Speaker 1: Trigger warning death and descriptions of the dead. Please listen
Speaker 1: with care.
Speaker 2: Lucy let Be was a whistleblower. She probably didn't realize
Speaker 2: it at the time, but she was because she recognized
Speaker 2: issues in that unit.
Speaker 1: This is Martin Pittman, a retired consultant, obstetrician and gynecologist
Speaker 1: and NHS whistleblower.
Speaker 2: She raised concerns, she repeatedly put in datech forms when
Speaker 2: she recognized significant issues, and she put in aggrievance as
Speaker 2: a junior in there, she put in agrievance against two
Speaker 2: senior consultants. So all of that, all of those are
Speaker 2: whistleblowing events.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, before there were any criminal charges, Lucy
Speaker 1: let Be took on these consultants after they had had
Speaker 1: her removed from clinical duties on the neonatal ward. She
Speaker 1: fought back with an employment grievance.
Speaker 2: From Lucy Letbe's perspective, and I think it's underplay the
Speaker 2: fact that and this is why it never got anywhere
Speaker 2: near her trial was to be brave enough as a
Speaker 2: junior nurse to submit a grievance against two senior consultants
Speaker 2: was an incredible achievement. To win that in an NHS
Speaker 2: trust was unprecedented, absolutely unprecedented.
Speaker 1: There is a playbook for how whistleblowing cases often play out,
Speaker 1: and Martin's story unfolds in a very typical way. In
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, as Lucy Letbee's case was raging on, Martin
Speaker 1: was experiencing his own courtroom drama in tribunal with his
Speaker 1: own hospital when it merged with another local NHS trust.
Speaker 1: He had noticed an increase of poor outcomes on his ward.
Speaker 2: I very vividly remember the moment when I decided that
Speaker 2: I had to act. A baby was injured that I
Speaker 2: know for certain that could have been avoided. And it
Speaker 2: was that happening in a close or the temper association
Speaker 2: with a number of our very best midwife saying to
Speaker 2: me that they were so disheartened with how the unit
Speaker 2: was being run that they were going to leave.
Speaker 1: Out of concern for patient care and for the well
Speaker 1: being of the midwives in his department. He spoke up
Speaker 1: calling for a meeting with the head of Midwiffrey. From
Speaker 1: here things got increasingly worse. A complaint was made about Martin.
Speaker 1: Martin took out a grievance against the hospital. He then
Speaker 1: got taken off the ward and isolated from his colleagues.
Speaker 1: If you've been following the Lucy let Be case, you'll
Speaker 1: recognize the parallels. Whistleblowers have a name for what they
Speaker 1: believe is happening in this process. They call it darvo.
Speaker 2: There's this thing called darva darvo, which is a technique
Speaker 2: that's the play against whistle blowers. They deny the issues
Speaker 2: that you've raised. Then the AA is attack or accused,
Speaker 2: so they basically accuse you of exactly what you have
Speaker 2: accused the organization about, and then they use techniques to
Speaker 2: reverse the victim and offender. So the RVO, I was
Speaker 2: the victim raising the whistleblowing concerns, but they made me
Speaker 2: or they tried to make me the offender, that I
Speaker 2: was the problem. And that's an absolutely textbook approach by
Speaker 2: NHS trusts to get rid of challenging individuals, which is
Speaker 2: what I was.
Speaker 1: If darvo doesn't silence a whistleblower, there's another move in
Speaker 1: the playbook.
Speaker 2: If they can't get rid of you for gross professional
Speaker 2: misconduct and that they can't get you on an inability
Speaker 2: for you to do your job anymore, then there's this
Speaker 2: gray area. It's called SOSR or some other substantial reason,
Speaker 2: which is basically a legal EAES term that enables organizations
Speaker 2: to dispose of troublesome individuals. So they basically manufactured the
Speaker 2: belief that my position was untenable because my relationship with
Speaker 2: the trust senior management had become untenable.
Speaker 1: When this final move was made, Martin Pittman lost his
Speaker 1: case and his job. It did not matter that he
Speaker 1: had decades of experience as a successful obstetrician, or that
Speaker 1: a judge had officially recognized that he'd whistle blown in
Speaker 1: the interest of the public. Since then, Martin has become
Speaker 1: a supporter of other NHS whistleblowers.
Speaker 2: I've been in contact with tragically lots of whistleblowers since
Speaker 2: what happened to me, just to give advice and to
Speaker 2: console people that have been through a similar thing. They
Speaker 2: crossed the spectrum of different areas of professions and levels
Speaker 2: of seniority. I don't think any group of NHS staff
Speaker 2: are immune to I mean the recent case of the
Speaker 2: porters in the counter sug good luck to them because
Speaker 2: they whistle blue co and perceived a trust are in
Speaker 2: employment tribunal and they didn't have legal representations.
Speaker 1: Two hospital porters blew the whistle on improper conditions at
Speaker 1: the Countess of Chester Hospital, the very same hospital that
Speaker 1: went after Lucy after she filed a grievance. In April
Speaker 1: of this year. A judge oversaw their case. I took
Speaker 1: the train from London to Chester to find out how
Speaker 1: it all unfolded. This is doubt the Case of Lucy
Speaker 1: let be bonus Episode five, The Whistleblowers. I've come to
Speaker 1: Chester to visit John Creighton and Tom Jones, porters from
Speaker 1: the Countess of Chester Hospital. We take our seats in
Speaker 1: John's sky blue living room, which had become something of
Speaker 1: a situation room over recent months.
Speaker 3: We've done all our case in here.
Speaker 4: Mission control, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was, Yeah, It's like Leslie Park at one point. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So we went. We went to ground many times and
Speaker 3: we had to say, look, we need we need four
Speaker 3: days and we were sort of seven am till the
Speaker 3: early hour, was preparing prepping.
Speaker 4: We used a ah, well, yeah, sometimes it's not always accurately,
Speaker 4: not quite right, and sometimes it gets confused, doesn't it
Speaker 4: when you load it up? Because it was so contracted
Speaker 4: the case, there were so many different elements to it.
Speaker 4: It was quite easy to confuse the computer, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we did upgrade. We treated ourselves for the
Speaker 3: eighteen pounds a month Gemini I mean the lawyers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well we were both financially challenged. John supports a
Speaker 4: family and you know, I've got my own issues at home,
Speaker 4: so yeah, we didn't really have legal representative finance available
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 1: John as an experienced porter. This role is often called
Speaker 1: a patient transporter in the US, but the UK version
Speaker 1: is a little broader than just moving patients. As a
Speaker 1: hospital porter in the UK, you're expected to deliver equipment
Speaker 1: and supplies where they're needed, to move patients between different
Speaker 1: sections of the hospital, and to deliver deceased patients to
Speaker 1: the hospital mortuary. John moved into the health sector during
Speaker 1: the pandemic as a porter for a hospital in nearby Wrexham.
Speaker 3: I've worked at a different hospital and it's just a
Speaker 3: better way of doing it and it was safer and
Speaker 3: it was better for the.
Speaker 1: Staff wanting to travel less for work. He eventually moved
Speaker 1: to do the same job at the Countess of Chester,
Speaker 1: but here he found that the job expectations and conditions
Speaker 1: were worrying, especially when it came to moving dead bodies,
Speaker 1: and this is where things got pretty dark at the Countess.
Speaker 3: You knew and I'm like, are you allowed to all
Speaker 3: right with this? Because there's a better way of doing this,
Speaker 3: And they.
Speaker 1: Describe the conditions.
Speaker 4: You'd be walking around the hospital doing more transfers and
Speaker 4: A and E transfers and stuff like that, and you
Speaker 4: could just sort of you might open a door or
Speaker 4: peek behind a curtain and they're just people are just
Speaker 4: laid out. They haven't even been prepared yet.
Speaker 3: You get the job, so you turn up to do
Speaker 3: the job, and then when you get there, everyone's just
Speaker 3: got a blue curtain. And then that's how they do it.
Speaker 3: Unless you don't it, it would just be something dead.
Speaker 1: They tell me, roughly twenty percent of the time they'd
Speaker 1: be asked to transport a body before it was fully
Speaker 1: prepared to be moved, meaning the bodies were not covered
Speaker 1: properly in body bags, nor was appropriate personal protective equipment
Speaker 1: provided to the porters to safeguard against potential infection or
Speaker 1: splashback from the bodies they were asked to move and
Speaker 1: beyond their own safety, there was also the dignity of
Speaker 1: the deceased to think of but the deaths in the
Speaker 1: hospital were not the main issue for them. Their main
Speaker 1: problem was deaths in the community people who had died
Speaker 1: outside of the hospital. Dealing with any dead body can
Speaker 1: be emotional and triggering, but these deaths were often more harrowing.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you get situations in a military setting way you
Speaker 4: never forget it. There was a suicide who some ladder
Speaker 4: jumped in front of a chain at a nearby train station.
Speaker 4: Any had dislocated shoulder and a head injury where it
Speaker 4: was open and was exposed, and he was brought It
Speaker 4: was raining that night, so the British Transport Police didn't
Speaker 4: have chance to tag him and still and prepare him
Speaker 4: for transport. So their plan was to get him in
Speaker 4: where it was dry and do it in the mortuary.
Speaker 4: But you've got to be there. You can't just leave
Speaker 4: them in the mortuary. You've got to supervise then be
Speaker 4: in there and then you know, wave them off and
Speaker 4: shut the door. It was just like a security measure, really,
Speaker 4: and they brought him in and he was in like
Speaker 4: a shell suit. So we managed to sort of slid
Speaker 4: him off their table onto one of ours, slid him
Speaker 4: into the fridge, shut the door.
Speaker 1: Tom, who was a more senior porter at the time,
Speaker 1: always found himself shaken up, particularly when younger people were
Speaker 1: brought in who had clearly come to a tragic end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just affected me. So I was trying to
Speaker 4: delete it out of my brain and put him in
Speaker 4: the fridge and I just had five minutes to recompose
Speaker 4: as myself and then the phone rang again.
Speaker 1: The transport police tell Tom there is an issue. The
Speaker 1: deceased young man may have been assuming another identity, so.
Speaker 4: We need to come back and try and identify him.
Speaker 4: So we can go back and tell his mum.
Speaker 1: Mortuary technicians should be on call. Assisting with identifying bodies.
Speaker 1: Is above the pay grade of a hospital porter. So
Speaker 1: Tom picks up the phone.
Speaker 4: I've phoned the Uncle Moutree technician and he said, oh,
Speaker 4: I've just add a glass of wine or something. And
Speaker 4: it was like three o'clock in the morning and he said,
Speaker 4: just stand there, don't do anything, you'd be all right,
Speaker 4: just supervised. Transport police had arrived, pulled him back out
Speaker 4: the fridge and they needed to identify him by a
Speaker 4: tattoo that he had on his shoulder and it was
Speaker 4: on the arm that was dislocated the shoulder and every
Speaker 4: time we tried to the arm just flopped. Would you
Speaker 4: just hold his hand while we go up with the scissors.
Speaker 4: I think, gloves on and everything, but it's just it's
Speaker 4: just not nice. It wasn't nice at all. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: that was my experience of just seeing things that I
Speaker 4: shouldn't really see.
Speaker 3: Someone who lives fifty yards from me and you don't know,
Speaker 3: and you never know who people are, of course, but
Speaker 3: as I look down, they actually and it's such a shock,
Speaker 3: isn't it when you see someone you know? But obviously
Speaker 3: everyone's got loads of stories.
Speaker 1: The staff who usually work in the mortuary would typically
Speaker 1: keep nine to five hours, leaving the porters to deal
Speaker 1: with any bodies that came into the hospital on evenings
Speaker 1: and weekends, so there.
Speaker 3: Is a bleak for the pathologists. They should come out.
Speaker 3: There's no ifs of but they should come out. If
Speaker 3: someone dies in the community, they should do it. I
Speaker 3: think it was just over generations. It might have been
Speaker 3: you lads couldn't do this for an hour, and you know,
Speaker 3: our things progress, yes, before you know it, they're doing
Speaker 3: it all the time. So for instance, even at Easter,
Speaker 3: there's nobody in for four days solid, not date or
Speaker 3: night not in.
Speaker 1: The pair had concerns about what they were being expected
Speaker 1: to do jobs typically reserved for more trained positions like
Speaker 1: mortuary technicians, as well as the conditions under which they
Speaker 1: were expected to perform, and their issues were racking up.
Speaker 1: They were being asked to move bodies that had been
Speaker 1: dead for many months without proper ppe or any testing
Speaker 1: done to ensure the bodies weren't infectious. They were told
Speaker 1: to unwrap the deceased and remove personal effects, including jewelry
Speaker 1: and false teeth. At one point, they were allegedly taught
Speaker 1: how to wrap dead patients using a deceased woman as
Speaker 1: a prop. They were also concerned that, given the lax procedures,
Speaker 1: their own DNA might contaminate the bodies of crime victims.
Speaker 1: This was all deeply distressing to them and undignified for
Speaker 1: the deceased, and none of this had been part of
Speaker 1: John's previous porter job at the hospital in Wrexham. So
Speaker 1: the two look into the hospital's policy on mortuary practice.
Speaker 4: We looked on the intranet's site for any policy or
Speaker 4: standard operating procedures that were available. More policy really wasn't
Speaker 4: it On the internet, it.
Speaker 3: Would see sure if it was, if it was our job,
Speaker 3: then we can't gripe about it.
Speaker 4: But there was complete absence of it. There was nothing there.
Speaker 4: So rings along bells straight away, now, doesn't it because
Speaker 4: there's no risk assessment been done. If there's no policy
Speaker 4: written up, there's no guidance, there's just nothing.
Speaker 1: The response from the wider porter staff was varied when
Speaker 1: it came to attending bodies that came in from the community.
Speaker 3: Some just wouldn't do it, but there they said, I'm
Speaker 3: not doing it, So it's goodwill then, isn't it. Some
Speaker 3: will do it, some are reluctant, some don't mind. Some
Speaker 3: would say I'll do it, but on my last shift
Speaker 3: at midnight, I am not doing anymore because you don't
Speaker 3: want to carry them memory.
Speaker 1: In January twenty twenty four, John and Tom spoke to
Speaker 1: the mortuary manager, encouraged by things they'd been told in training.
Speaker 3: You did have training maybe once a year, and they'd say,
Speaker 3: if you've got anything, please come and see us. We've
Speaker 3: got a good ethos working ethos with you people. We
Speaker 3: appreciate you, so I thought it'd be easy.
Speaker 1: They raise their concerns.
Speaker 3: You go, you say I used to work in Wrexam.
Speaker 3: This is how we do it. It's much better, it's safer.
Speaker 3: You don't do community deaths in wrexum do what allow
Speaker 3: you in there? So they are undertakers and the columners
Speaker 3: they have access and they do everything themselves. You just
Speaker 3: get a forum, so you can imagine getting a form
Speaker 3: compared to this that I'm o' seeing. This is it's
Speaker 3: not right. It's not right. So I explain and it's immediate,
Speaker 3: isn't it. You can just sense with people we don't
Speaker 3: do that here. I'm like, okay, you don't do that,
Speaker 3: but what about everybody's in the body big even on
Speaker 3: the wards that way, Well, we don't do that here.
Speaker 4: This is Chester.
Speaker 3: This is Chester. Mate is shut us down then within.
Speaker 1: Ten minutes, And this is probably a good moment to
Speaker 1: remember that word Martin Pittman used at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the episode, the word that whistleblowers use to describe their
Speaker 1: view of how they are treated. Darvo, deny, attack, reverse
Speaker 1: victim and offender. With their first attempt to bring up
Speaker 1: the issue, they were told it was a non issue,
Speaker 1: essentially deny, So the two porters decide to let it
Speaker 1: go until John has to deal with a particularly disturbing image.
Speaker 3: I had one more incident where it just sent me
Speaker 3: over the edge, which was as you do open the fridge,
Speaker 3: everyone should be covered.
Speaker 1: It was just a head, a severed head, just sitting there.
Speaker 3: And then I said, that is it. I'm going to
Speaker 3: escalate it.
Speaker 1: After one too many unpleasant experiences in the mortuary, John
Speaker 1: and Tom escalate the issue.
Speaker 3: The only avenue you've got his freedom to speak Up.
Speaker 1: Freedom to Speak Up is an NHS initiative that allows
Speaker 1: anyone working within the NHS to raise issues of patient safety,
Speaker 1: poor practices, or bullying without fear of reprisal. An employee
Speaker 1: raises the issue with the Freedom to Speak Up guardian
Speaker 1: or their line manager. This is then reported directly to
Speaker 1: the board and can be open, anonymous or confidential as requested.
Speaker 3: You go see them, tell them, they're horrified. They seem genuine.
Speaker 3: You tell them that we need to be anonymous because
Speaker 3: you know our works. No one had any faith and
Speaker 3: it did they to them really for freedom to speak up.
Speaker 1: When you brought up these problems that the bodies were
Speaker 1: just left uncovered, that you know, there was no protocol
Speaker 1: to protect you from potential infection. All of that. I
Speaker 1: imagine you brought up the emotional toll that that was
Speaker 1: having on you, But did you also bring up just
Speaker 1: the lack of dignity to the patient? Can you describe
Speaker 1: how that conversation went?
Speaker 4: That was one of our primary it was?
Speaker 3: It was, yeah, it was a massive concern for me.
Speaker 3: I just didn't think it was nice and I wouldn't
Speaker 3: want it ending up saying I don't really want to
Speaker 3: die here. As you go and you meet Freedom to
Speaker 3: Speak Up, they are completely unaware of these things going on.
Speaker 3: So after an hour you think they're actually really going
Speaker 3: to do something about this, that the serious people are genuine,
Speaker 3: aren't that You can tell that this lady's has no
Speaker 3: idea this is going on, and she's going, can I
Speaker 3: have your permission? I need to go and see the
Speaker 3: CEO immediately about this, and she did, Are you coping?
Speaker 3: And low? Does others feel? As everyone feel the same.
Speaker 4: When Freedom to Speak Up reported it to the chief
Speaker 4: operating Now for sir, she said she'd go on an
Speaker 4: investigative journey to see and try and establish what was
Speaker 4: wrong and try and get us some answers. But she
Speaker 4: mirrored almost perfectly, and the questions that we'd asked rather
Speaker 4: than say, oh, can I just come down and have
Speaker 4: a look around? Would you be all right with that?
Speaker 4: And would have said yes, and she could have done
Speaker 4: it sort of covidly. The moltuary technician in question didn't
Speaker 4: take much chapter two to realize that those questions were
Speaker 4: the same ones that would ask find me and John
Speaker 4: when we went in two weeks earlier.
Speaker 1: At this point, the pair's anonymity is blown, the anonymity
Speaker 1: that the freedom to speak up initiative promises. All sides
Speaker 1: now know what the complaint is and who made it,
Speaker 1: and life becomes way more difficult for the two porters
Speaker 1: as they're questioned by management about whether they'd gone over
Speaker 1: their heads to the board. Here we are at Darvo
Speaker 1: letter a attack or accues.
Speaker 3: So he took me access away. Tom's didn't get taken away,
Speaker 3: but it was going to be next, so my access
Speaker 3: gets removed.
Speaker 1: John finds that his access to the mortuary is revoked.
Speaker 1: Though the level of work that the pair were expected
Speaker 1: to do was above their pay grade as porters, they
Speaker 1: still had some reasonable responsibilities to fulfill, such as bring
Speaker 1: bodies from other hospital wards to the mortuary, but John,
Speaker 1: without his access could not fulfill those duties.
Speaker 3: I went to see my MP about this and she
Speaker 3: warned me. She actually said this is very, very concerning
Speaker 3: and I said, yeah, of course. She said are you
Speaker 3: sure you want to do this? And I said explain.
Speaker 3: She said, see, come for you. You will be targeted.
Speaker 3: Are you in a union? I suggest you join one?
Speaker 3: If you're not, I wouldn't shot, but I knew it,
Speaker 3: but I was shot. Me MP with selling me to
Speaker 3: watch out.
Speaker 1: John shows me the subject access request. This is a
Speaker 1: UK system that allows employees to access all correspondents about
Speaker 1: themselves written by other staff members, emails, performance reviews, instant messages.
Speaker 1: John requested access to all that back in June twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. A year later, the documents arrive.
Speaker 3: So this is where the circle the wagons were. They
Speaker 3: suppressed it and now when you get it, of course
Speaker 3: it's horrifying. So this is the interview notes that the
Speaker 3: mortuary manager. So they've got to justify why's done it?
Speaker 1: We don't know the infection status. Some have suffered traumatic deaths.
Speaker 1: I think there were five justifications put into our sop.
Speaker 1: That is only community deaths.
Speaker 3: So that's where the admittance that there's no infection the
Speaker 3: PP and it wasn't an adequate by the way which
Speaker 3: they did change it, which was one thing, but it
Speaker 3: shows the PPE wasn't right and there's no infection, So
Speaker 3: that refers to that.
Speaker 1: I took John off. The mortuary authorized the list on
Speaker 1: Net two.
Speaker 3: So that's you swipe to get in.
Speaker 1: I am aware there is an escalation process to follow.
Speaker 1: To me, when someone says something like that, to me,
Speaker 1: it looks like they have something to hide and not
Speaker 1: wanting to be discovered. Yes, I acted in haste, then
Speaker 1: with a logical thought perspective, I was acting out of
Speaker 1: duty of candor for the patients. That comment made me
Speaker 1: feel he had something to hide.
Speaker 3: So that is the reason that my accessor was moved.
Speaker 3: That I had something to hide. I didn't want to
Speaker 3: be discovered in a mortuary setting. So he then goes
Speaker 3: on to say, when we get this, do.
Speaker 1: I mean was something to hide in a mortuary setting?
Speaker 3: Well, tops see twenty four thousand dollars question.
Speaker 1: John shows me the interview from the head of nursing
Speaker 1: who believed that the mortuary manager was acting out of
Speaker 1: concern for deceased patients when he revoked your mortuary access
Speaker 1: rather than because you raised any concerns. So she's denying.
Speaker 3: That, but she asked that that the reason was he
Speaker 3: did it out of concern for deceased patients.
Speaker 1: So as if you were doing something to deceased patients. Yea.
Speaker 1: So here we arrive very firmly at the final stage
Speaker 1: of DARVO, the RVO reverse victim and offender.
Speaker 3: So there's three phrases there that that's the reason my
Speaker 3: access was taken away was because I had something to
Speaker 3: hide and I didn't want to be discovered. And he
Speaker 3: did it a concern for deceased patients.
Speaker 4: We interpreted that would pose a risk to disease.
Speaker 1: Pictures because you brought up concerns about the conditions of
Speaker 1: deceased patients. Another manager went even further in their statement
Speaker 1: as to why John's access was revoked.
Speaker 3: This is career threatening, this is so our highest band manager.
Speaker 3: She said, it was bordering on a safeguarding issue. Why
Speaker 3: remove the access? So there's four things there that mean
Speaker 3: only one thing to I think to anyone normal. Really,
Speaker 3: the suggestion that sinister.
Speaker 1: All these statements, when put together, are saying without saying
Speaker 1: that they've revoked John's access, not out of retaliation for
Speaker 1: his grievances with the job conditions, but because they believe
Speaker 1: John is up to something in the mortuary, something he
Speaker 1: wants to hide, something that poses a risk to deceased
Speaker 1: patients who need safeguarding. John concluded that they were accusing
Speaker 1: him of sexual acts with the dead.
Speaker 3: Since the allegations so that point, I'm wrong, dude in
Speaker 3: a Moltary city. Yeah, it's secretly so that was tough
Speaker 3: to take. But at that point I said that that's it.
Speaker 3: What'll we both did, but not until that's removed because
Speaker 3: that's on our file. It's a grieving so it's on
Speaker 3: your file. The plain meaning of that is risk. That's
Speaker 3: what we said. Risk. That's the word with a risk
Speaker 3: if you've got something to hide and don't want to
Speaker 3: be discovered, and they've done it only out of concern
Speaker 3: for deceased patients, and it's a safeguard of issue with
Speaker 3: a risk.
Speaker 1: Tom and John weren't the only ones who concluded that.
Speaker 1: John said he received a text message asking him if
Speaker 1: he'd been caught with his pants down in the mortuary
Speaker 1: and had to put up with jokes from other staffers
Speaker 1: insinuating that he was a necrophiliac. John felt he had
Speaker 1: to take action to make sure further accusations could not
Speaker 1: be made about him.
Speaker 3: So at that point we said, until it's removed, I
Speaker 3: will not work with the patient alive the dead.
Speaker 4: When we said we wanted that the risk allegations, all
Speaker 4: these four bits of information removed, rather than removing them
Speaker 4: because you can't remove it until you appeal, the process
Speaker 4: facilities then issued a contradictory statement that said that we
Speaker 4: weren't a rich.
Speaker 1: So the abruptly reversed course, requesting they go back to
Speaker 1: full duties without removing the sinister insinuations from their file.
Speaker 1: But John refused to return to full duties until those
Speaker 1: accusations were removed, and it took the tribunal to make
Speaker 1: that happen.
Speaker 3: In the parallel world, they're saying, we never said you're
Speaker 3: a risk. I'm saying put your tribunal. You're saying it
Speaker 3: was solely removed because there's a risk element, a safeguarding issue.
Speaker 3: You're saying it under oath. So we do this, I
Speaker 3: do it for about four months, three months, and then
Speaker 3: it gets taken off at the appeal. The day it
Speaker 3: got removed, I said, I will now go back to
Speaker 3: full duties.
Speaker 4: It later emerged that they'd use this contradictory document to
Speaker 4: get you on an insubordination charge for not doing what
Speaker 4: they'd ask you to do.
Speaker 1: In November twenty twenty five, the pair appear in tribunal
Speaker 1: and give their evidence, but the core proceedings are cut
Speaker 1: short when one of the trust's key witnesses cannot attend
Speaker 1: and the case is adjourned to April twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: They are immediately put on leave.
Speaker 4: When we got all the emissions that we wanted from
Speaker 4: the chief operating officer of the trust, we thought there's
Speaker 4: no real reason why we should stay off because she
Speaker 4: agreed to make loads of changes that we'd asked for.
Speaker 4: So we thought, well, that's our dispute settled. So we
Speaker 4: wanted to go back to it because the one control
Speaker 4: they've got over you, it's your finances, isn't it. Because
Speaker 4: they'd just run you down with sick pay and stuff
Speaker 4: like that, and you end upon half your pay. Everything's
Speaker 4: still the same price in the shops, isn't it. So
Speaker 4: we wanted to go back to it because we both
Speaker 4: sort of enjoyed the job, didn't we Even before all
Speaker 4: this happened.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty six. The judge finally ruled in favor
Speaker 1: of the porters, stating that the respondent's position about pay
Speaker 1: grade was not irrelevant. The claimants were right to set
Speaker 1: out that the risk all porters were exposed to was
Speaker 1: disproportionate to their pay grade and not something that was
Speaker 1: required in their job description. Because wards staff were not
Speaker 1: complying with the policy, they were required to carry out
Speaker 1: checks contrary to the respondent's policy. The claimant's belief that
Speaker 1: their disclosure was in the public interest was reasonable. The
Speaker 1: respondent has conceded that if the disclosures were qualifying, they
Speaker 1: would be protected because they were made to the employer.
Speaker 1: The tribunal also ruled that removal of mortuary access meant
Speaker 1: mister Creighton could not complete his duties. It added the
Speaker 1: first claimant's role, as we know from the job description,
Speaker 1: involved mortuary duties. How do you feel when the judge
Speaker 1: ruled in your favor, a.
Speaker 4: Complete release of pressure for over two and a half years.
Speaker 4: It was a bitter sweet, really relieved.
Speaker 3: I felt vindicated. The most up thing out the whole
Speaker 3: thing is when the judge said that we were creditable
Speaker 3: and to me to say that we were creditable suggests
Speaker 3: that they're not.
Speaker 1: It was a long tough road, but they got the
Speaker 1: outcome they wanted, even if it came at a cost.
Speaker 4: It's sad that it's during the course of this case.
Speaker 4: It's completely destroyed that both of our relationships with our
Speaker 4: wives and girlfriends.
Speaker 3: We didn't see it as a victory. It was they
Speaker 3: painted the light. We've done it for compensation, We've done
Speaker 3: it for selfish reasons, or completely untrue. It's just their defenses,
Speaker 3: as if it was a grand plan from me. So
Speaker 3: the plan was that COVID would come, I'd lose my job,
Speaker 3: I'd go and work at Rexham and then after four
Speaker 3: years I'd transfer to the Countess. Then I'd go to
Speaker 3: Freedom to speak up. Who would completely cock it up.
Speaker 3: Then this guy had removed me access, then they'd say
Speaker 3: I was a risk to deceased, and then they get
Speaker 3: compensation of what plan? I mean, ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Reflecting on the story of these two porters, I'm struck
Speaker 1: by how much the institution fought to protect itself against
Speaker 1: a claim of poor conditions and improper policy by two whistleblowers.
Speaker 1: How the Countess of Chester would apparently sooner let people
Speaker 1: believe it might have a necrophiliac on staff, rather than
Speaker 1: address reasonable safety and dignity concerns. How in the same
Speaker 1: hospital years earlier, a small group of consultants would apparently
Speaker 1: sooner believe there's a serial killer on the payroll, rather
Speaker 1: than dig deep into the systems, protocols and environment that
Speaker 1: could be factors contributing to their poor outcomes. As I
Speaker 1: learned from Mark MacDonald and MP David Davis, it's not
Speaker 1: just the Countess. Last week, childbirth expert Donna Ackenden published
Speaker 1: an explosive report commissioned by the Secretary of State for
Speaker 1: Health and Social Care into the Nottingham University's Hospital Trust.
Speaker 1: It found that over five hundred women and newborn babies
Speaker 1: had experienced potentially avoidable outcomes and deaths due to substandard
Speaker 1: care over thirteen years. Whistleblowers going forward will have to
Speaker 1: become an essential part of reversing these systemic failures. As such,
Speaker 1: they need to be encouraged and protected. That's true for
Speaker 1: the NHS and for other organizations like the Crown Prosecution Service.
Speaker 1: Getting them to take responsibility won't be easy. I know
Speaker 1: firsthand what lengths. Such institutions will go to to cover
Speaker 1: their own own shortcomings, and so I believe does Lucy
Speaker 1: let Be. That's it for this series of bonus episodes,
Speaker 1: but look out for more as the story develops. Doubt.
Speaker 1: The Case of Lucy Ledbe is brought to you by Vespucci,
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts and Knox Robinson Productions. I've been your host
Speaker 1: Amanda Knox. This episode was written by Isis Thompson and
Speaker 1: Christopher Robinson. The producer was Isis Thompson. The assistant producer
Speaker 1: was Amy Gill. Senior producer was Natalia Rodriguez. The sound
Speaker 1: designer is Chandler Mays. The theme music was written by
Speaker 1: Tom Biddle, story editing by Natalia Rodriguez. Legal advice for
Speaker 1: the series was provided by Jack Browning. The producers at
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts are Chandler Mays and Trina Norville. The executive
Speaker 1: producers were Joe Meek, Amanda Knox, Christopher Robinson, Daniel Turkin,
Speaker 1: and Johnny Galvin.