Letby colleague wins legal case over visits probe

Killer nurse Lucy Letby was given 15 whole life sentences

A former colleague of Lucy Letby has won a High Court claim against the NHS trust where he works over an investigation into what he knew about the killer nurse when he arranged for her to visit another hospital.

Anonymised as Dr MN because he testified at Letby's first criminal trial, he said the trust, which also cannot be identified, breached his contract because of how it proposed to investigate him.

The consultant had formerly worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital on the same neonatal unit as Letby - who is serving 15 whole life terms for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others.

Mr Justice Sheldon ruled in the doctor's favour at the High Court earlier.

The court was told that after moving to another hospital, Dr MN had arranged for several supervised visits for Letby to the new hospital in late 2016 and early 2017.

He had told his trust's deputy chief medical officer about his involvement in the trial and how he was involved in supervised visits for Letby at the hospital.

The trust's chief medical officer prepared a draft letter saying he was content Dr MN "had no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Letby at the time of the visits", Mr Justice Sheldon wrote in his judgment.

A few days later, however, the trust received a complaint from a mother of a baby who had been treated by Dr MN which alleged he shared confidential information about her son with Letby by email and Facebook.

'Term of contract'

The trust then told Dr MN it wanted to investigate him over what he knew about Letby when she visited their hospital.

Dr MN said the trust breached its employment contract because it wanted to appoint someone other than its chief medical officer to oversee the investigation.

The judge ruled: "It is a term of Dr MN's contract of employment that the case manager should be the medical director, in this case, the chief medical officer, for the matters that are the subject of the present investigation."

Letby, 35, who has always maintained her innocence, lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, is reviewing her convictions.

Earlier this month, prosecutors revealed they were considering bringing further charges against her following the deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at hospitals where she worked.