May 2026: Thirlwall Inquiry report delayed to at least September 2026 · six-baby inquests relisted to 2027 · CCRC review active · Shoo Lee Panel: no medical evidence of deliberate harm.
The CPS's January 2026 decision not to pursue 11 additional charges relating to 9 further babies is, on the Crown's framing, a neutral prosecutorial decision that does not affect the existing convictions. The CPS has confirmed explicitly that the decision has no effect on the existing convictions.
The significance of the decision is not in what it says about the existing convictions (nothing) but in what it says about the CPS's own threshold. The CPS applied the Full Code Test to 11 further candidate charges built on the same investigative pattern (Operation Hummingbird methodology, same forensic standards, same expert advisers, same unit, same period) and concluded that 'the evidential test was not met.' This is the CPS itself declining to extend the same pattern on which the original indictment was constructed. It is the first time an arm of the prosecution has declined to proceed on evidence built by the same methodology. The three former Trust executives arrested in July 2025 on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter remain separately under investigation. The January 2026 decision does not exonerate; it does not quash; it does not refer. But on the question of whether the same investigative methodology clears the prosecutorial threshold when applied to further candidate cases, the CPS has answered: no.
The CPS has applied its own Full Code Test to further candidate charges built on the same investigative pattern. It has concluded the evidential test was not met. Whatever that means for the existing convictions — the CPS says it means nothing — it means something about the methodology.
Not applicable — this decision post-dates both trials.
The Panel's scope is clinical — it does not address prosecutorial threshold decisions. But the Panel's case-by-case finding that the indicted cases do not meet diagnostic criteria for deliberate harm is consistent with a prosecutorial conclusion that the same methodology, applied to further candidate cases, does not clear the Full Code Test threshold.