The chair of the public inquiry into the murder of babies by Lucy Letby has rejected calls to pause her investigation.
Lady Justice Thirlwall was urged by the jailed nurse and former executives at the Countess of Chester hospital to halt the inquiry until the outcome of Letby’s legal appeals.
Lawyers for Letby, 35, argued that there was “overwhelming and compelling” evidence undermining the guilty verdicts so it would be wrong to continue with Thirlwall’s report.
However, the judge rejected those submissions in a ruling handed down on Wednesday. She said: “It is not the actions of Lucy Letby that I am scrutinising.
“It is the actions of all those who were in the hospital within the terms of reference whose actions I am reviewing: what they did at the time, in light of what they knew at the time and in light of what they should have known at the time.”
Thirlwall has been examining the circumstances of the deaths and non-fatal collapses since September and has received evidence from hundreds of witnesses. The senior appeal court judge is due to publish her report in November.
The calls to pause the inquiry came after an international panel of experts convened by Letby’s legal team said there was no medical evidence she had murdered or harmed any of the infants she was accused of attacking.
The former children’s nurse is serving 15 whole-life prison terms after being convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another seven in the year to June 2016.
Letby, who has always protested her innocence, has lost two attempts to overturn her convictions at the court of appeal.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, is examining fresh material submitted by a range of experts on behalf of Letby last month.
The families of the babies said the appeals – which came in the final week of hearings at Liverpool town hall – were an attempt by Letby to “control the narrative” and by the executives to “avoid criticism”.
Rachel Langdale KC, the head of the inquiry’s legal team, said on Tuesday that its central purpose was to help keep babies safe in the future, suggesting this could be impeded if the report was delayed “for an unknown period”.
She said there was also a risk that Thirlwall’s recommendations would “lose force” if they were stripped away from a report that explored the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
