What was decided on 13 May 2026
Inquests into the deaths of six of the babies Letby was convicted of murdering — the infants who died at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit in 2015 and 2016 — have been delayed until 2027. The full hearings, originally scheduled to begin in September 2026, will now provisionally begin on 10 May 2027. The matter will be reviewed further in November 2026, at which point the coroner will assess whether the relisted date remains appropriate in light of where the Thirlwall Inquiry and any related processes have reached.
The relisting was reported by ITV News Granada on 13 May 2026 and by the Chester & District Standard, among other regional outlets. Five of the six inquests had previously been opened and adjourned on 4 February 2026 — a procedural step that allows the coronial process to be formally engaged without yet conducting the substantive evidential hearings.
The coroner’s reasoning
The coroner considered it appropriate to maintain the suspension in order to ensure that the findings and recommendations of the Thirlwall Inquiry can be fully considered before the inquests proceed. This follows the announcement on the same day that Lady Justice Thirlwall’s inquiry report — the institutional examination of how the deaths and collapses at the unit were responded to — will not be published until at least September 2026.
There is established procedural logic behind this approach. A coroner’s inquest into a death the criminal courts have already addressed is structured by section 17A of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and the surrounding case law. The inquest’s scope is shaped by what has already been judicially determined and by any other formal investigative process whose findings bear on the same events. The Thirlwall Inquiry, as a statutory public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, is precisely such a process. Having the inquest run while the inquiry’s findings are still pending would risk either reaching conclusions inconsistent with the inquiry, or repeatedly revisiting the inquest as inquiry material lands.
What this means for the families
For the families of the children whose inquests are now relisted, the delay is a substantial one. Some families have been waiting since 2015–2016 for a formal coronial determination of how their children died. The shift from September 2026 to provisionally May 2027 adds eight months on top of an already substantial wait, and the November 2026 review will determine whether even that timetable holds.
For families who accept the convictions and want the inquests to confirm and record what the criminal courts have already determined, the delay is a procedural frustration but not a substantive one. For families — or campaigners acting in respect of deceased children — who consider the natural-cause explanations identified by the Shoo Lee Panel to be the correct account, the inquest is the formal-record forum in which medical-cause-of-death findings could in principle be revisited. Either way, that deliberative process is now in 2027.
The 2026 calendar reshuffled
The relisting effectively dismantles the 2026 timetable of converging formal-record processes. As recently as April 2026, public expectation was for three things to land in 2026: the Thirlwall final report (then anticipated post-Easter), the inquests (anticipated September), and the CCRC review’s next milestone (open-ended). After 13 May 2026 the Thirlwall report sits in late 2026 at the earliest, the inquests are in 2027, and only the CCRC review proceeds on its own internal timetable.
The Operation Duet corporate-manslaughter investigation — structurally separate from both Thirlwall and the CCRC — continues to develop, with one former senior leadership-team member re-arrested for perverting the course of justice on 23 April 2026 (see our April 2026 arrest analysis and Operation Duet vs Operation Hummingbird). That investigation, by its nature, is not bound to the same procedural sequencing.
What now
The November 2026 review hearing will be the next listed coronial event. Between now and then, the Thirlwall Inquiry will, on its own stated timetable, publish its final report. If publication occurs by autumn 2026, the November review will have the inquiry’s findings before it. If the report slips again, the inquests may slip further.