Beverly Allitt was born on October 4, 1968, in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. She has one brother and two sisters. They grew up in a village called Corby Glen. Her mother was a school cleaner and her father worked in an off-licence.
Growing up, Beverly would wear bandages and casts over injuries, but she wouldn’t let anyone examine them, they were seemingly fake. She would spend a lot of time in hospital for a variety of illnesses. She ended up having her appendix removed even though it turned out she didn’t actually need the procedure. It took a long time to heal from the surgery because she would interfere with the scar. Beverly became overweight and aggressive towards others. She was known to self-harm and was seeing doctors for various ailments so often that she had to resort to “doctor-hopping” because they would start to realise her behaviour.
Beverly Allitt showed signs of Munchausen’s Syndrome. This is a psychological condition where someone pretends to be ill or deliberately makes themselves ill to get the attention of others.
Beverly went on to train as a nurse. She did her training at a nursing home. During her time there she was suspected of carrying out some odd behaviour, including smearing faeces on the walls. She had a huge amount of time off because of a string of illnesses. Her boyfriend at the time later claimed she was aggressive, manipulating and deceptive during their relationship and that she made false rape and pregnancy claims.
Despite her poor attendance and failing multiple nursing examinations, Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire took her on a temporary six-month contract in 1991. At the time, the hospital was chronically understaffed. Beverly began working on Children’s Ward 4, with just two trained nurses working the day shift, and only one working nights.
On February 21, 1991, seven-month-old Liam Taylor was admitted to the ward with a chest infection. Allitt was left alone with Liam and he suffered a respiratory emergency but recovered. Allitt volunteered for an extra night shift to watch over him, and again he suffered a respiratory crisis but pulled through it. Then, when Allitt was again left alone with Liam, he became pale and red blotches appeared on his face. Allitt called the emergency resuscitation team as the alarm monitors failed to sound when he stopped breathing. Liam suffered a cardiac arrest which led to severe brain damage and he had to go on life support. On medical advice, his parents decided to remove their son’s life support. His cause of death was recorded as heart failure.
Two weeks later, on March 5, 11-year-old Timothy Hardwick was admitted to Ward 4 following an epileptic fit. Allitt summoned the emergency resuscitation team after being left alone with Timothy. They were unable to revive him. An autopsy later failed to provide an obvious cause of death, but epilepsy was blamed.
On March 3, 1991, 1-year-old Hayley Desmond was first admitted to the ward with a chest infarction. She was recovering well, but five days later went into cardiac arrest. She was in Allitt’s care at the time. Kayley was able to be revived by the team and was then transferred to a different hospital in Nottingham. There, during an examination, physicians found an odd puncture mark under her armpit and an air bubble near the puncture. It was attributed to an accidental injection but an investigation was never carried out.
On March 20, 5-month-old Paul Crampton was placed on the ward with a non-serious bronchial infection. Just before being discharged, alone in the care of Beverly Allitt, Paul went into insulin shock. He went into a near coma three times, each time being revived by doctors. He was taken by ambulance to another hospital. Allitt rode in the ambulance with him and he again was found to have too much insulin. Paul survived, no longer in the care of Allitt.
The next day, 5-year-old Bradley Gibson, who was suffering from pneumonia, went into unexpected cardiac arrest. He was revived but had another heart attack that night when in Allitt’s care. He was transported to a different hospital where he made a recovery. Blood tests showed his insulin level was high which didn’t make sense to doctors at the time.
On March 22, 2-year-old Yik Hung Chan was in considerable distress and had turned blue. Allitt raised the alarm and he responded well to oxygen. When he fell unwell again, he was transferred to a hospital in Nottingham, where he recovered. The cause of his symptoms was a fractured skull.
Two-month-old twins, Katie and Becky Phillips had been in the hospital since being born prematurely. On April 1, 1991, Becky was moved to Ward 4 with a case of gastroenteritis, where she was looked after by Allitt. Two days later, Allitt claimed Becky was cold to the touch and appeared hypoglycemia but doctors couldn’t find any cause and Becky was sent home. In the night Becky went into convulsions and seemed to be in pain. The doctor suggested it was colic. Becky died during the night. An autopsy found no clear cause of death. Becky’s twin Katie was admitted to Grantham Hospital as a precaution. Allitt was working at the time and soon Katie stopped breathing. She was revived but two days later suffered a similar attack which resulted in collapsed lungs. Katie was transferred to Nottingham where it was discovered she had five broken ribs. She suffered serious brain damage due to being deprived of oxygen. Katie had partial paralysis, cerebral palsy and sight and hearing damage. Katie’s mother believed that Allitt had saved her baby’s life and was so grateful she asked her to be Katie’s godmother. Beverly Allitt accepted.
There were another four victims, and a pattern was emerging. High incidences of unexplained attacks on otherwise healthy patients whilst Beverly Allitt was on shift.
On April 22, 1991, 15-month-old Claire Peck was brought onto the ward. She was asthmatic and needed a breathing tube. After only a few minutes in Allitt’s care, Claire had a heart attack. She was revived, but again, when alone in the care of Allitt, suffered another attack and was unable to be revived.
An autopsy revealed that Claire died of natural causes, but Dr Nelson Porter, a consultant at the hospital, initiated an inquiry. He was alarmed by the high number of cardiac arrests over the previous two months on the ward. Initially, an airborne virus was suspected but nothing was found. Police were called when a test revealed high levels of potassium in Claire’s blood. Her exhumation led to the discovery of traces of Lignocaine in her system, which is a drug used during cardiac arrest but would have never been given to a baby.
Police Superintendent Stuart Clifton was assigned to the investigation. He examined the other suspicious cases and found the majority of victims had high doses of insulin. It was discovered that Allitt had reported the key to the insulin refrigerator missing. Security cameras were installed on Ward 4, all records were checked and the victims’ parents were interviewed. There were 25 separate suspicious episodes between 13 different victims, four of whom had died. The one common factor in every episode was the presence of Beverly Allitt. She had only worked on the ward for eight weeks.
In November 1991, Beverly Allitt was formally charged with murder. Under investigation, Allitt insisted she hadn’t done anything wrong and was simply caring for the victims. Background checks into Allitt indicated a pattern of behaviour that pointed to her having both Munchausen’s Syndrome and Munchausen’s Syndrome By Proxy. It is very rare for someone to present with both. It appeared that during adolescence her behaviour was typical of Munchausen’s, feigning or inducing illness in herself to gain attention. However, when this stopped having the desired effect or people cottoned on to her behaviour, she began to harm the young patients she was supposed to care for to satisfy her desire for attention.
While in prison awaiting trial, Allitt refused to confess to what she had done. She also developed Anorexia Nervosa.
Due to various “illnesses” suffered by Allitt, her trial was delayed numerous times. Finally, her trial started on February 15, 1993. Beverly Allitt was charged with four counts of murder, 11 counts of attempted murder and eleven counts of grievous bodily harm. The trial lasted nearly two months but due to continued illness, Allitt only attended 16 days. On May 23, 1993, Beverly Allitt was convicted and given 13 life sentences for murder and attempted murder to be served concurrently, with a minimum term of 30 years.
Due to her mental health, instead of going to prison, Beverly Allitt was incarcerated at Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottingham. This is a high-security facility housing individuals detained under the Mental Health Act. Whilst there, Allitt had ingested glass and poured boiling water over her hands in an attempt to garner attention.
Allitt has since admitted to the crimes she was charged with.
When sentenced in 1993, the judge said it was unlikely that Allitt would ever be released. In 2023, after her 30-year prison term had lapsed, Beverly Allitt appeared before a mental health assessment panel seeking a transfer to a mainstream prison. The panel blocked the move, ruling that Allitt should stay a patient at Rampton Hospital. It could be three years before she is assessed again. If transferred to a mainstream prison, she would become eligible to apply for parole.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-66997014
https://www.biography.com/crime/beverley-allitt
https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/beverley-allitt-lincolnshire-child-killer-8695787
https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/beverly-allitt
