The Thirlwall inquiry which published yesterday has been variously criticised as being ‘myopic’, ‘too early’ and ‘a mistake’ for pushing on with a report ignoring ‘swirling’ concerns over the safety of her convictions. The 18 month investigation into what happened at the Countess of Chester hospital between 2015 and 2016, while Lucy Letby was working as a nurse in the neonatal unit, found a ‘complete failure to protect babies‘.

Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall who chaired the inquiry found evidence of ‘dysfunctional management and governance, a gulf between hospital leadership and clinicians, and failure to understand the fundamentals of safeguarding’. She explained that her focus was on the questions asked in the terms of reference ‘not on the guilt of Lucy Letby or on her convictions’.  ‘It’s not for me to second guess or to cut across the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which is working on Letby’s application for her case to be referred back to the Court of Appeal,’ she explained.

• You an read about the Lucy Letby case in the latest PROOF magazine including Stephen Phelps on the media, Prof Richard Gill and Dr Svilena Dimitrova on How to become a serial killer (without killing anyone) and an interview with the barrister Mark McDonald representing the former nurse 

But as CNN reported questions were ‘swirling’ about the guilt or not of the former nurse. In an editorial for The Guardian, it was argued that it was now ‘impossible to set aside questions about Letby herself, as Lady Thirlwall sought to do’. ‘The report takes Letby’s guilt, and the risks she posed to newborn babies, as a given.’ However if any of the convictions for murder and attempted murder were to be ruled unsafe, ‘then the whole basis of the report would be undermined’.

‘For that reason alone, ministers should have intervened when Lady Thirlwall decided against a delay. An inquiry that has so far cost more than £18m, and which is calling for significant changes to NHS services upon which millions of people rely, should not have gone ahead until the criminal justice process was exhausted.’
Guardian editorial

Writing for the Daily Telegraph, science editor Sarah Knapton called the inquiry a ‘strange phenomenon’. ‘For the last two years, it has been operating in a parallel universe, myopically ignoring the mounting questions surrounding Lucy Letby’s guilt and the growing evidence of a maternity scandal at the Countess of Chester Hospital,’ she wrote. Both the Telegraph and the Guardian ran sceptical reports questioning the safety of the convictions immediately after the media band was lifted – as reported by the Justice Gap.

Similarly, longtime critic Peter Hitchens writing for the Daily Mail wrote that it was ‘ludicrous’ to have had a two-year, £18m inquiry ‘when it looks increasingly likely there weren’t any murders at all’.

The publication of the report was immediately proceeded by the revelation that two leading experts had  dropped out of Letby’s defence over concerns about the ‘scientific credibility’ of some of its evidence. Helen Shannon, a chemical engineer from the UK, and Geoff Chase, a professor of bioengineering from New Zealand, stood by their original assessment that it was very unlikely two of the babies were poisoned but argued some of the arguments being put forward on her behalf were ‘inconsistent with the available evidence, science and established physiology’.

Lucy Letby’s barrister Mark McDonald said he ‘fundamentally disagreed’ that his case had been undermined by their exit.  He argued that ‘nearly 30 expert reports to the CCRC really undermining the whole safety of the convictions’ – and that was ‘more evidence’ than ‘any other case’ in the CCRC’s history.

‘If she is innocent, as I believe, as 30-odd experts believe, then everything that has gone before the inquiry and every recommendation has operated on the wrong premise,’ he argued.

The Guardian’s investigations correspondent David Conn reflected that there was ‘almost no moment in any of the gruelling inquiry sessions in the long, glittering ballroom of Liverpool town hall’ that ‘engaged with the question looming over the proceedings: whether Cheshire constabulary may have got the case catastrophically wrong’. Writing for the Telegraph, Sarah Knapton argued Thirlwall’s ‘tacit admission’ that the review could go either way seemed ‘at odds’ with her decision to publish her report now when the CCRC ‘may be only a few months away from a finding that could render the whole inquiry meaningless’.

‘Those backing Letby are not cranks. They are renowned scientists and doctors who have stuck their heads above the parapet to question the prosecution’s case, risking professional ridicule and harm. In any other context, their professional opinions would be taken as read and it is inconceivable that the CCRC may not seriously consider their findings.’
Sarah Knapton

The Guardian editorial similalrly argued if any of Letby’s convictions were ruled unsafe ‘then the whole basis of the report would be undermined’. ‘For that reason alone, ministers should have intervened when Lady Thirlwall decided against a delay,’ it continued. ‘An inquiry that has so far cost more than £18m, and which is calling for significant changes to NHS services upon which millions of people rely, should not have gone ahead until the criminal justice process was exhausted.’

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