The mother of the boy murdered by Lucy Lettby has said she was “done without explanation” by hospital administrators about her son's death and feels “betrayed” in every way.
The mother of the four-day-old baby, who has only been named Child C, told the Thirlwall Inquiry that the family had been “misled” by bosses and that this had “added to our grief”.
The witness said she wanted an apology directly from Ian Harvey, the former medical director of the Countess of Chester Hospital, for “whitewashing” and covering up the sudden and unexpected death of her son in June 2015.
Letby, 34, was convicted of killing Child C by injecting air into his abdomen in the neonatal ward at Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England.
The former nurse is serving multiple life sentences after being convicted of killing six other infants and attempting to kill seven more.
Giving evidence to the committee of inquiry chaired by Mr Justice Thirlwall, Child C's mother said she was “absolutely horrified” to learn last year that other infants had died or collapsed suddenly around the same time as her son.
She said she was “incredibly saddened” when she read in the Chester Standard in July 2016 that an investigation had been launched into a rise in deaths on the neonatal unit around the time her son died a year earlier.
Witnesses said they had asked the hospital's family office for an explanation as to why they had not been informed about this but were told that staff had only made one attempt to call the family's landline, something Child C's mother described as “outrageous”.
She told the inquiry she had made multiple attempts to find out more about the investigation into her son's death but felt “left in the dark”.
Child C's mother said when she met with then medical director Mr Harvey she was told that although “minor learning issues” had been noted, there was nothing that would have changed her son's outcome.
She said she left the meeting feeling there was “no indication at all that a criminal investigation was taking place” and that Mr Harvey had told her he would “draw the line” at the investigation.
“I was absolutely horrified at how misled we were at that meeting and how untrue the information that was conveyed was,” she told the inquiry.
“To be honest with you, as a human being sitting with other human beings, I felt completely betrayed in every way.”
Questioned by the inquiry's lawyer, Rachel Langdale KC, Child C's mother said she wanted a personal apology from Mr Harvey: “I now feel strongly that Ian Harvey fudged the report and desperately tried to stop us asking any more questions by simply hoping that we would take him at his word and not ask any more questions. I feel deeply betrayed by this and it has added to our anguish at an already dire time.”
in Opening Statement Read out at the inquiry last week, Mr Harvey and other senior managers said an independent expert report, carried out after Mr Letby was removed from the neonatal unit in July 2016, contained no indication of criminal wrongdoing.
They felt they had provided parents with “the right level of information at the right time” but said “in retrospect we should have communicated more appropriately.”
Child C's mother also said that during their final moments together, she felt Letoby had rushed to put her infant son to a “cold bed” before he died.
She said this was “horrifying given what we know now”, adding: “What worries me now is that she wanted us to leave him there.” [with her]To be honest, I can't bear to think about this. It just adds more fear to what we already have to think about.”
