Hospital chiefs have been accused of a ‘cover-up’ of Lucy Letby’s killing spree at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

The nurse has become the UK’s most prolific child serial killer after being convicted of the murders of seven babies.

She has also been found guilty of the attempted murders of six more infants.

Stephen Brearey, the lead consultant on Letby’s neo-natal ward, has ‘no doubt’ Letby harmed the babies.

In an emotive interview with BBC’s Panorama, he was asked if bosses at the hospital had ‘covered up’ the spate of deaths.

Dr Brearey responded: ‘I don’t know how you define a cover up but to us the evidence in front of us was quite clear, it felt like they’d tried to engineer a narrative, some way out of this which didn’t involve police.

‘If you want to call that a cover up, then that’s a cover up.’ 

The consultant had suspicions regarding the mysterious deaths from as early as 2015.

The moment Lucy Letby was arrested and led out her home by police in 2018 (Picture: PA)

Stephen Brearey, lead consultant on Letby’s neo-natal ward, said many raised concerns (Picture: BBC)

Letby – who had a ‘treasure trove’ of items that indicated her guilt to the jury – had persuaded many she was not linked to the incidents.

One baby’s mother was reassured after the 33-year-old told her ‘trust me, I’m a nurse.’

Dr Brearey said a wide group of staff members were concerned by Letby’s behaviour, but they received ‘no communication’ from higher-ups.

He continued to the BBC: ‘It’s something that nobody really wants to consider that a member of staff might be harming the babies under your care,’ he said. 

‘Some of the babies didn’t respond to resuscitation quite how we would have expected them to. And those babies you’d get a heart rate back and their breathing would get better but that didn’t happen in these cases like you’d expect which was unusual.

‘It was quite surreal because we had these concerns as a group our concerns were rising. There was no communication from senior managers in the trust.’

A Post-it note – found inside a diary – recovered from a chest of drawers at the home of Lucy Letby (Picture: PA)

Dr Brearey also claimed he begged Letby be taken off the ward after he noticed that her shifts matched up with each death.

But his request had fallen on deaf ears, he claims.

He added: ‘The intention of the executives was to somehow close this case. 

‘I don’t have any doubt that Lucy Letby harmed these babies.’ 

Dr Bill Kirkup, who led the reviews into poor care in maternity units in Morecambe Bay and East Kent, said there were ‘common features’ between the Letby case and other incidents at hospitals.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘I think there are a number of common features that underpin a lot of these different investigations and ring bells with what I’ve been hearing about what happened in the Countess of Chester Hospital, particularly the difficulty in persuading people that there’s a real problem here that must be investigated and must be looked at properly and independently.

‘And particularly the chasm that can open up between clinicians who are reporting problems and managers who don’t necessarily want to hear.’

The Countess of Chester Hospital – where Letby targeted her victims (Picture: PA)

He added: ‘I heard yesterday for the first time in this connection, the phrase “protecting reputation” on the part of the Trust and and that rings a massive bell for me because that’s been a feature of everything that I’ve been involved with for the last 12 years or so.

‘The first reaction of people under these circumstances in management, controlling organisations, is to protect reputations – the organisation’s reputation, their own reputation.

‘And when that comes ahead of being open and honest about what’s going on, that’s tragic. We have to be able to stop this.’

This morning Conservative MP Dr Caroline Johnson said it was ‘completely unacceptable’ that Countess of Chester Hospital management did not immediately act on concerns flagged by consultants.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the consultant paediatrician and Commons Health Committee member said: ‘To my mind, as it has been reported, it is completely unacceptable.

‘To ignore one consultant, if the other six disagree, perhaps you could think “That is wrong”, but you could understand it.

‘But when you’ve got seven paediatricians, experts in their field, looking after babies in a neonatal unit telling you in their expert opinion that these events are unusual and they should not be occurring and there are unexpected collapses that are unexplained in babies that are leading to death, to then say you are not going to take action seems completely remarkable to me.’

The Countess of Chester Hospital was contacted for comment by Metro.co.uk.

A spokesperson directed us to a statement issued in response to the outcome of the Letby trial.

Dr Nigel Scawn, medical director, had said: ‘I speak for the whole Trust when I say how deeply saddened and appalled we are at Lucy Letby’s crimes. We are extremely sorry that these crimes were committed at our hospital and our thoughts continue to be with all the families and loved ones of the babies who came to harm or died.

‘We cannot begin to understand what they have been through.

‘This case has had a profound impact on our patients and our local community and also our staff – who come to work every day determined to provide safe and high-quality care for our patients.

Pascale Jones of the Crown Prosecution Service, Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Evans and Janet Moore, Police Family Liason officer read out statements outside Manchester Crown Court(Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

‘Our staff are devastated by what happened and we are committed to ensuring lessons continue to be learnt. We are grateful for the cooperation of our staff, especially those who have maintained the utmost professionalism whilst giving evidence in the trial, sometimes on multiple occasions.

‘We will continue to support them and other staff to ensure they receive the care and support they need.

‘We would like to extend our thanks to Cheshire Police for their extensive investigation and the work they did to bring this case to trial. We’d also like to thank them for the comprehensive support they have provided to all of the families.

‘Since Lucy Letby worked at our hospital, we have made significant changes to our services. I want to provide reassurance that every patient who accesses our services can have confidence in the care they will receive.

‘And, most importantly, our thoughts are with all the families and loved ones at this very difficult time.’

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‘To us the evidence in front of us was quite clear, it felt like they’d tried to engineer a narrative, some way out of this which didn’t involve police.’