All language subtitles for murder.uk.s03e07.1080p.web.h264-cbfm_track3_[eng]

(suspenseful music)

I'm David Wilson, emeritus
professor of criminology.

And for over 30 years,
I've investigated

the phenomenon of murder
and what it is that might

motivate someone to kill.

Every murder case is different.

But time and again,
a deadly pattern emerges

of warning signs and red flags.

In this new series, I
investigate some of the UK's most

harrowing murder cases
to understand how and why

these terrible crimes occur.

This is Murder UK.

(projector whirring)

(suspenseful music)

Grantham is
quite a small community.

And rumours about
worrying goings-on

at the hospital
were swirling around the town.

Most people working
in the hospital knew

the police had been coming
and going and taking files

away and taking
statements from people

and looking at patients' records.

By early May, the local
media had picked up

and were asking questions.

(David Wilson) The rumours start
on Ward 4, the children's ward

at Grantham & Kesteven Hospital.

(Donna Youngs) So there's lots of
really frightening

incidences going on,
four very young children dying,

lots of other examples

of the children becoming
suddenly very, very unexpectedly,

inexplicably, seriously ill.

(Sarah Jarvis)
Within a general children's ward,

nine needs for resuscitation?

That's completely unprecedented.

I worked in a very similar
children's ward for six months,

and we never had a single sudden
death that wasn't expected.

(David) Hospitals are
places where there are sick people,

and sometimes those
sick people will die.

It's also an obvious point
to make that health care

professionals want to help people.

They don't want to kill them.

And therefore, when there
are a sudden increase

in the numbers of
health care crises,

or, indeed, deaths on a unit or
within a hospital, the last thing

that people will think...
oh, there must be a killer

on the loose within the ward.

The hospital were
clearly confused.

The staff did not know how
to respond to our answers.

And that was really,
really worrying.

They were probably worried
about a lot of things

at the time, a lot of
unexplained events.

And they were searching for
answers, and they didn't have any.

(Jeff Edwards) Somebody very
senior within the clinical side

was put in touch with the
CID in Lincolnshire and said,

we think we need you to come
in and have a look at things.

(Stuart Clifton)
The police were contacted.

They were contacted by a telephone
call to a detective sergeant

at Grantham,
who got in touch with me.

And I went to the hospital the
following day on the 1st of May.

I was met with two...

two paediatricians,
Dr Porter and Dr Nanayakkara.

They both took different
positions.

Dr Nanayakkara thought that
whilst there were a high number

of collapses, a much higher
number than is normal,

he felt that it was just
a blip on the graph.

(Charith Nanayakkara)
The medical services,

the hospital services
were purely on trust.

And we believe everybody is
good, unless proved otherwise.

And our training is
such that we always

consider any medical condition
to be medically explained.

(David) DSI Stuart Clifton
begins looking into the file

of a baby called Liam Taylor.

(Stuart)
Liam Taylor was a little boy

of about seven weeks old.

He went into hospital.

There were concerned parents,
Chris and Joanne Taylor.

And they'd had the doctor out
a couple of times at home.

Liam Taylor was brought to
the hospital by his parents

because he was having
breathing difficulties.

(David) On Ward 4, Liam is
looked after by Dr Nanayakkara.

(Charith) Liam Taylor
was admitted under my care.

And I agreed that he was ill,

needing very close monitoring

and specific treatment,

even though we did not know
specifically

what was wrong with him.
On the whole, of course,

chest infections, children recover
from them.

They get them all the time,
and they recover from them.

His was unusually serious,

but he did seem to be on the mend.

(Charith) I used
to come and see him quite often

and assist him with the
help of the nursing staff.

We showed very slight improvement.

(pensive music)

(David) Liam's
parents are reassured

a nurse will remain by his side.

At about 5 o'clock,
two nurses

told them that they were going to
feed

the little boy, who had to be fed
through a tube, because he

couldn't take food normally.

They decided that they
would go home for tea.

(Jeff) He was
immediately tended to

by Beverley Allitt, who reassured

his worried parents that he was

going to be fine, that
he was in a really good

place, that they shouldn't worry.

They returned a short
time later and could

immediately see that
something was not quite right.

(suspenseful music)

The child was unclothed,
apart from a nappy.

And one of the nurses,
Beverley Allitt,

said that while she'd been feeding
him, the little boy had vomited,

and she'd had to go home
to change her uniform.

(David) Speaking to
Detective Inspector Neil Jones,

nurse Beverley Allitt claims she
has concerns about Liam Taylor.

(Beverley)
He was really... he

was ill, very ill, very ill baby.

And he had very
severe bronchiolitis,

pneumonia sort of thing.

(Neil) She was identifying
the occasions when

these children
were dying or were seriously ill.

She brought medical help
to them straightaway.

(Beverley) It looked
like red blotches on his skin.

And so I stayed with Wile, the
charge nurse, and looked at him.

And David came and says,
can you get a doctor?

She was always in the
right place at the right time

and was saying the right things.

So these parents had to
believe in her and trust her.

And they did.

(grim music,
monitor beeping steadily)

(Jeff) The child
was left with Beverley,

and things went very
quickly downhill,

and in fact, so seriously
that he suffered a, you know,

massive breathing problem,
oxygen starvation.

I could not quite
explain why he suddenly collapsed.

(David) Neither
could Beverley Allitt.

(Interviewer) What had
happened to him to make him

have a cardiac arrest?

(Beverley) I don't know.

(Interviewer) And nor
does anybody else?

(David) After
a while, it becomes

impossible to ignore what would
be seen as a professional anomaly.

There's always one
particular nurse who's

there when there's a crisis, or
who draws attention to the fact

that there's been
a crisis, or who is

attempting to intervene to prevent
the crisis from becoming worse.

And that professional anomaly
in this case is Beverley Allitt.

To many people, she must have
seemed like a dedicated caregiver.

But then you begin to
notice the pattern.

These sudden splurges, these sudden
increases in health care crisis

always occur when she's on duty.

In February 1991,
Dr Nanayakkara fights to save

the life of seven-week-old
Liam Taylor, the first

of the collapsing children.

(Charith)
I connected him onto a ventilator,

gave the necessary
intensive care and support.

But unfortunately,
we could not resuscitate him.

(Stuart) The boy, who
was now suffering convulsions,

had got brain damage.

Throughout that morning,
the Saturday morning,

then they decide

that they want life support
withdrawn.

And they nurse the child
until it dies in their arms

on the Saturday morning.

(David) Dr Nanayakkara
requests a post-mortem

and meets with his nursing team
while he awaits the results,

searching for answers.

(mysterious music)

(Charith)
And I was quite surprised.

And I shared my continuing
concerns about this

and tried to get more information
about

any possible causes of death.

I sat down with all the nurses

and went through
with each of them,

right from the beginning
to the end, what happened,

what were the changes?

(David)
Nurse Beverley Allitt

has been by Liam Taylor's side

throughout his stay on Ward 4.

(Interviewer) Could you have
gotten mixed up or neglected to do?

Did you forget to do?

(Beverley) Well, if I did,
I would find it on the drug chart.

I had it all wrote
down on a bit of paper

what I had to do during the night.

(David) Age 22, Beverley Allitt
has been on Ward 4

just three weeks
when Liam Taylor dies.

(Stuart) They
felt sorry for her

because she was a young
nurse new to the job and was,

in the early stages, well-liked
by the remainder of the staff

on that ward.

(suspenseful music)

Beverley Allitt grew up in
the Lincolnshire village

of Corby Glen.

She was one of four children,
working-class family.

She, right from an early
age, apparently, always

expressed an interest in nursing.

(David) Local
pub landlord Ray Mercer

remembers Beverley as a youngster.

(Ray Mercer) When it came to holiday
times, you're all meeting up.

You're playing.

Well, down by the Croft Road,
there was a little green.

Beverley was a quiet,
quiet one, yeah.

Would actually... when things were
happening, when we were deciding

what we were going to do,
she would be at the back,

watching what was going on.

(David) She has a reputation
for being good with younger

children in the village.

(Ray)
She had the opportunity

to start babysitting from
families who were looking for...

for young girls or boys
to actually babysit

for their children.

To my knowledge, there was nobody

who actually who came out
and said,

oh, well, don't use
Beverley because they're

not very good with the children.

(David) There are,
however, some concerns.

(Donna) She's
faking illnesses, putting

bandages on herself,
and not letting anybody

examine what's underneath.

And then she progresses on
to a rather more extreme

manifestation of this desperation.

(David) Beverley's
history suggests

deep-seated psychological issues.

She convinces doctors she needs
a healthy appendix removed.

(pensive music)

(Sarah) If you say
that you're in pain then,

it's very difficult to
be absolutely certain

that the appendix is normal,

and you can end up having your
appendix

taken out, just in case.

And it soon got to the stage,
in fact, where some GP surgeries

refused to take her
anymore as a patient,

and she was being passed, if you
like, from surgery to surgery,

all around the Lincolnshire area.

Suspicion started to
grow with her own parents

that there was, in fact,
nothing wrong with her at all.

She just was... had a kind of
attention-seeking syndrome.

(suspenseful music)

(David) Beverley Allitt has what

we now call factitious
illness disorder.

She claims to be sick
when, in fact, she's not.

She demands surgical
procedures, such as having

her appendix removed, when her
appendix is totally healthy.

By having factitious illness
disorder, what she is seeking

is attention.

What she's seeking is sympathy.

What she wants is to be the
centre of everyone's attention.

When the person with
factitious illness disorder

can no longer legitimately claim
that they are sick, what they will

sometimes do is they move away
from having an illness themselves

to saying that some of the
people that they're caring for

have that illness.

And that's when things
become really dangerous.

(grim music)

As an 18-year-old, Beverley
applies for a nursing course.

(Stuart) She was
befriended by a local nurse who

talked her into nurse training.

She did that nurse
training at Grantham

and lived within the accommodation

provided on the hospital.

(David) It was in
this nurse's accommodation

that a pattern of bizarre
and disturbing incidents

began to emerge.

(Stuart)
There were a number

of what I can only
describe as bizarre

incidents within the nurses' home.

There's a particularly
nasty incident where faeces

is discovered smeared
on the wall and then

some faeces left in the fridge.

Nobody could show
that she was directly responsible.

She was certainly
central to what was

going on within that nursing home.

(David) On the ward,
Beverley Allitt's performance

was just as concerning.

She was a strange girl anyway.

She'd been 48 days sick
in one year.

(Sarah) She may not have
been a very good trained nurse,

but she was a trained nurse.

(David) For
Beverley Allitt, the ward,

the unit is the ultimate stage
on which she can perform.

It gives her everything
that she's seeking.

It gives her status as a
caregiver, but also, crucially, it

gives her access to
vulnerable people

that she can manipulate so as
to gain even more attention.

And remember, I always say,
chronologically, even if we ignore

the motivation, when you
are dealing with a murder,

you have to look at two things...

access and opportunity.

And Beverley Allitt has the
access to these children

and the opportunity to use
that access to kill them.

Beverley applies for work at
Boston Hospital in Lincolnshire.

But her application is rejected.

Beverley tries to find
work at other hospitals.

(Jeff) Her local hospital was the
Grantham & Kesteven

District Hospital, and they were,
you know, very short of staff.

Even though there were question
marks about her ability

to perform the tasks
that she was required to do,

essentially, nobody else
was interested in the job.

(suspenseful music)

(David) Finally
securing a nursing role working

in Grantham & Kesteven
Hospital, Beverley Allitt

is desperate to prove herself.

(Jeff) She was much more
outgoing and willing to engage

and, in fact, almost ingratiating
herself with those people

to try and reassure them,
actually, that their child

was in the best possible care.

(Donna) She comes
across as straightforward.

I think her lack of
sophistication is easily

interpreted as a good heart.

She started in February 1991,

and within a few days,

the first of numerous collapses.

Very, very quickly, children
began to get ill and collapse.

Straight after
Liam's death, there

were other patients coming in.

But within a fortnight, in fact,
almost exactly two weeks later,

at the beginning of
March 1991, there

was another incident that was
very upsetting and unexplained.

(Stuart) Timothy Hardwick,
who was an 11-year-old boy,

he suffered from epilepsy.

And he was in the care of
Nottinghamshire County Council

at a special school at Newark.

He suffered a fit at school,

followed by four more.

Cerebral palsy is linked with
a higher risk of having epilepsy.

We know that Timothy
Hardwick had epilepsy.

We know that's why he
was admitted to hospital.

(David) Whilst
in hospital, Timothy is

under the care of Beverley Allitt.

At 5 o'clock,
he was heard coughing.

And Allitt was told
to go and look at him.

And she called a doctor.

(Charith) I suggested
that do some basic blood

tests and observe him closely

and give him some oxygen and
watch.

There was no other
major concern at the time.

(Jeff)
Timothy is left alone

with Beverley as his only carer.

And contrary to expectations,
after a little while,

she suddenly hits the...
you know, the panic button.

(alarm blaring, tense music)

She calls the emergency
resuscitation team

and says he appears
to be unconscious.

(Stuart)
He was going to be fine.

Very shortly after the
boy stopped breathing,

the resuscitation
team were called, but

sadly, they couldn't resuscitate.

(monitor beeping steadily)

Timothy Hardwick suffering
from severe cerebral palsy,

but by no means
expected to be lost,

and yet, just three hours
after being admitted to Ward 4,

he's dead.

(sombre music)

(grim music)

When interviewed,
Allitt tells police

there's nothing unusual
about Timothy Hardwick's death.

(Interviewer)
What about, then, Hardwick?

(Beverley Allitt)
He was a cerebral palsy boy.

And he came in fitting nothing.

(Jeff) Because the
hospital staff said to the police,

we were very unlucky if
we had even

one death on the ward every year.

(David) The death
of Timothy Hardwick so soon

after the death of
Liam Taylor on a unit

that's used to having
one death per year,

is clearly going to
raise the temperature,

raise a number of red
flags for her colleagues,

for hospital administrators,
and for any of the child

consultants working on that unit.

And so people are now beginning
to change their focus from looking

at a medical cause for these
health care crises, these deaths,

into something far more sinister.

DSI Stuart Clifton and his
team uncover more files,

which suggest the Children's Ward

isn't just experiencing misfortune.

(Interviewer)
Paul Crampton, Bradley Gibson,

Henry Chan,
Becky and Kate Phillips.

You look at Claire Peck.

(Beverley) I don't know.

It can't be no fault I'm making.

When David Crampton takes his
six-year-old son Paul to hospital,

there are initially
no major concerns.

Paul was taken to hospital
with bronchiolitis chest infection.

And when it came
towards the weekend,

we were told that
he was likely to be

released within a couple of days,

so either the Sunday or the Monday.

(Sarah) This was
the middle of winter.

And by all accounts, it was
a particularly harsh winter.

So there would have been
a lot of children coming

in with these sort of infections.

(Charith) So I did
see him on Saturday morning,

and I felt he was
really doing quite well.

And I didn't feel that
there was any great danger.

(David) On the 28th
of March, there's bad news.

Walked in the hospital,
clearly feeling quite happy.

Child was on the mend
and going to be released

within the next couple of days.

And I walked into the hospital
to find a scene of mayhem,

people rushing everywhere.

(monitor beeping)

Paul in the arms of a nurse,
I believe at that stage,

cold, grey, clammy,
so clearly in some distress.

(Charith)
I did give some glucose,

just as a temporary measure.

And I then subsequently
found that the blood taken

showed evidence of low sugar.

(David) The discovery of
acute low blood sugar levels,

hypoglycaemia, accompanied
by high levels of insulin,

is rare in healthy children.

And it's therefore a medical
anomaly that would be picked

up by an experienced clinician.

And it's the first time, therefore,
that people working on the ward

have to start to
consider the unthinkable,

that these children aren't becoming
ill because of natural causes,

but because somebody is
deliberately targeting

them to have a medical crisis.

Beverley Allitt,
who was in the room,

said that Paul, this child's
hypo, or words to that effect,

which I later found
out meant she decided

she thought he was hypoglycaemic.

(tape player clicking)

(Interviewer) So did you
see Paul that day alone?

(Beverley) No, not alone.

There was... the
physio was with him.

There was always somebody
in there.

And apart... unless, like, if
one went for a cup of coffee.

(Neil) She went
forward, identified

the problem very quickly.

And so the medical
staff could respond.

And that was the only
reason he survived.

(Sarah) One of the
doctors in the hospital

saw babies with very low blood
sugar,

very high levels of insulin,

and wondered whether it might
be due to a medical condition.

This medical condition is rare,

and it usually only affects
children.

It's called nesidioblastosis.

And what happens is your
body naturally just produces

lashings, far too much, insulin.

(David) Other possible
explanations are deeply troubling.

(Charith) One of the
causes for unexplained low sugar

was what we call
intentional administration

of insulin.

But no one ever suspected
that that was the case.

I checked with the GP, the
nursing staff, the parents.

None of them had any suspicion.

(pensive music)

(Jeff) You could say that
the people there were so busy

dealing with the constant influx
of new young patients

coming in, they didn't have time

to forensically analyse the
sequence of events that

had led up to two deaths
and a near-death, all within

the space of three or four weeks.

(dramatic music)

Transferred to another
hospital, Paul Crampton survives.

But now there are more
files for DSI Stuart

Clifton's team to
consider about what's

happening at Grantham & Kesteven.

In April 1991,
two-month-old twin Becky

Phillips is admitted to Ward 4.

Becky Phillips had
been taken into hospital

for projectile vomiting.

(Neil) She was
taken home by her parents.

She'd become listless, lethargic.

(monitor beeping steadily)

(Charith)
And then, in the night,

I was called to the casualty.

The parents had rushed
her to hospital.

And all attempts at
resuscitation had failed.

(David) Tragically,
Becky Phillips dies.

Dr Nanayakkara believes it
could be a case of SIDS,

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

(Sarah) Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome

used to be called cot death.

It mostly affects babies in the
first sort of six months of life.

Two to three months old is a
classic time for it to happen.

It most often happens
when babies are asleep.

(David) Following
the sudden death

of Becky Phillips, her
twin sister, Katie,

is brought in for observation.

(Stuart) Now, there
was absolutely nothing

wrong with Katie, and she
was taken into hospital

purely as a precaution.

Allitt is allocated
the care of Katie.

That afternoon, Katie suffers
the first of her collapses.

(Charith) And then
call for help from Queen's Medical

Centre, who actually
came to collect her,

and they took her over
to Queen's Medical Centre.

(David)
Katie Phillips survives,

and her parents
think Beverley Allitt

is responsible for her recovery.

They ask her to be
Katie's godmother.

She was so supportive of them

and competent and capable that
they made her the godmother

to the surviving twin.

(suspenseful music)

She's a godmother as
well as a nurse now.

I mean, it's exactly
what she's been craving.

(Charith) And that's
the extent of trust, perhaps,

the parents had on Beverley.

So there would have been something
to suggest that even the parents

were convinced that
Beverley, at the time,

was equivalent to godmother.

(David) I think Allitt
becoming Katie Phillips's godmother

is very significant for a
number of different reasons.

But if I just think about that from
the perspective

of Allitt herself and how she must
have interpreted that,

it would have confirmed to her that
her behaviour

within this dreadful scenario,

where children are
having health care crises and some

children are dying,
it would have confirmed

her belief that that would make
her the centre of attention.

That would give her
what she craves.

Her narcissism is being satisfied.

It would have given her some
control over the process.

And it would have
reinforced her behaviour.

It would have said
to her, you chose

to do the right thing when you
started to attack these children.

(Beverley) I didn't
really want to be close to them.

So that can be very funny about
who you let look after

your daughter.

And at times,
he said, I don't want

so-and-so touching my daughter.

(Interviewer) Is that
because the twin sister died?

(Beverley) I don't know.

(David) Beverley is developing

a strong trust with patients,
parents, and colleagues alike.

People felt sorry for her.

People... particularly as
the collapses of children

began to occur.

Because they recognised that
she was a new nurse and was not

used to seeing children collapse.

She didn't come
over as anything that you would...

other than you would
expect from a nurse...

caring, obviously, meticulous.

She knew things inside out.
She wrote things down.

She was fairly softly spoken.

(monitor beeping steadily)

(David)
Claire Peck, Bradley Gibson,

Yik Hung Chan, Kayley Desmond,
and many more children

collapse on Ward 4.

(Jeff)
Claire Peck, Claire was

a lovely 15-month-old
little girl that

had had asthma almost from birth.

She was left in the treatment
room in this period of time

with Nurse Allitt.

And within a couple
of three minutes,

the cry went up again that
she'd stopped breathing.

(monitors beeping)

A one-year-old girl called
Kayley Desmond, who had already

been admitted to the ward
with chest problems, suddenly

and unexpectedly
had a heart attack.

(monitors beeping)

Beverley Allitt had been at
the bedside of this little girl

when she collapsed.

(David) Only those children
transferred to a different hospital

survive.

Because so many of the
children who became ill,

they were being transferred on
to Nottingham Hospital, staff

there were starting to talk to
their colleagues at Grantham

and saying, what on
earth is going on here?

This is not normal.
This is not right.

It took a professor
from Nottingham Hospital

becoming aware, alert to the
fact that so many cases, so

many inexplicable cases were being
transferred to him at Nottingham.

It took this external
party, the professor,

to say directly to Grantham,
something's going on.

If you don't contact
the police, I will.

(David) The doctors on
Ward 4 confront their superiors.

We wrote a letter
to the general manager...

..highlighting these episodes

and our concerns,
continuing concerns,

and saying, we do need your help.

(monitors beeping)

(grim music)

DSI Stuart
Clifton is dispatched to Ward 4.

Could the staff rota
provide any clues?

(suspenseful music)

(Stuart)
I instructed the team

to prepare a chart which showed

which nurses were on duty

for each
and every one of the collapses.

And when that chart
was completed, it

showed that the only nurse
that had been there

for all of the collapses

was Nurse Beverley Allitt.

(Donna) Beverley Allitt is
always at the centre of all this,

of all this that's going on.

But I don't think
she will have been

perceiving herself
as being the force of evil

that's making all this happen.

(David) Allitt's presence
at every collapse on Ward 4

since her arrival forces
DSI Stuart Clifton to act.

I then took the decision
that we would have her arrested

and see what she had to
say about the events.

(Interviewer) Within 42
of your working days,

all those children had that
many attacks between them.

(Beverley) Hard to.

(Interviewer)
Astounding, isn't it?

(Beverley)
No reply.

(Interviewer)
Absolutely unbelievable.

(Beverley)
No reply.

(projector whirring)

Following the arrest
of Beverley Allitt,

the police conduct a search
of her accommodation.

(Stuart) During the search,
we found a hospital pillowcase.

We found a used syringe.

And we found a school-type
notebook,

on the cover of which was

written "Ward Allocations Book."

The police can prove
she was present at every collapse

since her arrival on Ward 4.

But the attendance
evidence alone is

not enough to secure a conviction.

(Interviewer) I understand that
you were left alone for some time

in the treatment room.

Is that correct?

(Beverley) No reply.
(Interviewer) What were you doing?

(Beverley) No reply.

She did not leave
any tell-tale signs,

nor did she have any eyewitnesses.

(David) Police take another
look at the file of Paul Crampton.

(Interviewer) Now, if you start
looking at the other days when

he has attacks...

(Beverley) Yeah.

(Interviewer) ... one of
the most common factors

is the fact that you're there.

The police zeroed in on
this case because toxicology

tests are done on this boy.

Samples that had been taken from
him at the time, when they went

to the police laboratories, showed
an extraordinarily high level

of insulin in his bloodstream.

Now, they had done a blood test,

and they found something like
500 millimoles of insulin

in this child's body.

That level is a whole syringe,
if you like, for being injected.

(David) 15-month-old
Claire Peck's blood sample also

reveals high rates of insulin.

(Stuart) Was
found to contain 9,660

milli-units per litre of insulin.

Now, in a child of
that age, there should

be something in the order
of 10 to 15 milli-units

per litre of insulin in the blood.

(monitor beeping steadily)

So this is insulin that has
been injected into this child.

So we looked at hospital
insulin, and we discovered

insulin is kept in locked fridges.

Three days before the first
collapse of Liam Taylor,

who was the very
first in the series,

the key to the fridge on
the children's ward, Ward 4,

had gone missing.

Nurse Beverley Allitt was the
last person to have had it.

And it started to
look very much as if it

hadn't really gone missing at all.

(grim music)

(David)
Allitt claims somebody else

took the keys to the fridge
containing the insulin.

(Beverley) The staff
nurse took them home with her.

And that was the thing
when they cleaned.

I thought of that,
the whole bunch.

Because a staff nurse took
them home around one shift.

(Interviewer) By mistake?

(Beverley)
By mistake, yeah.

(Stuart) She distanced
herself from all of the events,

saying things like,
I wouldn't do that.

I wasn't even on duty that day.

That was my day off.

I was in the canteen
when that occurred.

(David) The
police initially believed

they have only circumstantial
evidence to take

a case against Allitt to court.

DSI Clifton, however,
feels confident they

have the right person.

(tense music)

(Stuart) She was
released without charge.

But I felt at that time that
we'd got the right person.

So I approached the hospital
authorities with a view to

having her removed
from the ward.

(David) DSI Stuart Clifton
reaches out to the families,

revealing that a nurse is
now under investigation.

And then he told me that
he had reason to believe

or the police had reason to
believe that Paul's attacks

were the result
of the maladministration of drugs.

And I remember my
words nearly perfectly.

Because I think I said something
like that would explain a lot,

wouldn't it?

He met me on regular occasions.

And as much as he could,
with the confidentiality

of a case of such a
serious nature, he

kept me informed about how
their enquiries were going.

(David)
DSI Clifton's investigation

uncovers a terrifying truth.

The children on Ward 4

haven't
been harmed by insulin alone.

(grim music)

(Stuart)
I got renowned experts

to look at.

And then on this little
girl, Kayley Desmond,

they found needle
tracking under the arm

and concluded that this little
girl had been injected with air.

The problem is that air is not
supposed to be in your system.

If it's injected... and it's very
easy to inject it with a needle

simply by pulling up some air,
putting that needle into the vein,

and injecting it in... as
little as 1/2 a teaspoon,

when injected into your
brain, can result in a stroke.

(Interviewer)
Did you give it to her?

(Beverley) No reply.

Allitt refused to talk, but for
the Crown Prosecution Service,

that didn't matter.

They now had enough
evidence to prosecute.

(tense music)

(Stuart) There was a huge
amount of anticipation around it.

People were queuing up to
get into the public gallery.

All of the victims'
families attended trial,

and they were there every day,
as were many of the nurses

that worked on that ward.

She sat through the
evidence initially.

And then towards the middle to end
of the trial,

she didn't appear.

And we were told that she was
in hospital with some illness.

(Donna) She focuses only on
what she wants to remember

and what she wants to feel again,

the time
when she was heroic or the time

when she was the centre of
attention for whatever reason,

not the times when her actions

led to the death of a baby
or child.

(Charith)
All the information

was collated through

large number of experts, police,

forensic pathologists,
expert witnesses,

from United Kingdom and outside,

who collected
all the information.

(Stuart)
As the evidence unfolded,

I think that there
was some astonishment

that we were able to pinpoint
in detail

what had actually occurred.

The verdicts were dribbled
out, if that makes sense.

They didn't all come at once.

But the jury convicted
her of 13 offences.

(grim music)

Beverley Allitt
is found guilty of four murders,

three attempted murders,
and six counts of GBH.

The defence then put
forward that she was suffering

from Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

(Donna)
What Munchausen's is,

essentially, is an absolute
desperate plea,

yes, for attention,

but more than that,
it's for somebody to care.

So the Munchausen's that we see,
even in the very early stages

of her childhood,
the faking of illnesses,

of all kinds of different
injuries, et cetera,

part of the distorted, bizarre,
disturbed thinking process

is that the doing
of harm is something

good because it generates the
care and attention that is needed.

(David) Allitt is
sentenced to a minimum term

of 30 years in prison.

It was later reviewed.

And Munchausen syndrome by proxy

is now an explanation for crime,

but not a cause of crime...

slight, but subtle
difference in the two.

Beverley Allitt's never
shown any remorse at all.

And when I asked her
why she'd done it,

she got up and walked away
from me.

(David) She is the first
British nursing serial killer.

Allitt serves her sentence
in a high-security hospital.

(Sarah) It just had huge
repercussions for the whole

of the medical profession.

Because we knew how much it
would affect patient trust.

The thought of someone
who's trained

and is paid to care for children,

defenceless children,

the thought
of them betraying that trust

and harming that child
is something most of us

can't comprehend and
come to terms with.

(Stuart)
I think it's a shock

to the system when
we discover that not

everybody that works
within that environment

is there for the right reason.

(theme music)