A former top nurse who was responsible for checking the wellbeing of Lucy Letby after concerns were raised about her in work has revealed how she reacted after being ordered to leave the hospital
The former senior manager to Lucy Letby has revealed how the nurse reacted when she was told to leave work after concerns about her had been raised by two consultants.
The baby killer had been working in Countess of Chester Hospital since 2012 inside the neonatal unit. But between April 2015 and June 2016, there were 18 deaths of babies recorded there. Two consultants, Ravi Jayaram and Stephen Brearey, both raised suspicions about Letby, and it eventually fell on her manager, Karen Rees, head of urgent care nursing at the NHS hospital, to take action.
Speaking on camera for the first time, Karen revealed in an ITV documentary called Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? that Dr Brearey called her with his worries.
She said: “I came home and I received a call from Stephen Brearey. He was aware that Lucy Letby was on duty that weekend. He did actually tell me another baby had died.
“There were concerns about her clinical practice but it was greater than that. I think the word ‘purposely harming babies’ was the term used at the time. It was a massive allegation and at the end of the day there are babies on that unit that we all have a responsibility to care for.”
However, at the beginning of July 2016, Letby went on holiday, and on her return, it was Karen’s job to remove her from the hospital.
And speaking about how the nurse reacted, she revealed: “I was told just to say that concerns had been raised and that this was seen as a neutral act. So she wasn’t being accused of anything at this point. But it was deemed safer to take her off clinical practice to protect herself as well as the babies on that neonatal unit.
“She wasn’t even questioning me, she was just looking at me, I had to then walk her across the hospital grounds and I was the only one making conversation. She wasn’t asking me why, she wasn’t crying, she was just shocked.”
After removing Letby from her clinical practice, Karen was ordered to meet her once a week to give her feedback on investigations both internally and externally.
It was also her role, along with the head of occupational health and a union rep, to check on Letby’s health and wellbeing.
Letby was also put on a desk job and was told not to communicate with colleagues – making Karen one of the only people to have meaningful contact with her.
And giving a rare insight into what these meetings were like, she said: “She thought she had a good working relationship with both of those consultants and she was devastated that they thought what they thought. Absolutely devastated.
“She was broken… cried regularly in my arms and in my office. Her mantra was, ‘Why are they doing this to me – I’ve done nothing wrong Karen’.”
It wasn’t until 2018 when Letby was arrested on suspicion of murdering a number of babies. And she was eventually convicted across two trials of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more. Last year, the killer lost two attempts to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeals.
Her legal team, led by barrister Mark McDonald, also submitted evidence from a panel of international experts to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in April, in an attempt to have her convictions overturned.
The Thirlwall inquiry meanwhile, examining events at the Countess of Chester Hospital, is due to report in the autumn. However, this inquiry is not examining the guilt or otherwise of Letby.
Three senior managers at the hospital were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in June of this year and have since been released on police bail.
Karen meanwhile spoke in the documentary about whether she thought Letby, who is serving 15 whole-life sentences, was innocent, and said: “I do remember Lucy saying to me, ‘Karen, you are the only person who hasn’t asked me have I purposely harmed anybody.’
“And I remember her looking at me and the reason why I’ve never asked her is that I never thought she had… no… I just don’t believe it.”
Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? will air on ITV1 at 10.20pm on Sunday August 3.
