Angel of Death

by John Askill

  ‘But Sue said Bev didn’t seem to care. She said she had to work there for the money. You could have knocked us down with a feather. There had been absolutely no intention on Bev’s part to tell us that she’d got another job.

  ‘Then, on 15 June, there was a story in the Sun about the hospital and the enquiry. We heard it on the radio as well. Bev and Tracy upped and left and we got a call to say they would let us know where she was staying.’

  Ruth and David began tramping the streets of Grantham and surrounding villages, knocking on doors, visiting nurses at home and asking them what they knew about Allitt and the case of Paul Crampton.

  David said: The police questioned another girl – an eighteen-year-old student nurse. We wanted to talk to her, too, but we were told to leave her alone because the police had hammered her to such a degree she was having problems. They accused her of being an accomplice.’

  Detective Superintendent Clifton’s reaction after questioning Nurse Beverley Allitt was to double the size of his enquiry team to twenty-four. This gave him the manpower to examine every other death and suspicious illness in great detail. He was totally convinced that he was on to something, but he still didn’t know quite what it was.

  Officers were paired together and allocated individual cases to investigate. Each pair began to identify with a particular family and to look at what it could say. They also looked at what various nurses could remember. Each of these pairs investigated its own child and used a police computer system called Holmes to store and evaluate the information that was gathered.

  Supt Clifton considered that the answer to many of his questions might be hidden in blood samples taken from the children. The problem was that, by a strange quirk of the National Health Service, they had been sent to eight different laboratories all over the Midlands and the north of England for different analysis. Without the samples, the whole investigation would flounder.

  Detective Inspector Neil Jones, who had joined the team, began tracking down the samples. He found the sample of Becky Phillips’s blood tucked away in the basement of the City Hospital at Nottingham. He found other crucial samples stored in a fridge in a public health laboratory in Leeds; there were samples still totally unchecked in Sheffield and Boston. Soon he had a small blood bank of his own to send for analysis; then he anxiously awaited the results.

  The first to come back was that of twin Becky Phillips who had died at her home just twelve hours after being discharged from hospital; she had been recorded as a ‘cot death’ victim. The tests on her blood revealed that she, too, had been given an enormous overdose of insulin. Her level, which was not as high as that of Paul Crampton, was recorded as 9660, compared with a normal level of just 4.

  The discovery explained Becky’s symptoms of the night she’d died. Those twisted contortions on her face, those rolling eyes and piercing screams had been the fits and convulsions caused by a hypoglycemic attack. The massive insulin overdose had sent her body sugar levels plummeting, eventually to kill her.

  Each time she’d been fed, she had improved briefly as her body extracted sugar from the milk. But the relief could only have been temporary, and death inevitable, without a huge input of glucose like the one that had saved Paul Crampton.

  Supt Clifton now had the evidence that at least two children, neither of them diabetics, had been poisoned, both with huge amounts of insulin.

  After Becky Phillips the detectives began to take an even closer look at the deaths of Claire Peck, Liam Taylor and Timothy Hardwick, all of whom had died on Ward Four in the space of sixty days. They wanted to know whether they, too, had been poisoned, possibly with insulin like Becky Phillips and Paul Crampton.

  There was no problem finding a blood sample from Claire, the last to die, because one had been taken during the course of the marathon one-and-a-half-hour unsuccessful attempt to save her. The blood had been sent away for testing.

  The result produced a real shock. There was no trace of insulin in Claire’s blood. Instead, it was found to contain in excess of 16 millimoles per litre of potassium chloride, more than twice the amount needed to kill her.

  Potassium chloride, one of the most lethal poisons known to man, is naturally present in everyone’s blood. The average level is about three or four millimoles per litre of blood; this rises dramatically after death. It is readily available in solution in hospitals all over the world, including Ward Four at the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, for the routine treatment of patients whose potassium chloride level drops, producing symptoms of vomiting and gastro-enteritis. Too much potassium chloride causes the heart to relax and then simply stop beating.

  To Supt Clifton and his team of detectives in Grantham it was becoming clear that they were on the trail of a determined killer. He was convinced that Claire must have been injected with the drug.

  But how many more children had suffered like Claire, Paul and Becky?

  And although he was gathering a mass of medical evidence he had still not found anyone who had seen the killer at work on Ward Four. What Supt Clifton needed was a witness, possibly a parent, relative or, better still, a nurse who had seen a child being given a fatal injection; someone who had seen the killer, if there was one, still holding the ‘smoking syringe’ like a gun after a shooting.

  Every nurse, doctor, ward orderly, porter – anyone who might have had access to Ward Four – had been questioned, often several times, without success. Supt Clifton and his team of medical advisers, sifting through the records of every patient on Ward Four, turned the clock back to the death of Liam Taylor, the first to die.

  A detective said: ‘We knew that he suffered an infarction of the heart which we were told is unknown in babies. An infarction is where the muscles of the heart die, but you just don’t hear of infarctions in infants, it’s absolutely unknown.

  ‘We were told it could have been caused by a variety of things, either by asphyxiation, or by insulin or potassium, nobody could tell us which one for certain.’

  The police knew that there had been controversy about the cause of his death right from the beginning when his father had expressed his concern and paediatrician Dr Nanayakkara had written to the coroner challenging the cause of his death. The doctor had disagreed with the result of the post mortem. He did not suggest that death was deliberate; he simply disputed the given cause.

  The police team, however, was now convinced that Liam’s death had been such an unexpected occurrence that something must have happened, but they still didn’t know what.

  Tests in the case of handicapped Timothy Hardwick, the second to die, revealed an abnormally high potassium reading, well above the fatal level. The cause of his death had been recorded as ‘cerebral palsy and epilepsy’ but, when children die of an epileptic fit, it causes a brain reaction. Further tests showed no signs of this in Timothy’s case. Supt Clifton was again convinced that the post-mortem result was wrong.

  He decided to call a meeting of minds – a gathering of all the experts from the police and medical teams – to decide his next move. Appropriately, the chosen venue was a conference room across the road from the hospital.

  Those who gathered were eminent insulin experts, Professor Marks and Dr David Teal, from the University of Surrey; distinguished paediatric pathologist and ‘cot death’ specialist Professor John Emery from Sheffield Children’s Hospital; paediatric consultant Derek Johnstone and paediatric pathologist Dr David Fagin; and Professor David Hull from the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham.

  They were joined by representatives of the Area Health Authority, together with the Grantham Hospital paediatricians, Dr Porter and Dr Nanayakkara, and representatives of the hospital management.

  Several senior police officers, including Assistant Chief Constable Alan Goldsmith, were there, together with representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service. Barrister John Goldrick, who would ultimately consider the evidence, also attended.

  The story was by now becoming a big news item. The conference room w
as besieged by reporters, photographers and five TV camera crews long before the meeting was due to begin on the afternoon of Tuesday, 2 July.

  Meanwhile, a drama was taking place a hundred miles away in the air above Guildford.

  Professor Marks, a vitally important participant, had warned Supt Clifton that he would be late for the 2pm start because he had another meeting to attend which would not finish until midday.

  Professor Marks was to be flown to Grantham in a hired Cessna.

  It should have been a simple exercise but it almost ended in disaster.

  As he took off from Guildford, the professor’s door flew open, terrifying the valued specialist who, fortunately, was strapped in with his seatbelt. It also horrified Detective Inspector Neil Jones, sitting in the back seat, who feared the prosecution case was about to go literally out of the door. They managed to slam the flapping door shut in mid-air and carried on in time to make the meeting.

  The discussions were expected to go on for three hours, but it was five and a half hours later before they ended. Supt Clifton started by delivering a presentation to the gathering, explaining his findings so far. He was followed by the experts. As the meeting continued there was growing realisation amongst them all that the epidemic of sudden collapses and deaths on Ward Four was no accident. Allitt spent the afternoon waiting for news in her solicitor’s office a mile away, fearing that the conference would end with her arrest. Her solicitor went to the police station to be ready for possible charges.

  But the meeting ended with the experts deciding to prepare new and detailed reports reappraising the cases one by one; then a file could be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions who would decide what further action to take. It would be many weeks before a final decision would be made.

  The detectives and some of the medical experts adjourned for further discussion to the Blue Pig, a move that almost wrecked arrangements to take Professor Marks back to Guildford by patrol car. Uniformed road traffic officers, who had been given the job of driving him home, combed the town looking for their VIP passenger. When, finally, they arrived at the Blue Pig they burst in so quickly that they silenced the entire pub. Regulars said they thought they’d been caught up in a police raid.

  12. ‘Becky was Murdered’

  Sue Phillips was just about to go shopping when Allitt arrived at the house. She brought with her a letter from the police saying that her bail period, due to end in two weeks, would be extended, due to further investigation.

  Peter Phillips, who was still doing all he could to help Allitt prove her innocence, comforted her with the view that the police obviously hadn’t found anything in their investigations.

  Looking relieved, Allitt offered to take Sue shopping in her car, just the two of them.

  As they arrived in the town centre, busy with crowds of shoppers preparing for the weekend ahead, Allitt turned to Sue nervously and asked: ‘Are you sure you want to walk round town with me? People may see us. A lot of people are not talking to me any more. They may take it out on you’.

  Sue told her not to talk rubbish.

  But, as they walked past Marks and Spencers, they spotted another nurse from the hospital walking towards them – and Sue watched in amazement as they saw the nurse deliberately duck round a corner, quite obviously intent on avoiding them. Sue felt even more sorry for Allitt.

  The suspended nurse was still a regular visitor to the Phillips household; Sue and Peter were not aware that detectives were, by then, investigating the cases of Becky and Katie.

  Saturday, 15 June, was an awful day. The rain was cascading down when Allitt arrived at the front door.

  Katie was ‘playing up’, Sue recalls, as Allitt joined the family for lunch. Afterwards, Allitt offered to take Katie for a walk in her buggy while Sue cleared up the lunch. It was raining outside, Sue questioned the wisdom of the venture but Allitt countered: ‘Don’t worry, it will give you a rest.’

  She got out the buggy, placed Katie in it, attached her protective hood, then dashed to the car in the pouring rain to get her own coat, and then set off.

  She’d been suspended from duty, accused by the police of attempting to murder Paul Crampton and was now dashing off into the rain with baby Katie. Both Sue and Peter Phillips were so utterly convinced of her innocence, so sure the police were wrong, that they didn’t give it a second thought.

  Five short minutes later Allitt was back, bursting through the door ‘like a rocket’. She left the buggy in the hall and then, huffing and puffing as she tried to get her breath after sprinting down the road, she told them to telephone for a doctor straightaway because she was certain Katie was about to go into convulsions at any minute.

  She told them: ‘Get a doctor. You must get a doctor.’

  Sue heard Katie crying and ran to the buggy to find her face was ‘as red as a postbox’, and she was sweating.

  Oh no! Could this be Becky all over again?

  Allitt was, by now, pleading with them – just get a doctor.

  But the Phillips had no telephone of their own. Their car-valeting business had collapsed with the arrival of the twins. Sue had been unable to work and, amidst the ensuing financial chaos, they had just had their telephone disconnected. Allitt volunteered to drive Sue round to her parents, Bill and Hazel Garrett, to phone their GP.

  The woman locum doctor responded so quickly that she pulled up outside the house at the same time as Allitt and Sue arrived back.

  The doctor decided to take no chances and sent Katie back to Ward Four. Once again, suspecting nothing, Sue and Peter thanked Allitt for her swift actions. They felt that the nurse had done the right thing in reacting so quickly to the potential emergency. Peter recalls thinking she was ‘a real brick’.

  Katie recovered rapidly in hospital, though the cause for her relapse was never detected.

  But, while she was in hospital, Peter used the opportunity to speak to nurses during his visits, trying to gather any evidence that would help Allitt’s defence.

  His activities, however, infuriated the police who were in the middle of a delicate murder investigation. Peter’s DIY detective work, although well intentioned, was becoming a nuisance. They even considered giving him an official warning to ‘back off’ or end up being arrested himself. If the senior detectives involved in the investigation were in any doubt about how strongly the Phillips felt about the situation, it was rudely spelled out to them when two detectives called at their house on Monday, 17 June. By then, the police had received the results of the blood tests on Becky.

  The two CID officers arrived at the Phillips’s home at 9am to ask Peter and Sue to accompany them to Grantham police station to see Detective Superintendent Clifton. Peter, by now wound-up like a watchspring by the obvious unfairness (as he saw it) of the police suspicions, couldn’t hold back his anger.

  ‘If he wants to f.… well see us, he can f.… well come up here!’ he snapped. He went on: ‘Look, we have told you lot everything we know about Paul Crampton and we just don’t want any more.’

  The police officers explained that there was something else that Supt Clifton wanted to tell them for himself. Peter demanded to know what they meant by ‘something else’.

  Then came the bombshell.

  It wasn’t about Paul Crampton at all, they told him. It was about Becky and Katie.

  The mention of their two babies’ names was enough.

  Sue and Peter went to Grantham police station, sitting together in the back of the unmarked police car, hardly daring to look at each other, let alone speak.

  In the first-floor room at the stone-built police station, Supt Clifton was flanked by Detective Chief Inspector Alan Smith, Detective Inspector Neil Jones, Policewoman Jane McGuire and Detective Gerry Thorold.

  Softly, the police broke the news. DCI Smith told them that the police had been investigating incidents involving several children. A professor had looked at samples of blood taken from Becky.

  He went on: ‘We have found somet
hing in the blood sample.’

  Looking across from his desk, Supt Clifton told them: ‘I have to tell you some bad news. We have found insulin in your daughter’s blood which measures a level of nearly 10,000.’

  Peter asked: ‘What does that mean?’

  Supt Clifton told them: ‘It means your daughter was murdered.’

  Sue remembers gazing out of the window at an oak tree, swaying in the breeze; she uttered not a word, her mind a total blank, in a state of shock. Peter reacted differently and began to cry, unable to speak. Neither of them could take in the enormity of what they were being told.

  Sue broke the silence: ‘Do you know who is doing this?’ she asked.

  The police chief nodded.

  Sue told him she’d spoken to Bev Allitt who had told them she had been questioned about Paul Crampton.

  Supt Clifton told her: ‘Yes, but she failed to tell you that we have also interviewed her about both your daughters and other children.’

  The penny finally began to drop.

  Peter asked: ‘What does Bev say?’

  The police chief told him: ‘Don’t worry about her.’

  Sue believes they were the last of all the families involved to be told of the police suspicions.

  News had already started to leak out to the press and, even as they left the police station, a TV crew was waiting outside. Quietly, they slipped out through a back door.

  Alone with their thoughts, they started to look back, churning over in their whirling minds every detail of Becky’s death, hunting for clues they might have missed. How, they wondered, could it be true? Sue had never accepted that Becky had died from a ‘cot death’ because, right from the beginning, she knew it had been nothing like that. But being given the news that Becky had been murdered was like reliving the night she died. It was like her dying all over again, only this was worse.

  They were driven straight home by the same two CID officers who had taken the full force of Peter’s wrath. Now they were all silent.