Letby Inquiry set to begin

Lady Justice Thirlwall. Credit: Peter Byrne/PA Wire

By Sarah Lowden

The public inquiry set up to examine the events surrounding the crimes of child serial killer nurse Lucy Letby will begin today.

The Thirlwall Inquiry hearings, which will begin on Tuesday at Liverpool Town Hall, will examine how Letby was able to carry out the murders of a number of babies at the Chester hospital’s neonatal unit in 2015 and 2016 and how management handled concerns about her.

It begins amid challenges from a number of doctors, scientists and statisticians over the prosecution's evidence presented in court.

Letby, 34, 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.

Several experts have publicly questioned how certain medical and statistical evidence was presented to the jury in her first trial, which ended in August 2023.

While a letter to government ministers from 24 signatories including neonatal experts and professors of statistics called for a rethink over the terms of the public inquiry and warned that important lessons could be missed from a “failure in understanding and examining alternative, potentially complex causes for the deaths”.