Killer nurse Lucy Letby questioned from prison over deaths of more babies at two hospitals

4 December 2024, 00:15

Lucy Letby has been interviewed from prison over the alleged murder of more babies.

The killer nurse was questioned over the deaths and collapses of infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Letby is currently serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others between June 2015 and June 2016.

Following her conviction, Cheshire Police reportedly began a review of every baby she cared for during her time as a nice, around 4,000 in total.

Read more: Lucy Letby's father threatened 'guns to my head' during meeting, says hospital boss

Cheshire Police confirmed on Tuesday: “We can confirm that, following agreement, Lucy Letby has recently been interviewed in prison under caution in relation to the ongoing investigation into baby deaths and non-fatal collapses at the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Moment evil nurse Lucy Letby is arrested by police for the murder of seven babies

“Further updates will follow,” the force told the MailOnline.

Police were unable to confirm when the interview took place, the publication added.

But a source said that if new charges were brought, they wouldn’t be revealed until “well into the New Year.”

Letby took part in the interview voluntarily, the report added.

It comes after it was revealed a doctor had warned in June 2016 that the rise in baby deaths on the ward where Lucy Letby worked was "a Beverley Allitt / Shipman situation."

Harold Shipman, a GP from Greater Manchester, was jailed in 2000 for murdering 15 of his patients. All of the victims were women.

A later inquiry found Shipman killed an estimated 250 people throughout his career in medicine, from 1971 to 1998.

The 'Angel of Death' Allitt was convicted of murdering four infants and attempting to kill three more as a children's nurse in 1991.

In a hospital board meeting on 30 June 2016, Dr Jim McCormack, is recorded as saying: "This is a Beverley Allitt / Shipman situation.”

Sir Duncan Nichol - the former chairman of the Countess of Chester Hospital - has told the Thirlwall Inquiry he does not recall the remark, despite attending the meeting along with hospital executives and other doctors.

The inquiry, which is not a criminal one, is investigating how the hospital handled Letby's case.

Sir Duncan was also asked about a comment in a board meeting a month later in which one of the unit's paediatricians called his suspicions over Letby the “elephant in the room”.

He said he recalled the use of the phrase by Dr Ravi Jayaram but that he was influenced by the paediatrician noting police would need "hard evidence" to begin an investigation.

He added that the hospital's then-medical director Ian Harvey had "drawn our attention to the possibility that multiple factors" lay behind the rise in deaths.

Sir Duncan was also asked about a board meeting in January 2017, in which the then-medical director, Ian Harvey, recommended that the board should be “invited to consider assisting the staff member’s return to work on the neonatal unit”.

Unlike at the previous board meeting, the consultants were not present.

Rachel Langdale KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked: "Do you think as a board it might have been helpful for you to have the consultants’ views of the adequacy of the RCPCH report?"

Sir Duncan: "Yes, I do, absolutely. I regard it as personally a big failure on my part”

In May, Sir Duncan sent a letter to doctors saying he was "deeply sorry" for not intervening sooner.