NHS trust loses appeal over breaching contract with Lucy Letby colleague
An NHS foundation trust has lost an appeal against a High Court ruling that found it had breached its contract with a former colleague of Lucy Letby over an investigation into what he knew about the nurse.
The consultant, known only as Dr MN, took legal action against the trust last year, but was anonymised because of giving evidence at Lucy Letby’s first criminal trial.
In his High Court ruling last July, Mr Justice Sheldon said Dr MN had worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital on the same neonatal unit as Letby.
After moving to another hospital where he became a consultant, he arranged for a number of supervised visits for Letby there in late 2016 and early 2017.
Letby, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted across two trials of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
Dr MN then told his trust’s deputy chief medical officer about his involvement in the first trial and his previous involvement in supervised visits for Letby at the hospital.
The trust’s chief medical officer prepared a draft letter saying he was content that Dr MN “had no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Letby at the time of the visits”, Mr Justice Sheldon said.
A few days later, however, the trust received a complaint from the mother of a baby who had been treated by Dr MN, who alleged that he had shared confidential information about her son with Letby by email and via Facebook.
The trust then told Dr MN in January 2024 that it wanted to investigate him over what he knew about Letby at the time of her visits to their hospital, with the trust’s medical director appointing its director of corporate affairs as the “case manager”.
Dr MN said this meant the trust had breached its employment contract, with Mr Justice Sheldon ruling in his favour last year.
In his ruling, the judge said that the terms of Dr MN’s employment meant that the medical director should be the “case manager” for “the matters that are the subject of the present investigation”.
Barristers for the trust told the Court of Appeal at a hearing in December that the judge was wrong, including by finding that it was not permissible for the chief medical officer to delegate his role as case manager.
But three senior judges dismissed the appeal on Thursday.
In a ruling, Lord Justice Singh, sitting with Lord Justice Newey and Lord Justice Nugee, said: “I agree with the judge that, where necessary, there is an implied term… that the medical director may delegate the task of case manager to another person but this will be for reasons such as a conflict of interest or illness, which are not present in this case.”
He therefore concluded that the “purported delegation in this case” was “in breach of (Dr MN’s) contract of employment”.
Letby, who has always maintained her innocence, lost two bids in 2024 to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal.
Her convictions are being reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates potential miscarriages of justice.
Last month, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that no further charges would be brought against her after Cheshire Police passed additional evidence to prosecutors in relation to eight potential offences of attempted murder and one offence of murder at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
