Lady Justice Thirlwall says the babies who died at the hands of Lucy Letby are at the 'heart' of the public inquiry into the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Speaking on the opening day, the inquiry chair also says that while doubt has been cast on Letby's convictions, the Court of Appeal had reviewed them with a 'clear result'. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Speaking on the opening day, the inquiry chair also says that while doubt has been cast on Letby's convictions, the Court of Appeal had reviewed them with a 'clear result'. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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NewsTranscript
00:00At the heart of this inquiry are the babies who died, who were injured, and their parents.
00:09I do not presume to describe the feelings and emotions that those parents have already
00:15experienced, nor those that lie ahead. But I will remind you of what has happened since
00:22the birth of their children. First, each parent celebrated the birth of each child.
00:32Then, when things seemed to be going well for these tiny babies, each one of them collapsed
00:38suddenly and unexpectedly. Some of the babies recovered, some survived, but with lifelong
00:48consequences. Some died. Deaths and injuries occurred in 2015 and in 2016. The parents
00:58were told that natural causes were the reason for the death or lifelong difficulties. And
01:05so each parent grieved the loss of a new life and all that it promised, and lived with that
01:12profound sorrow. In 2018, so two or three years later, they learned that their babies
01:20may have been deliberately harmed. A nurse who had been looking after their babies in
01:25hospital had been arrested. In November 2020, she was charged with murder and attempted
01:33murder. Nearly three years later, she was convicted of seven counts of murder and seven
01:40of attempted murder, seven or eight years after those babies had been born. There has
01:46been a huge outpouring of comment from a variety of quarters on the validity of the convictions.
01:56So far as I'm aware, it has come entirely from people who were not at the trial. Parts
02:03of the evidence have been selected and criticised, as has the conduct of the defence at trial.
02:10About which those defence lawyers can say nothing. All of this noise has caused enormous
02:18additional distress to the parents who have already suffered far too much. I make it absolutely
02:27clear that it's not for me, as chair of this public inquiry, to set about reviewing the
02:33convictions. The Court of Appeal has done that with a very clear result. The convictions