Charity refused to engage with Letby whistleblowers over ‘red flags’ in testimony
Charity refused to engage with Letby whistleblowers over ‘red flags’ in testimony
Compassion in Care says the convicted nurse’s accusers did not exhibit any of the usual behaviour displayed by those claiming malpractice
A major whistleblowing charity refused to engage with the doctors who blamed Lucy Letby for a spike in baby deaths because of ‘red flags’ over their conduct, it has emerged.
Compassion in Care, which was founded to support informers who speak out, said Letby’s accusers did not exhibit any of the usual behaviour displayed by those blowing the whistle on malpractice or criminal activity.
Doctors at the Countess of Chester Hospital said they began to suspect Letby in 2015, after a string of baby deaths and near-misses and pleaded with management to take her off the neonatal ward, but police were not finally called in until 2017.
Eileen Chubb, who founded Compassion in Care in 2003 and was one of the ‘Bupa7’, the first group to use whistleblowing law in the UK, said: “There were a number of red flags.
“We’d never come across a whistleblower who, if backed into a corner by an employer or the NHS, hadn’t dialled 999 when people’s lives had been at risk.
“That’s what we found staggering. It stood out like a sore thumb, especially in a case where there were such serious concerns. I’ve never seen a whistleblower who thought babies were being harmed who left it for more than a week. But in this case, they left it for a number of years.
“And you find that when there is a group of whistleblowers, the wrongdoing gets reported even quicker.”
Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more at the hospital between 2015 and 2016, but has continued to protest her innocence.
Since the verdicts, dozens of medics, scientists and statisticians have come forward to question the evidence, and Letby’s lawyers plan to take her case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
At a press conference called by Letby’s barrister Mark McDonald in December, Dr Richard Taylor, an eminent neonatologist, claimed that a mistake by one of the doctors had led to the death of one of the babies.
A mistake by another doctor – who was granted anonymity during the trial – was known to have led to the death of another baby in 2014.
Those questioning the verdict claim that the neonatal unit was understaffed and overcrowded, after years of cost cutting, with consultants carrying out rounds just twice a week.
Mrs Chubb, who blew the whistle on colleagues who were abusing frail residents of a Bupa-run home in Bromley, Kent, in 1997, said her charity had since dealt with 14,000 whistleblowers, and said certain patterns were always present.
“Straight away on day one as soon as the verdict came through we all said, these are not whistleblowers,” she said. “The whole thing looked really suspicious to us, they didn’t meet any of the criteria. A lot of the detail which wasn’t there.
“Because we deal with health and social care, you see patterns that are always there.
“Most whistleblowers would say to you ‘I can remember the moment when this first happened’ and it’s ingrained into your memory like a hot iron, the detail and what you saw but that was not there in this case. All of it is completely wrong.
“It’s also very unusual for whistleblowers to keep their jobs. Most are sacked and if they are not, they are forced out constructively.”
She added: “It’s made us reassess everything, if there wasn’t whistleblowing then the whole thing falls for us.”
At the Thirlwall Inquiry, which is looking into how deaths could have been prevented, Ravi Jayaram, a consultant, was criticised for not telling a coroner about his suspicions of Letby despite having had the opportunity.
At Letby’s trial, Dr Jayaram was said to have caught Letby “virtually red handed” dislodging a breathing tube from a baby at the Countess of Chester in February 2016.
Yet he did not mention the incident until 2017, and during a grievance procedure in 2016 said there was “no objective evidence” to suggest Letby had been harming babies.
Peter Skelton KC, representing the parents of children at the Thirlwall Inquiry, also questioned why Dr Jayaram had not raised his suspicions of Letby at an inquest into Baby A in October 2016.
Dr Jayaram told the Thirlwall Inquiry that he “should have had more courage” to speak up.
The police and prosecution have said Letby was convicted on a multitude of evidence, and they are currently investigating more deaths and collapses at the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where the nurse worked as a trainee.
The Telegraph has contacted the doctors at the Countess of Chester hospital for comment.
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