Lucy Letby studied serial killer Beverley Allitt as part of university training

Lucy Letby studied fellow child serial killer Beverley Allitt as part of her nursing training at the University of Chester. The Thirlwall Inquiry, an inquiry into how Letby was able to attack and murder babies on the Countess of Chester hospital's neonatal ward in 2015 and 2016, opened today, Tuesday, September 10 with a statement which referenced nurse Allitt, who attacked children at the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, in Lincolnshire, in 1991, and killer GP Harold Shipman.

Letby, 34 and from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims. Letby has also had her application to appeal against her conviction denied by the Court of Appeal.

In her opening statement at Liverpool Town Hall, counsel to the inquiry Rachel Langdale KC said the Clothier Inquiry had been carried out following the crimes of Allitt, who was convicted of four counts of murder, three of attempted murder, and a further six of grievous bodily harm on children.

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She said: "Nevertheless, and distressingly, 25 years later another nurse working in another hospital killed and harmed babies in her care." Ms Langdale said the inquiry would hear from a senior lecturer in the child nursing programme at the University of Chester, where Letby qualified in 2011, who said the case of Allitt formed part of student training and learning.

Ms Langdale told the inquiry: “For ordinary, decent, right-thinking people, the actions of Letby will remain unfathomable. We will not be inviting speculation from witnesses about her motive or mindset.

"We will be examining why detailed, rigorous, medical analysis of sudden collapses did not take place earlier, and why attacks on babies were able to continue at the hospital for a year. We will be questioning whether any bias in favour of Letby, conscious or otherwise, influenced the hospital’s response.”

She also reminded the inquiry that in 2005, Dame Janet Smith, who chaired the Shipman Inquiry that looked in detail at serial killer Shipman, ultimately could “shed very little light on why Shipman killed his patients. Ms Langdale said: “We emphasise this - history tells us that serial killers are deceptive, manipulative and skilled at hiding in plain sight.”

Ms Langdale said some of the key questions the inquiry will ask will be what they parents were and were not told about the likely causes of death or injury of their babies; what information they were given by the hospital in respect of any concerns about Letby’s conduct; was the hospital candid with parents; and was there a cover up?

The senior barrister added: “It is important that we stress at this early stage that the inquiry’s unwavering focus will not be examining the convictions, but rather what the response of those at the time was and should have been to what they knew or should have known at the time.”

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Chairwoman Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall said the inquiry would not examine Letby’s convictions, saying an “outpouring of comment” on their validity had “caused enormous additional distress to the parents”. Instead the inquiry will look into the experiences of the parents of the babies, the conduct of others working at the hospital and the culture and management of the wider NHS.

Letby protested to the court: “I’m innocent”, as she was led from the dock when she was sentenced in July to her 15th whole-life order after a jury convicted her at retrial of the attempted murder of a baby girl. In May, she lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions from the first trial which took place between October 2022 and August 2023.

Lady Justice Thirlwall said that judgment gave “finality” to the parents, but it was “not to be”. She said: “In the months since the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment, there has been a huge outpouring of comment from a variety of quarters on the validity of the convictions.

"As far as I am aware it has come entirely from people who were not at the trial. Parts of the evidence have been selected and criticised, as has the conduct of the defence at trial, about which those defence lawyers can say nothing. All of this noise has caused enormous additional distress to the parents who have already suffered far too much. It is not for me to set about reviewing the convictions. The Court of Appeal has done that with a very clear result.”

The first week of the inquiry will hear opening statements from the counsel to the inquiry, along with legal representatives from core participants including the families of Letby’s victims. Lady Justice Thirlwall said it was planned that the hearings in Liverpool would finish in early 2025 and she expected her findings to be published by late autumn of that year. A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children involved in the case.