Lucy Letby 'could have accessed baby death reports after removal from neonatal unit'

Lucy Letby could person accessed diligent notes and reports connected babe deaths aft she was taken disconnected a neonatal portion implicit suspicions she was deliberately harming infants, a nationalist enquiry has heard.

Consultants astatine the Countess of Chester Hospital demanded the removal amid mounting concerns astir Letby’s beingness astatine a bid of unexpected and unexplained deaths and collapses of infants successful 2015 and 2016.

Hospital executives bowed to the petition pursuing the deaths of 2 antecedently unchangeable triplet boys connected successive days successful June 2016 arsenic they ordered an autarkic review.

The pursuing period Letby started a caller impermanent clerical relation successful the hospital’s hazard and diligent information office, the Thirlwall Inquiry into events surrounding Letby’s crimes has heard.

Lucy had entree to accusation which she shouldn't person and I wondered whether determination was idiosyncratic connected the neonatal portion who is feeding her accusation but it concerns maine that she knows thing clinically that I don't cognize arsenic the hazard lead

Giving grounds connected Tuesday, 1 of her past bureau colleagues said she believed it was “not appropriate” that Letby was placed there.

Annemarie Lawrence said Letby initially worked successful the complaints section successful an adjoining bureau but she would often travel into their country to marque teas and coffees.

Mrs Lawrence recalled she made a ailment to a nursing brag successful autumn 2016 implicit an incidental successful which Letby knew astir a babe illness earlier she did.

She said: “I was coming into enactment 1 greeting and arsenic I came up the stairs Lucy came retired of her bureau connected the corridor to greet maine and she was precise distressed.

“She astir jumped down my pharynx truly and said ‘there’s been a illness and a babe has been transferred out, does that mean idiosyncratic other is going to beryllium nether probe and I tin spell backmost to work?’

“She bombarded maine with a batch of questions and I didn’t cognize what she was talking astir due to the fact that I wasn’t alert of a illness .. but she knew this accusation and it had not reached me.

“Lucy had entree to accusation which she shouldn’t person and I wondered whether determination was idiosyncratic connected the neonatal portion who is feeding her accusation but it concerns maine that she knows thing clinically that I don’t cognize arsenic the hazard lead.”

Asked if she knew if Letby had entree to diligent notes oregon babe decease reports, she replied: “I deliberation if she wanted to look astatine them she perfectly could have.”

Mrs Lawrence added that “regular conversations” would instrumentality spot on the corridor betwixt Letby and immoderate of her nursing managers astir her “being made a scapegoat for mediocre aesculapian attraction and a deficiency of teamworking”.

Counsel to the enquiry Nicholas de la Poer KC asked: “Were they simply offering a listening receptor oregon were they contributing and making remark themselves astir whether it was true?”

Mrs Lawrence said: “I deliberation astatine the clip that’s what they genuinely believed.”

She said though she was “conflicted” due to the fact that successful May 2016 she had raised concerns with the caput of hazard and diligent safety, Ruth Millward, aft she had seen a illustration which showed the caller deaths connected the portion and the unit members connected work astatine the time.

Letby’s sanction “jumped retired of the page”, she said.

The erstwhile midwife said she considered the anticipation of deliberate harm arsenic she told the inquiry: “It’s not antithetic successful maternity to person a clump of stillbirths if we person for illustration a assemblage acquired infection, but implicit the twelvemonth they would equilibrium out.

“We don’t usually person existent spikes successful stillbirths but due to the fact that I was caller to the neonatalogy satellite and I was caller to risk, it looked truly really evident that determination was a existent anomaly present that needed investigation.

“Ruth Millward said thing on the lines of ‘you request to beryllium truly cautious present Annemarie, you can’t travel successful present and conscionable commencement throwing accusations astir an idiosyncratic caregiver being contiguous for each these deaths’ and ‘you request to person evidence, conscionable due to the fact that she’s contiguous and connected work doesn’t mean determination is simply a link’.”

She said she did not situation the effect due to the fact that she was not experienced capable astatine the clip but she herself again thought of Letby aft the deaths of the triplet boys.

Mrs Lawrence said: “I was moving alongside idiosyncratic who initially I had thought had done immoderate terrible, unspeakable crimes but I felt ashamed for raising them and past I spent immoderate clip reasoning if I had conscionable raised them a small spot louder past perchance I could person prevented the deaths of 2 of those babies, and I didn’t.

“And past I had to enactment alongside her and perceive to conversations that possibly she mightiness person been innocent, and it was truly difficult.”

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 until aboriginal 2025, with findings published by precocious autumn of that year.