LONDON (AFP) – A public inquiry examining the wider circumstances around the case of Lucy Letby, the most prolific child serial killer in modern British history, will hold its first public hearings Tuesday.
Letby was convicted of murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to kill seven others at the hospital neo-natal unit where she worked, following two criminal trials in 2023 and earlier this year.
The 34-year-old former nurse is serving a whole-life sentence for the killings, which took place at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between 2015 and 2016, and was earlier this year refused an appeal bid.
The start of the independent inquiry – chaired by senior appeal court judge Kate Thirlwall – comes amid heightened scrutiny of the convictions and Letby’s new lawyer revealing that she was planning a fresh appeal.
Armed with powers to compel evidence, Thirlwall will also probe the wider circumstances around the case, including the response and conduct of the National Health Service (NHS), its staff and its regulators.
To be held at Liverpool Town Hall and not livestreamed, its key objectives are “to seek answers for the victims’ families and ensure lessons are learned”.
It follows a growing number of experts raising concerns about aspects of Letby’s trials, claiming that vital evidence may have been misinterpreted.
Speculation about her guilt and possible future appeals has been “upsetting” for the families of victims, a lawyer representing them told the BBC on Monday.
Tamlin Bolton, who acts on behalf of the families of six victims, also said her clients were “full of hope but an awful lot of anxiety” before the inquiry.
Vulnerable victims
Letby, from Hereford, western England, was arrested and then charged in 2020 following a string of baby deaths at the Countess of Chester’s neo-natal unit.
The prosecution at her first trial said she attacked her vulnerable prematurely-born victims, often during night shifts, by either injecting them with air, overfeeding them with milk or poisoning them with insulin.
The UK government said in October 2023 that there would be a public inquiry to examine events at the state-run hospital, two months after Letby’s first convictions.
Proceedings will kick off at 0900 GMT on Tuesday, with opening statements from lawyers for the inquiry and from legal representatives of so-called core participants.
They comprise people, institutions or organisations with a specific interest in the probe.
Hearings are expected to continue until at least the end of the year, with Thirlwall eventually compiling a report of her findings and recommendations, which may be released in phases or as a single document.
She cannot make any findings of civil or criminal liability.
