Three senior managers from the hospital where former nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering babies worked, have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, British police said.
Letby, 35, is serving life in jail after being found guilty of murdering seven newborns and attempting to murder eight more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England.
The nurse has maintained her innocence throughout but has been refused permission to appeal against her convictions.
She has been told she will never be released.
Following the trial, police began to investigate possible corporate manslaughter offences at the hospital, an inquiry that was later widened to consider if individuals might be guilty of gross negligence manslaughter.
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, who is leading the investigation, said three unnamed members of the hospital's senior leadership team had been arrested on Monday local time.
They have subsequently been released on police bail pending further inquires.
"Both the corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter elements of the investigation are continuing and there are no set timescales for these," Mr Hughes said in a statement.
He added that the police investigation into whether Letby had committed more crimes at the hospital and at another unit where she had previously worked was ongoing.
Cheshire Police said the case does not have any impact on Letby's 2023 convictions for murder and attempted murder.
Experts dispute evidence against the nurse
Letby, who testified that she never harmed a child, has continued to proclaim her innocence and support for her has grown as legal and scientific experts have questioned the circumstantial and statistical evidence used at her trial.
A panel of international medical experts disputed the evidence against her and her lawyer said she was wrongly convicted.
A judge who oversaw a public inquiry seeking accountability of staff and management at the hospital is expected to publish her findings this fall.
Justice Kathryn Thirlwall said at the outset of the inquiry that she would not review Letby's conviction, but take a deeper look into how failures led babies to repeatedly be harmed at the hospital.
As that inquiry was underway earlier this year, an independent panel of more than a dozen medical experts issued a report that found no sign of a crime and concluded natural causes or bad medical care led to the demise of each of the newborns.
"In summary, then, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders," Dr Shoo Lee, a retired neonatologist from Canada, said at a London news conference in February.
Letby's lawyers and three former executives at the hospital unsuccessfully petitioned Judge Thirlwall to halt the public inquiry after the medical panel released its findings.
Letby, who lost two bids to appeal her convictions, now has her case before the Criminal Case Review Commission, which reviews possible miscarriages of justice and could lead to one another shot at an appeal.
The Crown Prosecution Service has said two juries convicted Letby and three appellate judges had rejected her arguments that the prosecution expert evidence was flawed.
Reuters/AP
