A Message from the Heart

By Vivienne Blondek

As one of the founder members of Nineteen Nurses, I have dedicated a great deal of time to helping bring the medical evidence in Lucy Letby’s case into the public domain. Like many others who have questioned the convictions, I have been accused of being insensitive to the parents of the babies involved. Some have said that by supporting Lucy Letby, I am supporting a baby killer and showing no compassion for the families whose lives have been devastated.

I could not disagree more.

The truth is that my support for uncovering the facts comes precisely because I care about those families. I believe they deserve the truth above all else.

In 1990, I lost my own baby at 20 weeks’ gestation. I know only too well the emptiness that follows the loss of a child. I understand the endless questions, the overwhelming grief, and the lasting pain that never completely leaves you. My experience cannot compare with what these parents have been forced to endure over the past decade, but it has given me a deep and enduring empathy for anyone who has suffered such a loss.

It is because of that empathy that I feel such profound sadness and anger for every family caught up in this case.

The loss of a baby is devastating enough. To then have police officers knock on your door and tell you they believe your child was deliberately murdered must have been unimaginably traumatic. That single conversation would have changed the course of their lives forever. From that moment on, every memory, every question, every attempt to grieve naturally would have been overshadowed by the belief that someone intentionally took their baby’s life.

If, as I firmly believe, the medical evidence demonstrates that this was not the case, then these families have endured years of unimaginable suffering that should never have happened.

Fourteen internationally respected medical experts independently reviewed the medical records and concluded that there were no murders. They found that the babies died from natural causes or as a result of suboptimal medical care. Those conclusions reflected what many of us with medical experience believed as we followed the trial. We recognised medical conditions and clinical deterioration, not evidence of deliberate harm.

My own experience of losing my daughter shaped the course of my life in ways I could never have imagined.

When she died, babies lost before 28 weeks were legally regarded as miscarriages and parents were generally not allowed to arrange a funeral. Yet medical advances meant babies born at 26 weeks were already surviving. I could not understand how my daughter could be considered unworthy of the dignity of a funeral.

After much determination, she became the first miscarried baby in the United Kingdom to receive a funeral. She is buried alongside her grandfather in the churchyard where I was married. Being able to lay her to rest gave me something every grieving parent deserves: the opportunity to begin healing.

But I could not stop thinking about all the other families who had been denied that same comfort.

I approached funeral directors, whose support was overwhelming. County councillors were equally supportive. Around that time I learned about the only Baby Cemetery in Wigan, established through the dedication of the Reverend Gabrielle Bennett. After speaking with Reverend Bennett, our discussions expanded beyond individual circumstances to encompass all parents who had lost babies.

Working together, Reverend Bennett raised the issue with the Member of Parliament for Ashton-in-Makerfield, who brought it before Parliament. County councils across the country were asked to review their policies surrounding the burial of all lost babies. As a result, Wigan Cemetery was inundated with enquiries from county councils seeking information about the Baby Cemetery and how similar provision could be made in their own areas.

Eighteen months after I lost my daughter, Blacon Cemetery in Chester opened its own Baby Cemetery. My daughter was born in Chester, and I worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where I received extraordinary kindness and support from both the Chief Executive and the maternity staff during one of the darkest times of my life.

Although I would give anything to have my daughter back, I have always found comfort in knowing that her loss helped bring about lasting change. Families who had previously been denied the opportunity to bury their babies with dignity were finally given that choice. Throughout that campaign, parents were always at the heart of everything I fought for.

That is why it hurts when people suggest that I have no empathy for the parents in Lucy Letby’s case.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Everything I have done throughout my life, both personally and professionally, has been driven by compassion for families facing the unimaginable. That compassion is the very reason I cannot ignore the growing body of medical evidence. If these convictions are unsafe, then every day that passes without the truth being acknowledged is another day these parents continue to carry a burden that should never have been placed upon them.

My greatest wish is not simply that justice is done for Lucy Letby. It is that justice is done for every family whose lives have been irrevocably changed.

To every parent caught up in this tragedy, I want to say this.

I cannot begin to imagine the depth of your pain, but I do understand what it means to lose a child.

My heart breaks for every one of you. You deserved honesty from the very beginning. You deserved answers founded on sound medical evidence. Most of all, you deserved the chance to grieve your babies without the additional horror of believing they had been deliberately taken from you.

If the evidence shows that your babies were not murdered, then the greatest act of respect any of us can show you is to pursue the truth, however difficult that truth may be.

You have carried this burden for far too long.

I hope that one day you will finally have the answers you deserve, because only the truth can bring the possibility of genuine peace.