Lucy Letby Public Inquiry Findings Set for Release Tuesday, Amid Renewed Questions Over Her Convictions

A public inquiry into how nurse Lucy Letby was able to murder and attack newborn babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital is scheduled to publish its findings Tuesday, September 15, 2026, according to the BBC and ITV.

Letby, 36, is serving 15 whole-life prison terms for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, including one infant she tried to kill twice, between June 2015 and June 2016. She was convicted in 2023 and again after a retrial on an additional attempted murder count, making her Britain's most prolific convicted child killer in modern times, according to Reuters.

The Thirlwall Inquiry, led by Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall, was launched in 2023 specifically to examine hospital conduct, not Letby's guilt. Investigators heard evidence at Liverpool Town Hall from September 2024 through February 2025, including testimony from the parents of Letby's victims, according to ITV. The process ran more than £18.5 million, according to the BBC.

What the inquiry actually examined

Thirlwall's panel looked at the board, managers, doctors and nurses at the Countess of Chester from when Letby started working there in 2012, according to ITV. Consultants raised concerns about her to hospital executives, and she was pulled from the neonatal unit to administrative duties in July 2016. But hospital leadership ran internal reviews into rising mortality rather than calling police, and Cheshire Constabulary wasn't brought in until May 2017, more than a year before Letby's eventual arrest, ITV reported.

Sir Robert Francis, who previously chaired the inquiry into care failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, told Thirlwall's panel there was no regulator "with teeth" able to sanction poorly performing non-clinical hospital directors, according to ITV and Herald Scotland's syndicated coverage. The BBC reports the final findings are expected to identify significant safeguarding failures and recommend NHS-wide changes. Thirlwall herself noted a nearly identical failure pattern occurred 25 years earlier when nurse Beverley Allitt killed children at a Grantham ward, calling it "utterly unacceptable" that it happened again within the NHS.

The conviction fight running in parallel

Letby's defense lawyer, Mark McDonald, told BBC Newsnight he has submitted nearly 30 expert reports to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) challenging the safety of her convictions, calling it more expert material than any case in the commission's history. "If she is innocent, as I believe, as 30-odd experts believe, then everything that has gone before the inquiry and every recommendation has operated on the wrong premise," McDonald said.

Flawed statistical and medical evidence may have underpinned the original prosecution, and the entire inquiry's premise could collapse if the CCRC eventually agrees. It is a serious claim from a body of named experts, not an anonymous fringe complaint.

But two of those experts, Professor Geoff Chase of the University of Canterbury and chemical engineer Helen Shannon, withdrew from Letby's defense team, saying some of the evidence being advanced was inconsistent with the available science, the BBC reported. McDonald said he was "sad that they've gone" but insisted they still believe Letby is innocent, framing the split as a disagreement over which argument was stronger rather than a repudiation of her innocence.

Separately, the Crown Prosecution Service said earlier this year there was insufficient evidence to bring further charges tied to Letby's time at the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women's Hospital, according to Reuters. Letby has been denied permission to appeal twice, in 2024. The CCRC is the only body that can send her case back to the Court of Appeal, and its chairwoman told the BBC the commission will be paying close attention to Tuesday's findings.

Three senior managers at the Countess of Chester were arrested last year on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter and remain under investigation, Reuters reported, a fact that underscores the inquiry isn't just an academic exercise in hospital governance.

Thirlwall has previously rejected a request to pause the inquiry over the conviction disputes, saying that criticism of the convictions falls outside her remit and that "noise" around the case has caused additional distress to the victims' families, according to Reuters.

What happens next depends on two separate processes moving on different tracks: the NHS-wide reforms Thirlwall is expected to recommend Tuesday, and the CCRC's ongoing review of the nearly 30 expert reports McDonald says undermine the prosecution's science. Neither process is required to reach the same conclusion, and only the CCRC has the power to reopen Letby's case in court.