Ex-hospital bosses call for inquiry to be suspended

Lawyers for former bosses of the hospital where killer nurse Lucy Letby murdered babies have asked for the public inquiry into the events surrounding her crimes to be suspended.

Inquiry chair Lady Justice Thirlwall said she had received the request from counsel for the management team weeks after a panel of international medical experts blamed the deaths on bad medical care and natural causes.

She said she had previously had similar pleas from Letby’s legal team and Conservative MP David Davis, who has called for a retrial.

Submissions will be heard on the topic later at Liverpool Town Hall, along with the closing statements.

Letby, 35, originally from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders for murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others.

Lady Justice Thirlwall said that lawyers for the former hospital executives – chief executive Tony Chambers, medical director Ian Harvey, director of nursing Alison Kelly and HR director Sue Hodkinson – had also written to the secretary of state for health to seek a suspension of the inquiry.

The findings of a panel of 14 international experts in neonatology and paediatrics were revealed by Letby’s legal team last month.

Chairman of the panel Dr Shoo Lee said the experts had poured over trial transcripts and medical records and they “did not find any murders”.

Those findings have been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates potential miscarriages of justice.

Letby’s legal team hopes the commission will refer her case back to the Court of Appeal.

A crowd of about 50 people gathered outside Liverpool Town Hall before the inquiry resumed, holding signs claiming Letby was innocent.

The Thirlwall Inquiry is hearing closing submissions from core participants after it finished hearing evidence in January.

In his closing speech, Neil Sheldon KC, who represents the Department of Health and Social Care, said lessons from previous cases where health professionals had harmed babies had not been learnt.

In 1991 a nurse, Beverly Allitt, murdered four children at a hospital in Lincolnshire and in 2015 another nurse, Victorino Chua, was jailed for murdering two patients at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport.

Mr Sheldon said “There has been a long standing failure to learn the lesson of past inquiries and investigations and to implement those lessons.

“Recommendation have been made but insufficient action has been taken.

“The tragic events at the Countess of Chester Hospital should not have been allowed to happen in the first place.”

Lady Justice Thirlwall is due to publish her final report this autumn.