by John Askill
The news hit Creswen O’Brien and her common-law husband, Mick Peasgood, hard. Their baby son Christopher had nearly died on Ward Four, but had now recovered. But they were still haunted by the cot death of their ten-month-old daughter, Michelle, two years earlier.
The first news of the investigation came in a telephone call from a Professor, three weeks after Christopher was discharged from hospital. He told the couple to expect a call from the police, but they couldn’t wait.
‘We rang the police at Grantham and asked about the enquiry, but they couldn’t tell us anything. We heard nothing more until the next-door neighbour came round and told us it was on TV. The report said they were investigating the deaths of some children. I was furious. I went to the phone box and rang the police and asked them what the hell they were playing at.
‘It was on TV and they had not had the decency to come and tell us.’
But when the police arrived two days later they said that Christopher’s case was still being investigated; they were not sure whether or not he was one of the children affected. Weeks later the police returned with the news that they believed Christopher’s illness was suspicious.
Hazel and Robert Elstone returned home from hospital in Nottingham to find two policewomen on their doorstep. They said they wanted a statement about what had happened to their seven-week-old baby son Patrick on Ward Four where his heart had stopped beating twice.
The couple were baffled by the request until the two officers broke the news that they were investigating the ‘misuse of drugs’.
Hazel recalls: ‘They asked if Patrick was diabetic. I said he wasn’t, but I thought it was strange they should ask me that. It never crossed my mind that anyone had tried to kill him. It’s the last thing you expect.
‘He was in the safest place you could ever put a baby – in hospital. I told the police that Patrick had been having fits, and they said if he’d been given insulin then that might explain it. But I still cannot believe how anyone could harm little children. I asked the police time and time again, but they couldn’t tell me.’
One by one other parents found the police at their door asking questions, wanting to know what they remembered about the treatment of their children on Ward Four. At first the detectives would only tell the families they were investigating the wrongful use of drugs. There was no talk of babies being poisoned, never mind murdered, and not the merest hint that a nurse was the prime suspect.
The police had been uncertain how the parents would react to the news that the care of their children was under scrutiny. Detectives half expected to hear one or two complaints, grumbles about this and that but, instead, almost all the families stood fair square in defence of the hospital and its staff. The overwhelming response was that the children had been well cared for on the ward.
Only one couple, David and Kath Crampton, whose baby son Paul had suffered mysterious hypoglycemic attacks on the ward, had seriously challenged the belief that all was well. The results of the medical tests were proving their suspicions to be well founded.
14. ‘Thank You Very Much’
Five months after the start of the police investigation, Sister Jean Saville found it all too much to bear.
The dawning realisation of the enormity of what had happened on Ward Four hit many of the nurses hard. They were gentle, caring people who had devoted their lives to helping sick people get better. Some were so badly distressed that they had been receiving counselling. All of them had been questioned by detectives, many of them several times, in the never-ending search for the slightest clue.
But on Friday, 20 September, two weeks after a police file accusing Beverley Allitt had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sister Saville committed suicide.
She was the hospital’s night services manager and one of the most senior nurses and respected members of staff. She had been on duty when a number of the youngsters had suffered unexplained heart attacks and respiratory failures, and she had helped in the battles to save young lives on Ward Four. She had helped save twin Katie Phillips and she had shared the anguish of Chris and Joanne Taylor on the night baby Liam had collapsed. She was forty-nine years old, a highly experienced and devoted nurse. She and her husband Barry had recently been on a holiday to Australia to celebrate their Silver Wedding anniversary.
The police interviews at the hospital had gone on for weeks and everybody was well aware by then that the detectives were investigating serious matters. What had happened to so many youngsters right under their noses? It was almost impossible for some nurses and doctors to accept that children had been murdered and that the finger of suspicion was pointing at a colleague they had trusted. For some, their very faith in human nature was being destroyed day by day.
But then, as the police enquiry was drawing to a close, Sister Saville took a massive overdose of Paracetamol at her home in the village of Leasingham, near Sleaford, and killed herself. There had been no warning of what was to happen. Jean Saville had told her farmer husband about the police investigation and her dislike of the questions. But she had always enjoyed her work and he didn’t think she was worrying unduly about the events at the hospital.
But Sister Saville left a suicide note in which she wrote that she had nothing to do with the deaths of the children. She said: ‘Please, please believe me.’ There had never been any suggestion that she had been involved in the deaths of the children.
Like many of the nurses she hadn’t wanted to be interviewed by the police, but she’d faced their questions, answered them honestly and had never been a suspect. Nobody fully realised the effect the investigation was having on the kindly and popular nurse.
On the morning of her death Barry left for work but, when he arrived home at 7.45pm, he found a 100-tablet box lying empty and his wife dead in their bed in her nightdress. Her body was taken, ironically, to the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, where she had spent so many years of her life, and placed in the mortuary to await a post-mortem examination.
Relatives were in no doubt what had driven Jean to take her own life. Her father-in-law, Ernest Saville, who lived just a few doors away, said: ‘Jean left a note saying she definitely had nothing to do with the deaths. I think it just got too much for her. She was so upset that the babies were dying on the ward where she was in charge. I believe that hospital affair just upset her so much she couldn’t take it. She was perfectly happy otherwise.’
Several of the families who had seen their children survive on the ward, thanks to her skill, attended the funeral, determined to pay their final respects to a nurse whose devotion to saving lives had been legendary in Grantham. Sue and Peter Phillips were among those who would remain eternally grateful to Sister Saville. She had been the nurse who had refused to give in, battled against the odds and won, the night their baby Katie nearly died on the Children’s Ward. They knew they had her to thank for Katie’s life.
Sue Phillips recalls: ‘It had certainly got to Jean. When we spoke to her about it, Bev had already been given extended leave from the hospital. Jean told us she just couldn’t understand how things had happened to the children. Everything was taking place on her ward and it was really upsetting her. She was disgusted.
‘Somehow she felt responsible and felt she should have been able to do something to stop it. She was such a caring person. She’d lived for nursing, she’d done so much to help people. When we heard she was dead, it was just awful.
‘There were really five deaths on Ward Four – the children plus Jean Saville.’
Her suicide raised obvious questions about whether she had ever come under suspicion herself. At the inquest into her death the coroner took the unusual step of clearing her name. Deputy Sleaford coroner, Glyn Williams, refused to read aloud her handwritten note which had made it clear she had intended to take her own life. But he announced: ‘I have made enquiries, and I have spoken to the police, and they are satisfied that she had no involvement in the tragic deaths which have recently occurred at Gra
ntham hospital.’
Other nurses, too, had been finding it hard to carry on their duties. The strain became so acute that the Royal College of Nursing offered its members counselling to help them cope. Hospital manager Martin Gibson announced that a consultant had visited the hospital and agreed there was a need for a trained and sympathetic person to consider ‘all aspects of the effects staff are feeling from the current situation’.
While the pressure grew amongst her former colleagues, Allitt remained on ‘extended leave’. But her ‘holiday’ was interrupted when she was summoned to return to Grantham police station for more questioning.
This time the police directly accused her, for the first time, of murdering the four children and attempting to kill the others.
Instead of repeating her protests of innocence, Allitt remained tight-lipped, exercising her right to remain silent, refusing to answer one question. A detective said: ‘We had prepared all our questions but, as we went through each case, Allitt just stared ahead and said nothing. At the most she would say: “No comment.”
We put it to her quite forcibly that she had murdered the children but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even tell us that she hadn’t done it. All the interview was taped but there was nothing to listen to except our own voices.’ She was eventually allowed to leave the police station with her bail extended.
Supt Clifton’s file on the case, 118 pages long and more complex than anything he had ever prepared in twenty-five years as a policeman, was being slowly assessed by the Director of Public Prosecutions in London. It would be up to him to decide whether the detectives had managed to amass enough evidence to bring any charges.
Supt Clifton suggested there should be twelve charges in all, four accusing Allitt of murdering Liam Taylor, Timothy Hardwick, Becky Phillips and Claire Peck, and another eight offences alleging the attempted murder of Kayley Desmond, Paul Crampton, Bradley Gibson, Henry Chan, Katie Phillips, Christopher Peasgood, Christopher King and Patrick Elstone. The evidence was amassed and all he could do now was sit back and await a decision.
Parents whose children had suffered at the hospital were anxious to know just how long it would take. Their lives had been ripped apart by the enquiry and now, after five months, they thought they had waited long enough for some answers. A police spokesman predicted there would be news in five weeks or so and, when there was no word by mid October, the families ran out of patience, complaining that ‘red tape’ had ground the enquiry to a halt.
They had formed their own Support Group, united by the knowledge that they all had children who had died or had survived the incidents on Ward Four. It gave them a chance to share their grief with others and to talk about their problems in a process that would help each one of them to come to terms with what had happened. Their leader was Mrs Judith Gibson whose five-year-old son, Bradley, was one of the survivors.
The strain of not knowing whether charges would be brought, and the fear that the case would be buried for lack of evidence, was beginning to tell. The families decided to call a press conference at Grantham Guildhall to voice their growing concern. About twenty journalists from national and local newspapers, TV and radio stations scribbled furiously as first one parent, then another, revealed their emotions. Seven families appeared before the cameras, along with a Manchester-based solicitor, Ann Alexander, who had offered to help them bring a civil action against the hospital because of their suffering and the possibility of long-term effects on their children.
Several of the surviving youngsters had shown worrying signs of possible brain damage after their ordeal at the hospital; nobody would know for sure until the children were much older. Tests were being carried out on Katie Phillips who developed an apparent weakness on her right side; Hazel Elstone had noticed that surviving son Patrick wasn’t making the same progress as his twin brother, Anthony; and Finbar and Margaret Desmond were unhappy about the development of daughter Kayley. Others believed their children may have escaped without long-term effects. The lawyer immediately launched a claim for damages on behalf of several of the children.
If the police enquiry fizzled out, and the case was dropped, then the parents announced they would consider bringing their own private prosecution.
The press conference was a traumatic experience for most of the families, exposed to the glare of publicity for the very first time, but they were determined to have their say.
Chris Taylor, whose seven-week-old baby son Liam had been the first to die, sat beside his wife Joanne in the upstairs conference room at the Guildhall and criticised the hospital authorities. He snapped: ‘They have referred to the strain their staff have been under, but I’ve not heard them once mention the strain the parents are under.’ He continued: ‘If our three-year-old son became ill now, then I wouldn’t take him to the hospital. I don’t feel I can trust anyone until we get some answers.
‘We were just trying to come to terms with what we had lost when the police came. We’d no suspicions before that and we still haven’t had the answer why he died …’
Judith Gibson, whose son Bradley had suffered two unexplained heart attacks on the ward, and ‘died’ for thirty-two minutes, said the case had put a strain on marriages. She spoke of the need for a quick decision from the DPP, saying: ‘None of us want to go through this any longer. We have all suffered enough. We are all experiencing very similar emotions and feelings. We feel someone is culpable, and that someone is responsible at the hospital for the deaths of these four children. The families want that person found and prosecuted.’
Sue Phillips was in no doubt there should be a public enquiry, compensation for the parents and a speedy decision from the DPP.
She told the newsmen: ‘As parents we are trying to stick together, and see it through together, but it still hasn’t sunk in what’s happened, and it won’t for a long time. It’s like a nightmare. I keep thinking I’ll wake up. The police have told us what was administered to our baby Becky, and exactly how much. In some ways I feel very sorry for the person who did this to her. The person must be twisted.’
Strangely, throughout the hour-long press conference, nobody mentioned Beverley Allitt’s name. It wasn’t necessary. Everyone in the room knew who had brought them all together and who was the real target of their fury. Finbar Desmond, whose daughter Kayley had been nine months old when she twice suffered respiratory failures on Ward Four, said he knew the nurse who had been questioned by the police.
‘I feel compassion for her,’ he said. I’ve not seen her since all this blew up, but I don’t think I’d like to meet her because I don’t know how I would react …’
Lawyer Ms Alexander did her best, measuring her words carefully to explain what the parents thought, knowing that there was no way, in the middle of a murder enquiry, that she could name the suspected killer.
She said: ‘They believe one person is responsible, and they think they know who that person is. The parents are under a lot of stress because they don’t know whether the police will be allowed to bring a criminal prosecution. That is hanging over them.’
She said the delay in deciding whether to bring charges was causing undue distress. Parents were not unhappy, she said, with the police who had kept them in the picture ‘every inch of the way’. But turning to the role of the hospital authorities in the tragedy, and the apparent delay in calling in the police at the beginning, she declared: ‘The parents haven’t had any questions answered as to the reason why there was a delay in bringing in the police in the first place.
‘The incidents started in February, but it wasn’t until May that the police were involved. They are concerned that not only does it not happen again, but also that steps are taken to ensure that it does not.’
The idea of the press conference had been to arouse public feeling and to put into words the suspicion that the deaths on Ward Four might be swept under the carpet. To that extent it was a huge success.
Lincolnshire’s Assistant Chief Constable, Alan Go
ldsmith, quickly issued a statement sympathising with the parents. ‘We understand what they are going through,’ he said. ‘But the file has been with the DPP for four weeks and is still being considered very thoroughly.’
Hospital manager Martin Gibson, worried by the criticism that he had been slow to react, jumped to the hospital’s defence and insisted that he had called in the police as soon as the possibility of drugs being misused had been identified. Security on the wards had been checked. ‘Both ourselves and the police are satisfied as to their adequacy,’ he said.
Mr Gibson said it was the first time the hospital had heard about a call for a public enquiry; he felt parents should contact him if they were anxious about the treatment of their children on Ward Four. Any claims for compensation would be carefully considered, he promised.
The press conference generated a huge wave of publicity, making headlines in almost all the national newspapers and on TV.
Parents, however, still harboured doubts that the enquiry would not lead to charges and that the case would be too complicated to prove.
On 13 November, when they had still heard nothing (almost two months after the file had gone to the DPP), their patience ran out again. After a meeting with their lawyer, a group resorted to shock tactics, besieging Grantham police station and demanding to know why there was still no news. The angry parents crowded into the foyer of the station before they were finally summoned into an office for a meeting with Detective Chief Inspector Alan Smith.
Judith Gibson stormed: ‘The waiting is driving us mad. We have to be told what’s happening.’ Joining in the verbal attack Chris Taylor said: ‘We’ve had to take action to break down the wall of silence which surrounds the case. We’ve read more in the press than the police have been prepared to tell us.’
