.”
Speaking during Tuesday’s hearing, Peter Skelton, a lawyer representing the families of seven babies who were treated at the hospital, criticized the arguments made by the former executives, calling their position “arrogant, self-serving fantasy.”
“In their evidence and in the submissions made by their counsel to this inquiry, they appear to have lived in and to still be living in an alternate and internally contradictory reality, one where no murders and attempted murders occurred,” he said.
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