Pathologist found ‘clear cut’ pneumonia in one of Lucy Letby’s victims
A jury found the nurse to have injected Baby D with a fatal dose of air
A pathologist who carried out a post-mortem examination on one of Lucy Letby’s victims found no evidence of air embolism and believed the most likely cause of death was pneumonia, the Thirwall Inquiry has heard.
Baby D was born in June 2015 and died two days after her birth, with a jury finding that Letby had injected the infant with a fatal dose of air.
But Dr Jo McPartland, a pathologist at Alder Hey hospital who carried out the post-mortem examination, told the hearing that there was “clear cut” pneumonia in the lungs and no evidence of the “froth” that is often the sign of an air embolism.
Dr McPartland told the Thirwall Inquiry that although she has since seen firsthand that air can be undetectable at post-mortem, she found no evidence despite taking “a lot of photographs”, including 22 internal shots.
The pathologist said that since the trial verdict she has wondered if air embolism could cause the severe lung injury seen in the baby, but said it was not something that had ever been reported in the medical literature.
Many doctors, scientists and statisticians have come forward to question the court’s verdicts
Dr McPartland, who was not called to give evidence at Letby’s trial, told the hearing that Baby D’s mother’s waters broke early which left her and the baby vulnerable to infection.
Dr McPartland said: “There was a clear cut pneumonia. There are larger patches on the right lower lobe of the lung and I know from the trial, the radiologist did agree that there were signs of pneumonia in the right lung.
She added: “In my experience when babies have died often they do have a fluctuating course beforehand, and I have had cases before where the baby has collapsed, been resuscitated and then collapsed again and then eventually resuscitation fails, so a fluctuating course didn’t seem to be that unusual to me.
“And then obviously she has become mottled and stopped breathing again and her heart has stopped. So the whole picture did seem to suggest that she was unstable and very unwell.”
She said she did not have all the information when carrying out the post-mortem, and said that if an injury had also been inflicted on the baby then that may have also caused the severe lung injury seen.
“We have a child who has pneumonia, but then there’s been an inflicted cause of death on top of that, so obviously that would then change the opinion of whether pneumonia led to death or not,” she said.
“From the trial outcome in this case, I am wondering if air embolism, and survival for a couple of hours, could explain hyaline membrane development, and it’s not something that’s been reported in the medical literature though because it’s a bit unusual.
Baby D was one of seven babies that Letby was convicted of murdering at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. She was also convicted of attempting to murder seven others.
Since the trial many doctors, scientists, and statisticians have come forward to question the verdicts, claiming the jury was not given a full picture, an accusation that the prosecution denies.
The Thirlwall Inquiry is looking into how the deaths might have been prevented by staff at the hospital and outside bodies such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Care Quality Commission.
The inquiry continues tomorrow with evidence from consultant Dr Ravi Jayaram.
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