The mother of a newborn boy murdered by Lucy Letby has told an inquiry into the crimes of the killer nurse that she carries the “very, very painful” guilt that other babies may have survived if she had agreed to a postmortem examination of her son.
The woman, whose twin boys were attacked by the neonatal nurse, told the Thirlwall inquiry she was informed as she cradled her dead son that a postmortem was unnecessary because his cause of death was known. She said she agreed with the doctor’s decision at the time but now felt it was “impossible” and “unfair” to have had to decide so soon after his death.
Letby, 34, was found guilty of murdering the newborn boy, known as Child E, by injecting air into his bloodstream and of attempting to poison with insulin his twin brother, Child F, at the Countess of Chester hospital in August 2015. She is serving a whole life prison term after being convicted of murdering six other newborns and attempting to murder another six between June 2015 and July 2016.
Child E’s mother told the inquiry that a consultant, identified only as Dr ZA, told her that a postmortem was unnecessary because she believed he had died from necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). The mother said she wished she had insisted on the postmortem because it may have ruled out NEC and found something suspicious. She added: “If it was so unusual, and so out of the blue, why on earth was a postmortem not given any weight to?”
The inquiry heard that Dr ZA had apologised for the decision not to pursue a postmortem, which Child E’s mother said was the first apology she had received from anyone at the hospital. Concluding her evidence, Lady Justice Thirlwall thanked the mother and told her: “You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about and you have nothing to blame yourself for – nothing at all.”
