by John Askill
Supt Clifton decided to plough everything into his one and only lead – the blood tests on five-month-old Paul Crampton whose sugar level had plunged so low he had nearly died three times.
Paul had been transferred to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham where his blood had been tested. It revealed a higher than normal level of insulin, a reading of 148 milli-units per litre of blood, the calibration used to measure minute quantities. That was far, far higher than it should have been. A normal level would be between 4 and 6.
The hospital ordered a second check which showed that, by then, the level in Paul’s blood had dropped to 90. But a sample had also been taken earlier as a matter of routine at the Grantham and Kesteven General Hospital; this had been despatched to a specialist laboratory at Cardiff University for detailed analysis.
The results were totally unexpected.
Cardiff reported an insulin level ‘in excess of 500’. What was even more worrying was that the laboratory couldn’t tell Supt Clifton exactly how much higher than 500 – their equipment couldn’t measure levels beyond that.
Supt Clifton thought at first that this was the proof that Paul had been given a massive dose of insulin, enough to kill him.
But he was to find it wasn’t as simple as that.
Doctors explained that, in young children, the body sometimes produced insulin naturally in erratic and often high amounts. Big readings often indicated a tumour in the pancreas, secreting insulin into the body. Supt Clifton was told the level could sometimes soar as high as 1,000.
But was Paul suffering from such a tumour? More tests revealed that he wasn’t, so what had caused such an enormous reading?
Another factor added to the mystery and fuelled Supt Clifton’s growing anxiety. When the body manufactures its own insulin, it also produces another substance called C-Peptide at exactly the same rate. If Paul’s sky-high insulin level had been produced naturally, tests would detect an equally high C-Peptide reading. But, in Paul’s blood, the C-Peptide was almost normal.
Supt Clifton decided to consult Britain’s leading expert on insulin to ask for an explanation. He telephoned Vincent Marks, professor of bio-chemistry at the University of Surrey, vice-president of the Royal College of Pathologists and formerly president of the Association of Clinical Bio-Chemists. Professor Marks was just about to set off from Guildford for an art exhibition in the seaside resort of Scarborough with his wife, an accomplished artist and sculptor. He agreed, however, to make a detour to Grantham and the two men arranged to meet at the Angel and Royal where they talked about the findings over a pint of best Bass bitter.
Supt Clifton outlined the case to him, explaining how children had been falling ill and dying at his local hospital. The professor listened to the unfolding story and digested the figures so far available.
By the end of the discussion Professor Marks was convinced that something untoward had been happening. He was as sure as he could be that, yes, insulin had been administered to little Paul Crampton. There was no other possible explanation for the reading in excess of 500.
The professor offered the help of another expert at the university, Dr David Teal, who would do more tests on the Crampton blood sample, only half of which had been used at Cardiff. The remaining half of Paul’s blood was moved from Cardiff to the laboratory at Guildford which was equipped accurately to measure higher levels.
When the Guildford result came back, it was staggering.
The test showed an insulin level of an incredible forty-three thousand milli-units per litre of blood, a figure virtually unknown in the medical world. The only comparable reading had been found in a doctor who had deliberately injected himself with a huge overdose to commit suicide.
It was equivalent, in a baby, to having an entire 10ml syringe full of insulin pumped into the body in one dose. Even if Paul had a tumour – and the police knew he hadn’t – a level as high as 43,000 could not be explained.
Now, at last, here was the proof that the child had been overdosed on a huge scale; detectives realised just how lucky Paul had been to survive.
Insulin, first discovered in 1922 by two Canadian professors, is not a drug but a protein naturally produced by the pancreas.
Too little insulin in the blood produces the classic symptoms of diabetes – a chronic thirst, feelings of lethargy and tiredness and loss of weight. Too much brings on trembling, shaking, sweating, fits and causes the victim painlessly to collapse, ultimately into a coma, which, if not treated with a supply of sugar, will be fatal.
Insulin at the Grantham and Kesteven General Hospital was kept, the detectives discovered, in much the same way as in hospitals all over the country. It was not a dangerous drug, to be stored with the morphine, but was kept on the ward in a locked fridge, ready for use. No accurate records were ever considered necessary because, as in most hospitals, nurses had a habit of drawing more than they required into the syringe and squirting the remainder away. It was kept and used in much the same way, and with the same security, as other everyday essential medicines.
But Supt Clifton now wanted to know whether Paul had been given an injection of insulin deliberately or could it have been an awful mistake? Suspicions grew when he discovered that the key to the fridge had gone missing. Nurse Allitt said that she had gone to open it but found that the key had vanished from the key ring. A thorough search was made but the key was never traced.
Ward manager Moira Onions had been asked by doctors to carry out an urgent review of the drug supplies to the ward. They wanted to know whether there could have been a mix-up in the labelling. Could Paul have innocently been given the wrong drug by mistake? Could there have been another child on the ward who should have been receiving insulin instead?
Supt Clifton, however, still felt that the overdose had been no accident and, if it wasn’t, then he had to know who could do such a thing. It had to be someone who had easy access, someone who was trusted enough to get close to the child, administer an overdose and not be noticed. The ‘spy’ camera was producing nothing and there had not been another single incident on Ward Four since the day the police were called in.
Detectives began questioning every nurse whose duties had taken them to the ward, asking them in minute detail what they remembered of the emergencies, where they had been and who had been with them at the time children had died or collapsed.
Still, for many of them, the reason for the police investigation was a mystery. A detective said: ‘In the end we had to call all the nurses together to a meeting and tell them exactly what we were doing and that we needed their cooperation.
‘They had all taken an oath, not to talk about patients, and as a result the word just didn’t get round for weeks on end.’
Some of the nurses suffered feelings of guilt and blamed themselves for not realising what had happened. Others were convinced they were under suspicion. Nurse Kathy Lock, who worked on the Children’s Ward, said: ‘I was there most of the time during the period that the police were investigating and yet it had never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that it could be deliberate. It was the last thing we had thought about.
‘It’s not the sort of thing you could ever imagine happening in a hospital.’
Another nurse said: ‘We realised that we were all suspects and some of us were interviewed half a dozen times. We had looked after the children at various times so I suppose at that stage we were all looking at one another, and wondering ….’
Supt Clifton and his team drew a chart, detailing each one of the emergencies, and pinned it to the wall. They were looking for a common thread – a pattern which would make sense of the events.
Armed with the detailed staff-rota lists, they drew rough graphs on the wall of the incident room. Supt Clifton wanted to know if there were any nurses who had been regularly on duty when the incidents happened.
As he ticked off each event, one name recurred time … and time … and time again.
It appeared alongside every one of
the twenty-four incidents that had occurred on Ward Four during the sixty days.
The name was that of Nurse Beverley Allitt.
The newly qualified SEN, still only twenty-two, was taken under arrest at breakfast-time on the morning of Monday, 3 June – five weeks after the start of the investigation – to the grey stone Grantham police headquarters. She was questioned for two days about Paul Crampton, sleeping the night in a 10 × 11 foot cell.
She spent both days protesting her innocence, never once admitting any responsibility, totally denying she was in any way to blame. In some instances she insisted she had not even been present when particular children had suffered unexplained relapses on her ward; it was always someone else.
Her calmness under questioning surprised Supt Clifton and his team. It was the first time in her life that the quietly spoken village girl had ever been locked up by police and they were astonished that she could remain so cool, with no sign of tears or nerves. One policeman said: ‘You would have thought she was on a Sunday School outing. There was no reaction from her. It was more a case of her saying, “Can I have something to read?”
‘You would have thought she had booked into the Ritz for a holiday.’
He added: ‘Being kept in a police cell is a very demeaning experience but she seemed to just take it in her stride.’
Nurse Beverley Gail Allitt was released on police bail the following evening and sent home on extended leave by the hospital at the suggestion of the police.
8. Beverley – the Godmother
The joy of having surviving twin Katie back from the dead sent a welcome surge of hope into the lives of Sue and Peter Phillips. Determined to look now to a brighter future, and totally unaware of the police investigation at the hospital, they asked Nurse Beverley Allitt if she would agree to be Katie’s godmother.
Peter explained: ‘We were so pleased and happy with what she’d done. We’d seen how her quick thinking probably saved Katie. We had seen her rushing from the room at the hospital, holding Katie in her arms, shouting for the ‘crash team’, when she discovered she had stopped breathing. We thought that, if she hadn’t have been there, Katie would have died. What she’d done was wonderful. Why shouldn’t the girl, who saved her life, become her godmother?’
Sue said: ‘We asked Bev at the hospital, on Katie’s first day back from Nottingham, if she would consider becoming her godmother. She said, “Yes,” without a second thought. She seemed to be overjoyed at the prospect.’
Allitt was so pleased that she went shopping for her little goddaughter and bought her a charming baby-gro.
Sue said: ‘Katie came home from hospital for the day on Friday, 10 May. I remember it because it was a glorious, sunny spring day which was so warm we were able to sit out in the garden.
‘I also remember it because it was the first time that Bev came to our house. We hadn’t expected her, but she arrived about 3pm, still dressed in her blue check nurses’ uniform because she had just come off duty.
‘We were all sitting out in the garden and Peter had even put up the big sun umbrella. Katie was in her buggy under the umbrella and Bev brought the present for her. Bev was fine. She was happy, smiling and we were pleased to see her. She was, after all, going to be Katie’s godmother. My mum and dad were here too and, like us, they were delighted she’d made the effort to come.’
Someone made her a cup of tea and, later, she sipped a cold drink with them as she stayed for the remainder of the sunny afternoon.
Sue recalls: ‘We were still a bit nervous about Katie’s condition and it felt comforting to have a nurse with us. I was constantly going up to the buggy just to make sure she was all right. She still had the Apnia Alarm fitted to her chest, that was with her all the time, but it still felt right to check.
‘I remember talking to Bev about it and she was very reassuring. She said she was sure we had nothing to worry about. Katie was going to be fine.’
Sue still couldn’t manage to cope with Katie being at home permanently, so the hospital allowed her to take her baby back at night to sleep in Ward Four where she continued her stay as a part-time patient, going home whenever Sue and Peter could cope.
The following Wednesday, Sue and Peter decided they were ready to have Katie at home permanently and she was finally discharged from hospital. Sue said: ‘I felt very confident that day and I knew that the longer we left her at the hospital, the more difficult it would become to take her home.’
She said: ‘We brought Katie home dressed in the pink-and-white baby-gro Bev had bought for her. It was such a lovely, sunny and warm day again that we decided to walk from the hospital, pushing Katie in her buggy. It’s only a five-minute walk and it was wonderful.’
It was a relief having Katie home for good, although Sue couldn’t bear the thought of going into the nursery where the twins had slept those first few hours on the night Becky died. Peter swapped the rooms round so that Becky’s cot was gone and Katie slept in the front bedroom. At least it looked and felt different and there were no awful memories to haunt them.
The next day Allitt, now a growing family friend and a shoulder for Sue to lean on, arrived at the house around lunchtime. Smiling, she picked up Katie to give her a cuddle and Sue was delighted when she offered to feed her. Sue left her sitting on the settee in the lounge with Katie on her lap feeding her with her bottle.
What a good friend she was turning out to be. Allitt was off duty and ended up staying for four or five hours. The two women were soon going on shopping trips together, pushing Katie around Grantham in her buggy.
Sue said: ‘She knew I was still a bit apprehensive about having Katie at home. It was just so reassuring having Bev around. She said to me: “You are bound to feel like that, Sue. Don’t worry about it.”’
The next day Katie was snuffling with a cold and wasn’t interested in feeding and, taking no chances, the emergency doctor decided she should go back into hospital, just for observation. Katie was admitted to Ward Four where she was placed in a cot in Cubicle Two. She was congested and doctors prescribed simple nose drops and antibiotics to clear up what seemed like a dose of flu.
Sue stayed with her and, by the Monday, after two nights in the hospital, Katie was much better. When doctors insisted, however, that she must stay in for about a week, Sue was reassured that Allitt was on duty and assigned to look after her little goddaughter-to-be. Katie recovered so quickly that, by Wednesday, 29 May, paediatrician Dr Nanayakkara told them they could take her home.
It was a week later before the Phillips saw Beverley Allitt again. Unknown to Sue and Peter, the police investigations had been in full swing on Ward Four for more than a month. Allitt made no mention of the police enquiries, her arrest and suspension from duty, when she popped in for half an hour for a cup of coffee. She blamed her absence on the fact that she had been working hard.
She returned the following Tuesday, the day Peter kept a long-awaited date with surgeons to have a vasectomy – a decision they had taken even before Becky had died. She wanted to ask if she could take Katie out on a trip to visit a friend.
Sue’s mother, who was in the house babysitting, asked her to wait until Sue got home from hospital; Allitt was still at the house when Sue returned. She asked if she could take James as well as Katie to the park. Sue saw nothing wrong with the request.
‘I wasn’t worried at all when they went off,’ she said. ‘But they were gone for ages and that’s when I became anxious. After about two hours I was beginning to panic a bit, wondering if something had gone wrong. I rang Bev’s house, about a mile away, but there was no reply. I just sat there and waited.’
Sue wasn’t to know that Allitt was doing what she’d always done when looking after children; she had taken them to show her grandmother in the rural village of Corby Glen, eight miles southeast of Grantham, where she had lived until she started work at the hospital. She finally returned with Katie and James, four and a half hours later, by which time Sue was frantic.
‘She could see how upset I had been but she told me she hadn’t meant to worry me. She said: “I just thought you could do with the break.”’
The following day, Wednesday, 12 June, Beverley Allitt called in again, arriving at about 4pm. This time she wanted to take James out for another trip.
She said she was going to pick up her friend, Tracy Jobson, who also worked as a nurse at the hospital, and they were driving to Peterborough to visit Tracy’s mother. They were planning to stop at a McDonald’s on the way. She turned to three-year-old James and told him: ‘It’s OK, James, you can come with me.’
The little boy was delighted and rushed to put on his shoes and get himself ready even before Sue had said he could go.
Allitt casually told her for the first time about the police investigation that was under way on the Children’s Ward at the hospital. It should have hit Sue like a bombshell. But Allitt announced it so calmly that to begin with, Sue didn’t imagine for a minute that it was important.
‘All she told me was that some people were being questioned at the hospital. She didn’t seem worried about it and she certainly wasn’t nervous. She said the police had been interviewing staff. Then she told me: “I don’t know what they are getting at but they are asking a lot of questions about Paul Crampton.”’
Sue knew about Paul Crampton who had nearly died after collapsing on Ward Four. She remembered how his mother, Kath, had been in tears because he had been producing too much insulin in his body.
But even now, with Allitt breaking news of a police investigation, Sue didn’t suspect anything untoward. ‘I just thought it was some sort of routine investigation into what had happened. She told me it was all about Paul Crampton. It was at the time when all three of ours were in the hospital – Becky, Katie and James. I knew Paul had been very seriously ill and people had been full of praise for how Bev had helped save him.’
As she stood listening to her friend, Sue was baffled but not unduly worried. It flashed through her mind that perhaps the authorities thought someone had got into the hospital and tampered with Paul.