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

27 November 2024, 14:35 | Updated: 27 November 2024, 15:00

Lucy Letby’s father 'threatened' a hospital boss after it emerged the nurse was being investigated, an inquiry has heard.

Tony Chambers, the former chief executive of the Countess of Chester Hospital, told the inquiry that Mr Letby threatened him with “guns to my head” during a meeting about the allegations against his daughter in 2016.

Lucy Letby, widely considered to be Britain’s most prolific killer of children, 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.

Mr Chambers led the trust where Ms Letby’s spree of attacks took place.

Read more: Colleagues of killer nurse Lucy Letby ‘bullied by senior staff’ after raising concerns

"Her father was very angry, he was making threats that would have just made an already difficult situation even worse," Mr Chambers told the Thirlwall Inquiry.

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"He was threatening guns to my head and all sorts of things."

Previously, Mr Chambers apologised to the families of Ms Letby’s victims.

He said: "Right at the outset I just want to offer my heartfelt condolences to the families whose babies are at the heart of this inquiry.

"I can't imagine the impact this has had on your lives and I am truly sorry for the pain that may have been prolonged by any decisions or actions I took in good faith."

The former nurse told the hearing the first he knew of concerns from consultant paediatricians that Letby may be deliberately harming babies was when he met them in late June 2016.

Speaking of the June 2016 meeting, Mr Chambers said: "This was very shocking to hear. I have always felt the concerns they were raising were always based on their honest belief of their concerns as they understood them to be.

"I heard what they had to say. I needed to reflect on what else could be going on here."

Counsel to the inquiry Nicholas de la Poer KC said: "Did you have difficulty accepting that they were speaking there as experts?"

Mr Chambers replied: "Absolutely not at all."

Mr de la Poer asked: "Do you agree that there was a rational basis for them to be suspicious that serious crimes had taken place?"

Mr Chambers said: "Based on what was being presented there I had no reason to believe that there was no rational basis for what they were saying, but what I do know from my experience across the NHS is that we wouldn't jump to criminality as a causal factor. We would want to explore a broader set of answers to those very difficult questions."

Mr de la Poer said: "You know that they had looked at equipment, you know they had looked at clinical matters. They told you they had conducted a number of other investigations to exclude ordinary explanations within the NHS, didn't they?"

Mr Chambers replied: "As you can see in the notes, post-mortems had been completed. There may have been a lack of agreement with the outcomes of those post-mortems but they had been completed, so it wasn't clear."

Mr de la Poer asked: "Neonatal clinical lead Dr Stephen Brearey has given evidence to this inquiry that he formed the impression that you thought the concerns they were were raising was to hide the doctors' failings; was that your view?"

"Absolutely not," said Mr Chambers.

The former trust head said his biggest personal failing was the hospital’s communication with families.

He also accepted that the trust's systems failed and "there were opportunities missed to take earlier steps to identify what was happening".

Mr Chambers said: "I think, as the accountable officer, it's my responsibility for the safety and the delivery of safe care within the hospital, and clearly the processes we had in place weren't being used properly and I must take some responsibility for that.

"But, as a chief executive of a large hospital with over 4,000 staff, you are very much reliant upon your people, the five different layers of governance that exist in the hospital, to do their job."