Lucy Letby's bosses had 'made up their mind' she wasn't killing babies

by · Mail Online

Hospital bosses had 'already made up their mind' that Lucy Letby couldn't be responsible for killing babies before any proper investigation had been carried out, a senior doctor said today.

Dr Murthy Saladi told the public inquiry managers didn't want to call in police because the Countess of Chester Hospital would end up 'in the media spotlight' and mothers would be deterred from having their babies there.

He said he expected senior executives to get the doctors and senior nurses on the neo-natal unit together to 'share information' and 'explore' their concerns about the spike in deaths.

But that didn't happen because managers fixated on it being a 'doctors versus nurses' problem. Instead they insisted on ordering an independent review, rather than going to the police, Dr Saladi said.

'I thought they will gather information, they will get all of us together, all the consultants and the ward manager of the neo-natal unit, and maybe the deputy manager, and share the information as to why they were supporting her (Letby) so strongly,' he said.

Lucy Letby, 34, was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more on the neo-natal unit at the Countess, between June 2015 and June 2016
Letby's crimes took place at the Countess of Chester Hospital where she worked as a nurse

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'I was thinking they (the managers) were looking for information sharing, or at least exploring our concerns. That did not happen and that's when I thought they had already made up their minds.'

By then, in June 2016, there were tensions on the unit between the consultants and senior nurses, including Nurse Eirian Powell, who ran the unit, the Thirlwall Inquiry, which is investigating Letby's crimes, has been told.

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Mrs Powell thought Letby was being unfairly singled out and wrongly 'maligned' by the medics.

They had already demanded Letby be removed from frontline nursing following the deaths of her final two victims, two triplet brothers, known as Baby O and Baby P, who were murdered on consecutive shifts, on June 23 and 24, 2016.

But at a meeting between consultants and managers around a week later, the doctors were told they didn't want to immediately call in the police.

Dr Saladi said: 'I remember senior managers were saying, this is coming across as doctors versus nurses, so that's why we will involve an external body…and if they agree with what you are saying, then we will go to the police.

'I think there was talk of red tape and media vans being all on our grounds…there was some concern that we would be in the media spotlight.'

Letby, 34, is serving a whole life tariff after being convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more, between June 2015 and 2016. The inquiry, sitting at Liverpool Town Hall, is investigating how she got away with killing for so long.

Lucy Letby, 34, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after being convicted of murdering seven babies 
Chair of the inquiry Lady Justice Thirlwall arrives at Liverpool Town Hall on September 9
A general view of the Countess of Chester Hospital, where nurse Lucy Letby used to work

Earlier, chair Lady Justice Thirlwall heard from another consultant, Dr Elizabeth Newby, who said consultants first began talking about Lucy Letby nine months earlier, in October 2015.

She admitted Dr Stephen Brearey, the lead consultant for the unit, questioned her if Letby had been on shift when she was called to resuscitate a premature baby girl, known as Baby I, during a night shift. Letby murdered her around 10 days later.

But Dr Newby said the conversation was more about how 'she (Letby) was always on duty' when events took place and the idea that someone could have been deliberately harming children was 'hard to comprehend.'

Dr Newby said she left the hospital midway through Letby's killing spree, in February 2016, and it was never articulated 'out loud' to her that she could have been deliberately harming babies.

'There was an air of disbelief about it,' she said.

'The only thing we could say at the time was she happened to be on shift, no one had ever seen anything or heard anything.'

The inquiry is expected to sit until January, with it's findings published by late autumn 2025.