A couple whose twin sons survived the “evil” Lucy Letby’s attempts to kill them demand a public inquiry into why hospital bosses failed to stop her killing spree.
The parents, whose baby boys were assaulted by the neonatology nurse on the same shift, called for managers at Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire to be ‘held accountable’.
They told the Mail that “several” babies could have lived and their sons would have been saved from mischief had the hospital chiefs listened to doctors’ suspicions and removed her from the ward months earlier.
And they insisted they feel “very, very let down” by the hospital.
When asked if they wanted an independent investigation into Letby’s attacks, the father, an IT worker, said, “Yes, sure. A public inquiry. The management, they need to be held accountable. The doctors expressed their concerns, and they did not act on them, they rejected them. It could have been prevented. It wouldn’t have come to this if they had acted on those initial concerns.”
A couple whose twin sons survived Lucy Letby’s (pictured) ‘evil’ attempts to kill them are demanding a public inquiry into why hospital bosses failed to stop her killing spree
A public inquiry would be the only forum where witnesses – including hospital managers – would be required to attend.
The couple and their children cannot be named for legal reasons, and their sons were known as Baby L and Baby M at trial. Baby L was poisoned with insulin, while his younger brother, Baby M, was injected with air and nearly killed. died. He needed 30 minutes of CPR before “miraculously” coming back to life, but he suffered brain damage.
The father described TV doctor Dr Ravi Jayaram, who regularly appears on BBC’s The One Show and ITV’s This Morning, as a “hero” for saving Baby M’s life. He said hospital bosses should have listened to the pediatrician when he first expressed his concerns.
He said, ‘Why did it take so long? Those are the answers we need. That is, of course, another part of the investigation. We’ll have to wait for the hospital to answer those questions. But it could have been stopped, that’s a fact.
“It could have been stopped by the head of nursing. She refused to take Lucy Letby out of the ward, she didn’t listen to the doctors and so on. She has to take that responsibility. She made that decision. She could have stopped this much sooner.’
The father described TV doctor Dr Ravi Jayaram (pictured), who regularly appears on BBC’s The One Show and ITV’s This Morning, as a ‘hero’ for saving Baby M’s life. should have listened when he first raised concerns
The trial was told that “an association” with Letby being on shift when babies collapsed or died was first made as early as June 2015, after the first three babies were killed. Four months later in October, concerns were again raised with former nursing director Alison Kelly and again in February 2016 with her and medical director Ian Harvey.
But Dr Jayaram told the jury that he and his fellow advisers had been ‘fobbed off’ by management. Babies L and M were attacked two months later, in April 2016, nearly three months before Letby was finally removed from the neonatal unit, on June 30, days after she killed two of the three triplets on consecutive shifts.
“If they (hospital chiefs) had reacted to the initial suspicions, they could certainly have prevented more babies from being attacked,” the father said. It would have prevented several deaths. An investigation could have been launched and she would have disappeared from the unit.’
His wife, a part-time carer, added: “Why did they wait until 2016? As soon as two or three babies died, why wait until so many babies were (duped)? I blame them.’
The pair said the revelation in the trial that another twin boy had been poisoned with insulin by Letby eight months earlier but missed the results of his blood test was “hard to take”.
“They should have investigated that one (the Baby F case) and it would never have reached us,” said the father. “Maybe they stopped it.”
The couple said they were “so happy” and “over the moon” to find out they were having twins. Letby was at the birth of the boys and, although they were small due to being seven weeks premature, the doctors expected them to do well.
Several days later, on April 9, 2016, the couple and family members visited and held the twins in the neonatal ward before returning to the maternity ward, where their mother was recovering from a cesarean section.
“Within 15 minutes a nurse came running up and told you to come back down,” the father said. “I was the first to enter the unit and the image I saw was just horrible. I will never forget that image, it is (etched) in my brain. I saw doctors around the trolley.
And they were just pumping his heart. He was like a rag doll. I was in tears. I just didn’t know what to make of it. We were parents for the first time. We didn’t know what was going on.’ The twins’ mother said that nurse Mary Griffith, who was tending to her sons that day, repeated “I didn’t do nothing, I didn’t do nothing” over and over as medics worked on her son.
“Lucy just stood by it, very calm and cool,” the mother said. “I was just praying to God, (saying) what happened to my child? I have done no wrong to anyone in my life, so why should I suffer? And after 30 minutes he recovered.’
The parents, whose baby boys were assaulted by the neonatology nurse on the same shift, called for managers at Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire to be held ‘responsible’ (File image)
The couple did not suspect Letby at the time, but after Baby M stabilized, they noticed her behavior changed and she seemed to be cooler and more “aggressive” towards them.
“I think she was very annoyed because she failed to kill our babies,” the mother said. “She was very frustrated.” The couple said they were relieved when their sons were fired on May 3, 2016.
But no one at the hospital told them that Baby L’s blood sugar was persistently low the same day Baby M collapsed, so they were doubly shocked when the police told them more than two years later that Letby had tried to kill both boys. “We broke down,” the mother said. ‘We were shocked. We knew about Baby M, but we had no idea about Baby L.
“It was just unbelievable. My legs were shaking, I sat down on the floor and cried.’
The mother said she felt “sick” when she listened to Letby’s lies on the witness stand, claiming that the “calculated and criminally inclined” nurse had taken “everything”, all “joy and happiness” from her family.
The father added, “She means nothing (to me). She’s just a bad person. She couldn’t possibly have gotten away with it for so long.’ He said he had a seizure due to the stress of the process, had trouble sleeping and was on antidepressants.
“I’m not the same person I was before,” he added. ‘It’s been hell. Horrible. Every day it is always there. You always think about it.’
Both said they hope the judge imposes a life sentence, meaning Letby will spend the rest of her life behind bars and never be eligible for parole.
“She tried to take our little babies’ lives, so whatever punishment she gets, it won’t be enough,” the father said. “We hope it will be a lifetime order.”
The pair said their twins were “normal, rambunctious” seven-year-olds, who were “always fighting, playing football and riding their bikes.” But they said they were concerned that Baby M might not hit the same milestones as his brother or peers due to his brain damage.
They both know they were attacked by Letby because their parents didn’t want them to find out from anyone outside the family. “They’re joking about it,” their mother said. “They say, ‘We’ll kick her, we’ll bite her, we’ll pull her hair, mama.’ But they don’t understand it yet.’
She started crying as she added, “I love my kids too much. They are my life. When we heard what Lucy had done to our children, we broke down. We used to be happy.’