Doctor who suspected Lucy Letby ‘feared’ reporting her – inquiry

Following the incident with Child K, Dr Jayaram said the fears of Letby causing deliberate harm had become “an elephant in the room which was becoming bigger and bigger”.

He said: “We felt completely impotent to know how to deal with it.”

An external thematic review around the same time identified that Letby was on duty at or just prior to nine out of 10 deaths on the unit in 2015, the inquiry has heard.

Dr Jayaram said: “I naively assumed that the nursing director and the medical director would look at that, see the pattern and act.”

He told the inquiry he felt the consultants did not have enough information to raise their suspicions until the third week of June when he passed on his concerns to Karen Townsend, divisional director of urgent care nursing, in a hospital cafe.

He said: “I could have been more forthright. I could have have specifically said ‘You must remove her from the unit’, and I didn’t say that.”

Letby went on to murder Child P, a baby boy, before she was finally moved from the neonatal unit to clerical duties in July 2016, after the consultants expressed similar concerns to the hospital’s executive team.

Hospital bosses then opted to carry out a number of reviews into the increased mortality and did not call in Cheshire Police to investigate until May 2017.

At the start of his evidence, Dr Jayaram told the hearing: “I would like to say to the parents and families of the babies affected by this awful tragedy – I would like to apologise for any personal failings and omissions.”

Letby, 34, from 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.