Doctor reveals 'regret' over babies murdered by Letby

A senior consultant who worked at the hospital where Lucy Letby murdered babies today said he is 'ashamed' that he failed to protect them.

Dr John Gibbs, a paediatrician who retired from the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2019 after a 36-year career in medicine, told the public inquiry into the serial killer's crimes that he and his colleagues were guilty of 'dithering' and should have called in police sooner.

He said he was 'at fault' and 'deeply regretted' what had happened. But parents now needed answers not 'belated apologies,' Dr Gibbs added.

'I do deeply regret and I'm ashamed that I failed to protect the babies from harm by Letby, but I do understand that the parents concerned probably now would prefer explanations rather than belated apologies,' he said.

Letby, 34, was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more on the neo-natal unit at the Countess, between June 2015 and June 2016.

Podcast All episodes

• PODCAST The Trial of Lucy Letby: The Inquiry: lies & cover-ups

• NEW SERIES: The Trial of Lucy Letby -The Inquiry is out now

• PODCAST: The Trial of Lucy Letby is back to address the doubters!

• LISTEN: The heart wrenching words of Baby K's mum at the Letby trial

• PODCAST: Letby found guilty again, listen to reactions to the verdict

Dr Gibbs said that, by late 2015 or early 2016 he and his colleagues had suspicions that Letby could be harming patients on the neo-natal unit, although they were by no means certain.

He said he was worried Letby volunteered to do extra shifts, so worked more than her colleagues, and her association was simply a coincidence.

Read More

Senior managers in the NHS should be independently regulated, Lucy Letby inquiry hears

But by April 2016, doctors' suspicions about Letby had begun to coalesce, Dr Gibbs said. 

Medics had identified that six of the babies who died in the preceding 12 months had all collapsed between 9pm and 4am and the decision was taken to take Letby off night shifts.

But he said there was 'very strong push back' from senior nurses running the unit who were insistent that doctors were utterly wrong about 'maligning' Letby, who they viewed as a 'very competent staff nurse.'

Nicholas de la Poer, counsel to the inquiry, asked Dr Gibbs: 'If your suspicion was right then Letby might pose a very serious danger?'

Dr Gibbs replied: 'Yes.'

The barrister added: 'And if that's your reasoning at the time, doesn't that risk require immediate action?'

Dr Gibbs said: 'Yes, it should have done. But perhaps we were influenced by the conviction that we were wrong from the nursing side.

'I regret that we, or I, didn't go to the police after this time.'

Dr Gibbs added: 'We should have involved the police earlier some time in 2016. I feel I was at fault for not involving the police earlier.'

He said the fact that no-one had seen Letby causing harm, combined with the fact that the post-mortems carried out on the babies had failed to uncover any foul play, also 'contributed to me dithering at that time.'

Read More

Key expert in Lucy Letby trial gave 25 further suspicious incidents to police

He said managers knew they would need to handle calling in the police carefully, so as not to cause 'panic and unnecessary alarm,' by setting up proper communication channels and helplines to reassure parents of children who had been cared for on the unit.

But Dr Gibbs admitted now it had been a mistake to wait for executives to act.

'Was I wrong to wait for that to happen the way things turned out – yes,' he added.

Letby was convicted of trying to murder four babies and murdering two triplet brothers in 2016 before she was moved off the unit in July that year.

In a statement to inquiry Dr Gibbs admitted that the failure to spot the 'significance' of high insulin levels in blood tests of two of the babies, taken eight months apart, in August 2015 and April 2016, was a 'serious collective failure' of medics on the unit.

He said this should have raised immediate concerns about possible deliberate harm or accidental administration of the drug, but junior medics who saw the results didn't understand their importance.

Dr Gibbs said that – although he had suspicions about Letby and knew about harm inflicted by killer nurses Beverley Allitt and Victorino Chua, who both poisoned patients with insulin - it didn't occur to him to look back over any babies notes to assess blood test results. 

He said he personally was unaware of them until more than two years later once Cheshire police had begun investigating.

Dr Gibbs said it wasn't until after the deaths of Letby's final two victims, triplet brothers, Baby O and Baby P, at the end of June 2016, that doctors realised air embolus – the injection of air into the bloodstream – could be to blame.

Read More

NHS is not set up to catch 'bad apples' due to 'no blame' culture, expert tells Lucy Letby inquiry

Dr Gibbs said it was a 'devious and subtle way of trying to harm patients which leaves nothing behind for a post-mortem to find.'

Soon afterwards, Letby was moved into an admin role at the hospital and Dr Gibbs said consultants were reassured when the senior managers ordered a review by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and a case review of each child death by neonatologist Dr Jane Hawdon, that an explanation for the spike in unexpected deaths would be found.

So Dr Gibbs said he was 'stunned' when, in an 'emotional meeting,' in January 2017, senior managers told consultants, who hadn't seen either report, that no wrongdoing by Letby had been found and they were ordered to apologise to her.

Dr Gibbs told the inquiry: 'I was too stunned to ask anything at the end of that meeting, my head was swirling, I didn't quite understand what had happened.'

He said a letter from Letby was read out by a senior nurse 'in quite an emotional tone' and chief executive Tony Chambers told the consultants how much they had 'upset' her.

Dr Gibbs said Mr Chambers told them 'firmly' that the hospital board had accepted the 'findings that there had been no evidence of any wrong doing against her and a line was being drawn under this.

'It was clear that was the end of it, the board had accepted these reports had shown no wrongdoing and we were to apologise to Letby,' Dr Gibbs added.

Days later the consultants wrote to Mr Chambers asking for the board's understanding of the increase in deaths.

Dr Gibbs said: 'We paediatricians couldn't understand the increase and interestingly the board could and we wanted to know their reasons.'

When they finally saw the reviews, he said, they realised that deliberate harm had not been excluded.

On February 28 all seven consultants wrote a letter of apology to Letby, the inquiry was told.

Mr de la Poer asked: 'Were you accepting that you didn't think Letby had done anything wrong?'

Dr Gibbs replied: 'We were not saying she had done no wrong. We were just apologising for the stress we had caused her and the other nurses on the unit as well.'

By that stage he said the consultants had identified eight unexplained deaths on the unit but it was 'clear' that trust had broken down with senior executives.

In April consultants met a barrister instructed by the hospital who told them he was to help to decide if there was enough reason to go to the police.

Dr Gibbs said medics understood he would be helping them to present the case to officers.

'We made it very clear that we felt he had been misled and we had been misled, and he apologised for that,' Dr Gibbs added.

Police were eventually called in a month later.