Chilling moment Lucy Letby ward nurses huddled round rota as they realised killer could be 'one of them'

Lucy Letby is serving 15 whole-life orders aft she was convicted astatine Manchester Crown Court of murdering 7 infants and attempting to execution 7 others

Nurses connected the ward wherever slayer caregiver Lucy Letby worked were seen huddled astir a computer, checking the rota arsenic they were "thinking the unthinkable", that a workfellow could beryllium responsible, conscionable months into Letby's year-long sidesplitting spree, a nationalist enquiry has heard.

On Wednesday, Dr Rachel Lambie spoke astatine the Thirlwall Inquiry, which is looking into however Letby was capable to perpetrate her crimes astatine the Countess of Chester Hospital. She said she was “shocked” to perceive neonatal nurses were checking rotas to spot if determination was a “common denominator”.

The incidental took spot soon earlier Dr Lambie near her trainee doc placement connected September 1 2015, the enquiry heard. Dr Lambie said: “I was walking done the intensive attraction portion and determination was a huddle of nurses implicit the machine and I asked what they were doing and 1 of the nurses replied they were going done the rota conscionable to marque definite that determination wasn’t idiosyncratic that was connected for each one.

“I can’t callback precisely what she said but it was precise overmuch ‘it’s an atrocious happening to deliberation but we are conscionable looking’. I don’t callback saying thing but I retrieve being rather shocked and reasoning ‘oh, I hold it’s an atrocious happening to think’. I mean it is the unthinkable but that’s what they were discussing.”

Counsel to the enquiry Rachel Langdale KC said: “By September 2015 it sounds similar radical were reasoning the unthinkable, determination whitethorn beryllium a nexus to a person?” Dr Lambie answered: “Yes. So for me, personally, reasoning the unthinkable successful this lawsuit was determination mightiness beryllium a idiosyncratic who is deliberately causing harm.”

Miss Langdale said: “So by their actions you are saying the nurses… were trying to look astatine a rota and seeing who is determination for these circumstantial events?” Dr Lambie said: “It was starting to go portion of their thought processes, yes.”

Miss Langdale went on: “You are wide that determination was treatment astir the unthinkable and looking for idiosyncratic arsenic a communal denominator?” Dr Lambie replied: “Only among the nursing unit successful that peculiar period, I don’t callback a speech among the doctors oregon a proposition it was 1 peculiar idiosyncratic by the clip I near successful 2015.

“Among the doctors determination were established concerns that determination was a bid of events that were unusual, unexpected and superior and they were persisting. At that clip we couldn’t explicate what was happening but determination was afloat appreciation that we needed to look into what was causing these events and this was not thing that could beryllium dismissed.”

She told the enquiry determination were “increasing levels of anxiety” connected the portion pursuing the decease of Child A and the illness of his duplicate sister, Child B, successful June 2015 owed to the “unexpected and akin natures of their collapses and the quality of a antithetic rash”. Dr Lambie said she was besides acrophobic astir a “very, precise antithetic incident” involving different babe that happened up to a fortnight earlier the decease of Child A.

She said: “It was thing I person ne'er experienced earlier oregon since. I was already rather anxious going into Child A and B due to the fact that I had that peculiar antithetic event.” The incidental did not diagnostic successful Letby’s transgression lawsuit but Dr Lambie had made a connection to constabulary astir the matter, the enquiry was told.

Dr Lambie added that arsenic babies became unexpectedly earnestly ill, collapsed oregon died she recalled aesculapian and nursing unit reporting to each different they were “nervous” astatine the commencement of their shifts. She told the inquiry: “I surely retrieve wrong our squad astatine handover it was a regular taxable of conversation.

“I retrieve connected much than 1 juncture astir the heartsinking feeling of ‘oh gosh, what’s going to happening today. There was astir an aerial of anticipation of what’s going to happen.”

Letby, 34, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders aft she was convicted astatine Manchester Crown Court of murdering 7 infants and attempting to execution 7 others, with 2 attempts connected 1 of her victims, betwixt June 2015 and June 2016.

The enquiry is expected to beryllium astatine Liverpool Town Hall until aboriginal adjacent year, with findings published by precocious autumn 2025.