Lucy Letby verdict – latest: Doctors who flagged concerns over killer nurse ‘were ordered to apologise’

Senior doctors who flagged concerns about Lucy Letby were ordered to apologise to her by a boss at the hospital where she murdered seven babies, it has been reported.

Colleagues of Letby warned for months that the nurse had been the only medic present during the sudden collapses and deaths of a number of premature babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

But they were told to apologise in January 2017 after two reviews found no wrongdoing against her, The Guardian reports.

After one of the reviews Tony Chambers, then the hospital’s chief executive, said he had spent hours talking to Letby and her father and believed she was innocent.

Mr Chambers then ordered the consultants to apologise to Letby and said she would return to work on the unit imminently, the paper said. However, she did not return to the neonatal unit and a police investigation began four months later.

A note of medications given to a baby boy as he fought back from the brink of death was among items found under nurse Lucy Letby’s bed.

The record of emergency drugs provided to the infant was written on a paper towel during his 30-minute resuscitation at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.

Letby, 33, gave rescue breaths to the youngster, Child M, after she responded to his cot monitor alarm.

The families of her victims have said they have been left “heartbroken, devastated, angry and feel numb” by her actions.

The inquiry into mass murderer Lucy Letby should be given extra powers if witnesses do not come forward to give evidence, a Conservative MP has said.

Ministers have already launched a probe but it is a non-statutory inquiry, meaning people are not required by law to attend.

Dr Caroline Johnson, a consultant who represents Sleaford and North Hykeham and sits on parliament’s health committee, said she thought the government’s initial decision was the right one but added that extra powers should be given to the inquiry if they were needed.

She told BBC Radio 4 Today: “We need lessons to be learned and answers quickly. I appreciate that people can’t be compelled in the same way but I would hope nevertheless people would still come forward.

“If you have a situation where people don’t come forward – and extra powers are needed by the person who leads the inquiry – then the government will need to look again at the type of inquiry.

“But in the first instance the government’s probably taken the right approach of doing the inquiry quickly.

It is “completely remarkable” that doctors raising concerns about mass murderer Lucy Letby were not listened to, a Conservative MP has said.

Dr Caroline Johnson, a consultant who represents Sleaford and North Hykeham and sits on parliament’s health committee, said bosses at the Countess of Chester hospital where Letby worked had questions to answer.

“When you’ve got seven consultant paediatricians, experts in their field, looking after babies on a neo-natal ward…who are telling you…that these events are unusual…to then say that you’re not going to take action seems completely remarkable to me,” she told BBC Radio 4.

Killer nurse Lucy Letby remained entirely emotionless as the jury returned guilty verdicts in the hospital baby poisoning trial that lasted nine months, but her mother sobbed uncontrollably and wailed at the jury:

The nurse is now the worst serial killer of children in modern UK history, after the likes of the Moors murderers:

A crossbench peer who conducted an inquiry into child protection in 2003 following the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham a year earlier, said the parents of Letby’s victims should be able to meet and question any proposed chair of the inquiry before their appointment.

Lord Bichard also said he was “slightly surprised” ministers had not put the inquiry into the Letby case onto a statutory footing.

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s PM whether the inquiry could have less power as a result, he said: “It doesn’t have to be toothless. You have a huge weight of public opinion behind you if you are chairing an inquiry like this. And that will make it very difficult for someone you want to interview to say no.

“But if you can set up a statutory inquiry, why not set up a statutory inquiry? I don’t know.”

City of Chester MP Samantha Dixon had called for a full, independent and public inquiry into the case.