The remit boundary
Lady Justice Thirlwall was explicit at the Inquiry’s opening on 10 September 2024 that the Inquiry would not itself re-examine the medical evidence on which the criminal convictions rest. The convictions are a matter for the appellate courts and the CCRC; the Inquiry proceeds on the basis of the verdicts as they stand.
The Inquiry’s institutional focus is on: how the Countess of Chester Hospital and associated NHS bodies responded to the consultants’ concerns; what the institutional failings were; what lessons can be learned for future patient safety. This is a statutory public-inquiry remit. It is different from a criminal-appellate remit.
Why the separation is legally correct but structurally significant
A statutory public inquiry does not have criminal-appellate jurisdiction. It cannot overturn a conviction. The separation is legally proper. It is also, however, structurally significant: it means institutional findings and criminal-conviction findings co-exist, rather than one displacing the other.
In practice this means the Thirlwall Inquiry can make findings that, if translated into a criminal-appellate context, would support a conviction-safety challenge — but the Inquiry does not itself translate them. It sets them on the public record for other institutions (CCRC, Court of Appeal) to consider.
What the Inquiry produces that the CCRC uses
- Documentary record. The Inquiry’s disclosure exercise has placed thousands of pages of internal Trust documents, HR records, clinical-review minutes and email correspondence on the public record. Much of this material was not before the criminal jury.
- Executive testimony. Under oath, executives have given evidence that qualifies or contradicts the Trust’s public-messaging framing of the institutional response. This is material the CCRC application draws on directly.
- External-reviewer testimony. RCPCH review authors, CQC inspectors, NHS Improvement contacts have given evidence clarifying the scope limits of their 2016 contacts. This material exposes the three-body external-review package as not having examined individual deaths.
- Consultant testimony. Brearey, Jayaram, Gibbs, Newby, Lambie, Saladi and others have given evidence on the consultants’ side of the escalation chain. This is the institutional record the criminal trial processed through Dr Evans’s causation-expert frame.
- Whistleblower framing. Helene Donnelly OBE’s evidence places the Countess of Chester institutional response within the Francis framework.
- Police scoping. Former DCS Wenham’s evidence on how Operation Hummingbird was scoped from its May 2017 opening.
How the CCRC uses the material
The CCRC applies the statutory real-possibility test: is there a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would not uphold the conviction? The Thirlwall Inquiry material contributes to meeting that test in specific ways:
- It constitutes new evidence (new in that it was not before the original court) that the institutional response was characterised by specific failure modes.
- It grounds the Cannings-principle application: if the medical-evidence base of the conviction is disputed by reputable experts, and the institutional record is itself disputed, the conviction is unsafe.
- It supports the Francis-framework argument: the institutional response pattern the conviction proceeded from is itself the pattern Francis identified as producing wrongful adverse outcomes.
- It supports the Morecambe Bay parallel argument: the institutional record fits the Kirkup framework of systems failure, not of individual criminality.
The timing relationship
The Thirlwall Inquiry’s final report is expected after Easter 2026. The CCRC application was filed in October 2025. The two processes are running in parallel. This is not coincidental: the CCRC has access to the Inquiry evidence as it accumulates, and the Inquiry’s eventual findings will be further material the CCRC can consider.
The Court of Appeal, if the CCRC refers, will have the fullest version of the record: the 2023 trial evidence, the Panel and other expert material, and the Thirlwall Inquiry findings.