The parents of a baby attacked by Lucy Letby were not told their child had suffered life-threatening injuries until they were contacted by police years later, an investigation has found.
The parents said it was “disgusting” that they were “not informed” by staff at the Countess of Chester Hospital when their newborn baby boy's health seriously deteriorated in June 2016.
The boy's mother said she only learned about the incident in late 2022, six years after police told the parents that Letby had attempted to kill the infant while on the night shift.
Letby, 34, was convicted of attempting to murder the boy, named only as Nko, in the early hours of June 3, 2016, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on two further charges of attempted murder.
The former neonatal nurse was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more and received 15 life sentences. She maintains her innocence.
The Thirlwall inquest into the murder was told on Tuesday that Child N's blood oxygen levels fell sharply in the early hours of June 3 and doctors responded to an “emergency call” to resuscitate him.
Although the days-old baby made a relatively quick recovery, Child N's mother said she had “no idea” anything was wrong with her son that morning until just a month before his criminal trial was due to begin in October 2022, six years later.
She added: “We were not aware that anything significant or sinister had occurred prior to June 15th. We were essentially kept in the dark about this.”
In a statement read out by the family's lawyer, Peter Skelton KC, N's father said: “We had no idea that N was having problems on the evening of June 3rd. This is awful. As parents we have an absolute right to know what was happening to our son.”
The boy's mother said hospital bosses were “complicit” in the victimisation by failing to launch a “thorough and prompt” investigation when concerns were first raised about Mr Letby.
She added: “They should not continue in their jobs and should be criminally prosecuted.”
The father of the twin boys attacked by Letby also told the Thirlwall Inquest on Tuesday that he was told nothing unusual or suspicious was said by the hospital about the sudden deterioration of his sons' condition in April 2016.
The family first realised something suspicious had happened when they were contacted by police in 2019.
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One consultant told detectives in 2019 that he “remembered seeing very unusual … pink spots splattered all over” Child M's abdomen after the incident in which Letby was later found guilty of injecting air into the baby.
But Child M's father said on Tuesday that he was not informed about these “spots” at the time, nor did he know that his son had at one point been treated for necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a serious intestinal disease.
The investigation also heard that L's mother had made a formal complaint to the NHS alleging that one of Letby's colleagues had used Facebook Messenger and text messages to discuss her son's case with a nurse.
She said the doctor, who she can only name as Dr U, “disregarded and blatantly violated patient confidentiality.”
The mother said she complained last year to the NHS Patient and Liaison Service, PALS, at the hospital where the doctor now works, and an investigation has revealed she has yet to be informed of any outcome.
