Context
Dr Mark Deakin, a consultant paediatrician, was a junior doctor at the Countess of Chester Hospital during the period Lucy Letby was convicted over. He gave evidence to the Thirlwall Inquiry on 7 October 2024, the first day of its fifth week.
He could not be named until 2 September 2026. He had been granted anonymity as a witness at the criminal trial and was known as Dr A there and as Dr U at the Inquiry — the Inquiry’s transcript for 7 October records “DR U (affirmed)”, which is how his answers below are attributed in the primary source. The order was discharged after his death; see how he came to be named.
His evidence matters to the institutional record for one reason: it is where the Inquiry examined what Letby was told about the investigation into the deaths and collapses, by whom, and while she was off the unit. That is a question about how the Trust and her colleagues behaved. It is not a question about whether the convictions are safe, and this page takes no position on that.
Key passages
The messages. Counsel to the Inquiry put to him that between June and September 2016 he and Letby exchanged 1,355 Facebook messages — “a large volume of messaging” — and he agreed. That window spans her removal from the neonatal unit. The Inquiry was taken to an exchange in which she asked after Child N, a baby she was later convicted of attempting to murder, and asked whether she had done anything wrong. He had replied: “Oh Lucy, poor little thing. I am sure he has had the best care possible and you will have done everything you could for him.” Asked whether that exchange had been appropriate, he said: “In hindsight, no. Looking at the content of the messages here, I’ve shared too much.”
The Brearey email. The Inquiry heard he forwarded Letby an email from Dr Stephen Brearey, the neonatal lead, indicating that the deaths of Child O and Child P would be examined at inquests. He said he did so because of “the worry about those two babies”: “They were unexpected deaths. [Letby] gave me the impression she was very upset … I was basically trying to give her some insight into what was going on.”
The grievance. Asked why he had supported Letby’s grievance against the Trust rather than the consultant colleagues who were raising concerns about her, he said he had not been aware of the full clinical picture and that he had “provided support by being misled and maybe manipulated”. He told the Inquiry he had “a lot of regrets about how that period of time took place”, and that helping her had been “a massive mistake”.
The Alder Hey visits. He moved to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and arranged for Letby to carry out observational visits there in December 2016, while she was in a non-clinical role at Chester, having been removed from the neonatal unit. The Inquiry was also shown May 2017 correspondence about releasing her from Chester to attend — including whether an honorary contract was required, and one message recording that “Lucy is having a little trouble being released from Chester to attend Alder Hey for the observation.”
How he came to be named
The anonymity granted to him as a trial witness applied only during his lifetime. On 2 September 2026, on an application by Associated Newspapers, Lord Justice Singh discharged the order. He said that “in the sad circumstances which have now arisen, when [Dr Deakin] is no longer alive, the rationale of the underlying order … is no longer relevant”, expressed his sympathies to Dr Deakin’s widow and family, and held that the restriction could not be maintained given the principles of open justice and the media’s right to report court proceedings fairly.
Until that ruling this site used the ciphers, as every outlet did. It now names him, on the same basis it names every other clinician on the public record. The other anonymised witnesses in this case — Dr V, Dr ZA and the families — remain protected by orders that have not been discharged, and are not named here. The reasoning is set out at what happens to an anonymity order when the witness dies.
What followed at Alder Hey
After Letby’s conviction in August 2023 Dr Deakin told Alder Hey of his involvement in the trial and of the observational visits he had arranged. It was reported that managers initially concluded he had not known of the suspicions surrounding her. Days later the mother of Child N complained — she told the Thirlwall Inquiry he had “blatantly” breached her son’s patient confidentiality — and the hospital opened a formal investigation in January 2024.
That investigation concluded that he had a very close relationship with Letby, was likely to have known that colleagues had raised concerns about her, and had accessed Child N’s medical records inappropriately, including after her conviction. At a three-day hearing he accepted the confidentiality breach but denied knowing, when he arranged the visits, that Letby was suspected of harming babies. He was dismissed for gross misconduct on 23 June 2026.
Dr Deakin was later found collapsed in his car at a retail park about twenty miles from his home in Cheshire, and died in hospital on 3 July 2026, aged 53. No cause of death has been made public. An opening hearing into his death is listed for 9am on 23 September 2026 at Cheshire Coroner’s Court in Warrington, when the full inquest date will be set. Nothing on this page should be read as connecting his death to any of the above, or to the safety of the convictions.
What to read alongside this
The apology-letter sequence, Reporting restrictions, Why the Thirlwall Inquiry matters.