Lucy Letby wrote a group email to nurses claiming she had been ‘fully exonerated’ just days after doctors were ordered to ‘draw a line’ under their suspicions she had killed and harmed babies in her care.
The serial child killer told colleagues at the Countess of Chester Hospital she had been ‘redeployed’ from the neo-natal unit following ‘serious’ allegations that were ‘unfounded and ‘untrue.’
In the email, she said she would be back ‘within weeks’ and urged them to be ‘sensitive and supportive’ towards her on her return, the public inquiry heard.
Letby, 34, had been removed from frontline nursing in July 2016 after consultant paediatricians raised concerns with management that she was behind a spike in unexpected and unexplained baby deaths and collapses.
But seven months later, chief executive Tony Chambers told consultants to ‘draw a line under the ‘Lucy issue” after claiming two external reviews had found no evidence of criminality.
Mr Chambers, the inquiry heard, was ‘dictatorial’ in the extraordinary meeting, in January 2017, and ordered the medics to apologise to Letby for alleged derogatory remarks after she complained some had referred to her publicly as the ‘angel of death’.
Days later, on January 31, Letby sent the group email to nurses on the unit in which she wrote: ‘Dear colleagues, I was redeployed from the unit in July 2016 following serious and distressing allegations of a personal and professional nature made by some members of the medical team. From then until now I have been unable to visit or contact the unit whilst these matters were investigated.
‘After a thorough investigation it was established that all the allegations were unfounded and untrue, and therefore I have been fully exonerated. I have received a full apology from the trust.
‘As you can imagine this whole episode has been distressing for me and my family. I will begin my return to the unit in the coming weeks. I will need colleagues to be sensitive and supportive at this time.
‘Many thanks Lucy Letby.’
The inquiry has heard the consultants refused to drop their concerns and Letby’s return was postponed. Hospital bosses eventually called in Cheshire Police in May 2017 and she continued working in a clerical role at the Countess until her arrest, 14 months later.
Nurse Ashleigh Hudson told the inquiry that she had no idea Letby was being accused of deliberately harming babies until she received her e-mail because the investigation was kept ‘hush hush’ and ‘secret’.
She said none of the consultants shared their concerns with the nursing team or were ‘frank’ with them.
It was only when Letby was arrested and the police began ‘forensically’ looking at shifts and events that things began to add up and she realised Letby had harmed patients, Nurse Hudson added.
Both she and another nurse, Melanie Taylor, described texts Letby sent them, following the deaths of infants, as ‘inappropriate’ and ‘sickening.’
Nurse Taylor also told the inquiry about an incident when Letby came up to her at the start of a shift and told her in an ‘excited’ and ‘gossipy manner’ that a baby had just died.
She said the incident struck her as unusual, adding: ‘There were parts of her personality that were a little strange to me.
‘I didn’t have any suspicions…that didn’t cross my mind. I personally didn’t have any concerns with her nursing care but her way of speaking to other members of staff, I didn’t like. I felt it was not the most professional.’
Letby, of Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
The inquiry is expected to sit at Liverpool Town Hall until early next year, with findings published by late autumn 2025.