By Michael Holden and Sam Tobin
LONDON (Reuters) -The chair of a public inquiry into the murder of seven newborn babies by British nurse Lucy Letby on Tuesday criticised the “noise” from those who had not attended her trial for casting doubt about her guilt to the distress of her victims’ families.
Letby, 34, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, northern England, making her Britain’s most prolific serial child killer of modern times.
Her case shocked Britain and prompted the government to order an inquiry which started on Tuesday to examine how the killings went undetected, and review the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.
Since her trial last year, Letby’s conviction has come under an increasing spotlight, based on criticism by some experts of medical and statistical evidence presented by the prosecution.
Many media in Britain and abroad have questioned whether she was a victim of a miscarriage of justice. Letby has reportedly hired a new legal team to again challenge the convictions.
Lawyers representing some victims’ families have said the speculation, much of it on social media, has been distressing.
At the inquiry’s start, its chair Kathryn Thirlwall, a senior judge, said there had been “a huge outpouring of comment” questioning Letby’s guilt from people who, as far as she was aware, had not been present at the trial to hear the evidence.
‘DISTRESS’
“All of this noise has caused enormous additional distress to the parents who have already suffered far too much,” Thirlwall said.
She said Britain’s Court of Appeal had examined Letby’s case in detail and had come to a clear result that “the convictions stand”. “It’s time to get on with this inquiry,” she said.
The inquiry will look at the circumstances surrounding the murders and attempted murders committed by Letby, including whether governance contributed to the failure to protect babies.
The lawyer to the inquiry, Rachel Langdale, said it would examine whether the killings should have been prevented and if the nurse should have been removed from her post earlier.
But she said it would not be speculating on Letby’s motive or mindset, commenting that history showed serial killers were “deceptive, manipulative and skilled at hiding in plain sight”.
Prosecutors said Letby injected the infants with insulin or air or force-fed them milk, and a handwritten note found at her home after she was arrested stated: “I AM EVIL I DID THIS”.
She was sentenced to life without parole last year and in July was found guilty of a seventh charge of attempted murder, on which the original jury could not reach a verdict.
Letby has always denied harming any child in her care despite the jury’s verdicts and the rejection of her bid to appeal.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin, Editing by William Maclean)
