“If it gets much colder, I am thinking of doing something, just to go back to prison,” says Leon Lear, 43, as he sits next to the remnants of his failed fire on the edge of a playground in Bridgend, South Wales.
The wood was too damp to burn; the only ash is from cardboard from a nearby recycling bin. A damp sleeping bag hangs over the railings.
Image: Leon Lear says he has considered committing more offences in order to get sent back to jail
Leon is on early release from jail, but he’d rather have stayed in. He says instead of celebrating he began to get anxious as his release date approached, knowing he would be homeless and that the outside meant literally that – outside.
He says: “Because I was released five weeks early, the probation, and housing didn’t have an inkling I was going to be released. They told me that I’d be on a waiting list for housing. So, since then, I’ve been living on the streets.”
Leon was jailed for affray in June this year, released five weeks early but homeless in July. He was recalled on breach of licence for shoplifting in September and released again two weeks ago. How much longer before he is back inside?
He is one of 13% of prisoners in England and Wales who are released without a home and the chief inspector of probation says homelessness is the biggest driving factor for people reoffending or breaching their licence.
Recalled prisoners are the fastest-growing element of our overcrowded prison population, doubling in a decade.
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Leon is wearing two t-shirts that he stole that morning. He says he’s not proud of it but it’s what he must do to survive. “I don’t even have underwear,” he says, “I know it’s embarrassing, but this is how I got to live.”
His only possessions are a toothbrush and toothpaste in the pocket of a tracksuit given to him by a local charity.
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For a while, he bunked down with some heroin addicts, but that got him back on the drug after three years clean. So now he is on the streets and makes a daily trip to the drug clinic for methadone, to keep him off the habit.
“I’ve done a winter [homeless] before and it’s horrific,” he says. “Last night I was thinking of smashing a window or acting drunk, just to go to the police station to get a hot meal in on the blanket to stay somewhere safe. I’d rather be in jail than live like this much longer.”
That’s despite the fact he describes prison as being locked up 23 hours a day with mice in his cell.
Leon visits an outreach centre in town called BARC. As well as hot drinks and meals, they provide clothes, tents and help with doctors’ appointments and courses.
Demand for the services here has doubled in a year – a lot due to the early release scheme.
Founder Becky Lloyd, 45, says: “A lot of these guys are re-offending deliberately now to go back to prison because they’ve got nowhere to go. At least if we can try and support them, we can try and avoid that. But the winter is coming, they don’t want to be in a tent. They’d rather be in jail.”
Image: Becky Lloyd from the BARC community centre
We meet another man just out on early release who has been living in a tent for the last three weeks.
He told us: “It’s harder out here than being in there [prison]. Because you’ve got three meals a day in there and a roof over your head. Out here, you’ve got to come to places like this to get fed, you know, beg, borrow or steal.”
The centre relies on donations and much of the work is self-funded by Becky and co-founder Teresa Wilkie. While it seems a somewhat hopeless endeavour, success is personified by one of the workers.
Ffion Evans, 25, was on crack for three years and heroin for seven. When released from jail in December last year, she became homeless and turned back to her addiction. But when she became pregnant, she managed to turn her life around.
Image: Ffion Evans, a released prisoner who now works as a volunteer support worker
Wearing a T-shirt with the words “actually, I can”, she says: “I started coming here, they supported me and showed me I’m worth it and I can do it.
“Now I’ve been clean for months, I’m a support volunteer worker so I’ve got a career ahead of me. It’s brilliant. This is the best version of me I have ever been. I couldn’t have done it without these lot.”
The chief inspector of probation, Martin Jones, told Sky News: “What we know is that if people do not have a safe accommodation at the point of release, they are more likely to be recalled to custody as a result of breaching their licence conditions or indeed to re-offend. I think it [providing a home] is probably the most critically important part of a prisoner’s release.”
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Tom Hollick from The Wallich, which offers council-funded support for the homeless in Bridgend, said: “There’s over 11,000 people, in the latest data across the whole of Wales, who are in temporary accommodation with more people presenting all the time.
“So, it’s kind of that bottleneck in the system, and people coming out of prison are adding to the existing crisis.”
A Ministry of Justice Spokesperson said: “The new government inherited a justice system in crisis, with levels of homelessness which were far too high and an early release scheme that did not give probation staff enough time to get prisoners ready for their release.
“Our new system allows staff to better prepare offenders for life after prison and we are working with partners, including local councils and charities, to avoid them being released onto the street.”
Detectives searching for a Cardiff woman who has been missing since last summer have launched a murder investigation.
Three arrests have previously been made in connection with the disappearance of Charlene Hobbs.
Image: Pic: South Wales Police
Crimestoppers is now offering a reward of up to £20,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
The last confirmed sighting of the 36-year-old, from Riverside, was a photograph taken on a mobile phone at a house in Broadway in the Adamsdown area of the city on 24 July last year.
Ms Hobbs, who has a distinctive dragon tattoo on her back, had her hair in a bun and was wearing a dark strapless top when the photo was taken.
The day before she was last seen, she was captured on CCTV at a Morrisons Local in Adamsdown.
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CCTV released in the search for Ms Hobbs
In a statement released through South Wales Police, Ms Hobbs’ family said: “We still hope that Charlene can be found safe and well.
“We are grateful for the support of Crimestoppers and the reward to help us find her, and hope that this will help people to come forward with information about what has happened to Charlene.”
Image: Ms Hobbs at a property in Broadway, Adamsdown, left, and at a Morrisons Local in the area, right. Pics: South Wales Police
Detective Chief Inspector Matt Powell said: “We have always been determined to find Charlene alive and return her to her family, but despite a huge number of enquiries we have no proof that Charlene is alive.
“While I have always maintained an open mind, the lack of evidence that Charlene is alive means that we are now treating her disappearance as a murder investigation.
“We have spoken to more than 250 people, either known to Charlene or from areas where she is known to frequent, and no one can tell us where Charlene is or that she is alive, which of course we, her family and friends desperately want to hear.
“Several of those we have spoken to believe that she has died but no one has been able to provide any specific details.”
Image: Extensive searches have taken place for the missing 36-year-old. Pic: South Wales Police
Image: Pic: South Wales Police
Detectives and specialist search teams are continuing with extensive efforts to find Ms Hobbs and determine the circumstances around her disappearance.
DCI Powell added: “I still firmly believe that answers lie in the community, and that someone out there holds key information that will help us find Charlene.”
A 45-year-old man arrested in connection with the investigation remains on police bail.
A 43-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman have been released without charge.
In Thailand, Richard Burrows found an escape – a place to hide for nearly 30 years.
After abusing children, he fled the UK to avoid prosecution. But the severity of his crimes didn’t push him to live a low-profile life – far from it.
In the sandy shores of Phuket, he became very well known and liked. Everyone there knew him as Peter Smith, an identity he stole from a passport that wasn’t his.
No one appeared to know where he had gone after he failed to attend the start of his trial over alleged child sex offences at Chester Crown Court in 1997.
His abuse spanned a wide period from the 1960s to the 1990s. Some of the offences occurred at a children’s school in Cheshire and others happened in the Midlands, through his involvement with the scouts.
But it would take 27 years for him to be caught, finally arrested at Heathrow Airport.
Image: Richard Burrows was put on trial after years in Thailand
He had settled in Thailand with a familiar routine and a wide circle of acquaintances. He would regularly dine at a small roadside restaurant, often ordering fish and chips.
The owner Pakorn Sanwongwan says the man they knew was kind and generous. They had no idea of his past.
“I’m very shocked because from my perspective, he was a good person. For the past 24 years he had recommended our restaurant to lots of people and brought us new customers,” he said.
His wife Supaporn says they were shocked when just a few months ago he announced he was “going to the UK and never coming back”.
It’s easy to see how many people were duped. He kept the reality of what he’d done largely hidden. And his was not a life lived under the radar.
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Victim speaks out over sex attacker
He was involved in the local sailing community. His friends say he’d worked with local schools. And he’d worked in local media.
Burrows lived in a container, a short drive from the coastline. But things started to unravel when money ran thin.
He began opening up to a very small number of close friends, saying he needed to return to the UK to see family and was struggling financially.
“Ben”, not his real name, was among those close confidantes.
He said: “I knew him for 25 years. Only about three to four years ago, he started sort of revealing a few things that he’s not actually who his passport says he is and that he was searched by the UK authorities for some allegations, apparently, he’s done.”
Ben says he had no idea of the severity of the charges against him. The man he thought he knew was a kind soul, giving and supportive of many he met.
There were, he says, signs of his attraction to young people, but it didn’t raise alarm bells.
“Peter” had younger companions who cooked for him at home and he would finance the education of some of them, Ben told us.
“Obviously it was visible that he liked the younger generation. But that he would go for minors I would never have thought,” he said.
Image: The container where Burrows lived in Thailand
All of the offences were committed during Burrows’ time in the United Kingdom, and no charges have been brought against him in Thailand.
If Ben knew the details of Burrows’ sordid past, he may have thought differently. But Burrows was living a lie, enjoying a secret life in the sun.
Remarkably, Burrows went undetected for decades – his visa based on a fake passport, consistently renewed.
It’s unclear what exactly motivated his attempt to move back to the UK, a move that would end in his arrest at Heathrow.
Some we spoke to said he had run out of money and that he wanted to see family. But some suspected he was trying to make peace with his past.
Finally, he has been brought to justice. But his victims were left to deal with the horrific aftermath of his abuse.
Whilst he is now behind bars, they will also have to wrestle with the fact their abuser was able to enjoy a free and full life for so long.
After Lucy Letby was sentenced to 15 whole-life terms for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, an inquiry was launched to ensure lessons were learnt.
The Thirlwall Inquiry is examining three broad themes – the experiences of all victims’ parents, how the concerns of clinicians were handled, and to ensure lessons are learnt from the case of the most prolific child serial killer in modern British history.
About 133 witnesses, including parents who lost their children, hospital executives, and Letby’s former colleagues at the Countess of Chester Hospital, have provided live evidence to the inquiry since September, with a further 396 giving written statements.
Inquiry chair Lady Justice Thirlwall is expected to publish her official report in the autumn, outlining the detailed findings and recommendations based on the evidence that has been heard.
This week, the Thirlwall Inquiry is hearing closing submissions from the various interested parties. Here’s what has been said during the key testimonies so far.
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From September 2024: Letby public inquiry set to begin
Why is it called the Thirwall inquiry and why are there calls for it to be suspended?
Opening the inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall on 10 September last year, Lady Justice Thirlwall said the probe bears her surname so that the parents do not repeatedly see the name of the person convicted of harming their babies.
She said the babies who died or were injured would be at the “heart of the inquiry” and condemned comments at the time that questioned the validity of Letby’s convictions – which the nurse tried and failed to challenge at the Court of Appeal – and some of the evidence used at trial.
The inquiry also remains separate to a 14-member expert panel, led by retired neonatologist Dr Shoo Lee and senior Conservative MP David Davis, which in February said it had analysed medical evidence considered during Letby’s trial and claimed there was no medical evidence that the nurse murdered or attempted to murder 14 premature babies.
Letby’s lawyers have since applied for a review of her case as a “potential miscarriage of justice” by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) after two failed bids at the Court of Appeal.
On Monday, the judge said she had received a request last month from lawyers representing former executives at the Countess of Chester Hospital asking for the public inquiry to be suspended.
Lady Justice Thirlwall also said she had recently received a written request from solicitors representing Letby for her to pause the inquiry.
In the letter to the judge, which Sky News has seen, Letby’s lawyers warned Lady Justice Thirlwall that her final report would “not only be redundant but likely unreliable” if it was not put on hold until after the conclusion of the former nurse’s CCRC application.
Image: Chair of the inquiry Lady Justice Thirlwall. Pic: PA
Letby couldn’t ‘wait to get first death out of the way’
One of the nurses who started as a newly qualified nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital on the same day as Letby told the inquiry that the serial killer had told her she “can’t wait for her first death to get it out the way”.
The nurse said she thought the comment was “strange” at the time, but she put it down to Letby just making conversation.
She also recalled Letby being “animated” when telling her she had been involved with resuscitation attempts of a child on the ward in 2012.
“It was kind of like she was excited to tell me about it,” the nurse said.
‘Likely’ Letby murdered or attacked more children
Neonatal clinical lead at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Dr Stephen Brearey, told the inquiry that he thought it was “likely” Letby murdered or started to harm babies prior to June 2015.
He agreed that “on reflection” several unexpected collapses and deaths before that date now “appear suspicious”.
Dr Brearey added he did not have concerns about those incidents at the time, saying that hospital staff “thought we were going through a busy or particularly difficult patch”.
Image: The Countess of Chester Hospital in 2023. Pic: PA
The inquiry was told that the dislodgement of breathing tubes, which was how Letby tried to kill Child K, generally occurs on less than 1% of shifts.
However, it happened on 40% of shifts that Letby worked when she was a trainee at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
Newborn given potentially fatal morphine overdose
Two years before Letby carried out the murder of Child A, she and another nurse gave a potentially fatal dose of morphine to a newborn baby.
Neonatal unit ward deputy ward manager, Yvonne Griffiths, told the inquiry that the infant received 10 times the correct amount of the painkiller at the end of a night shift in July 2013.
Describing it as a “very serious error”, she said the infant could have died if colleagues had not spotted the error an hour later.
Letby was told she had to stop administering controlled drugs as a result of the error, a decision that she told management she was not happy about.
Letby offered ‘tips’ on how to get away with murder
In a WhatsApp exchange in 2017, Letby and union rep Hayley Griffiths discussed the US legal drama How To Get Away With Murder.
The discussion took place a year after the neonatal nurse was moved to clerical duties following concerns she may have been deliberately harming babies.
In a message to Letby, Ms Griffiths wrote: “I’m currently watching a programme called How To Get Away With Murder. I’m learning some good tips.”
To which Letby replied: “I could have given you some tips x.”
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From 2023: Former health secretary Steve Barclay on Letby inquiry
Ms Griffiths responded saying she needed “someone to practice on to see if [she] could get away with it”, and Letby replied: “I can think of two people you could practice on and will help you cover it up x.”
The union rep said: “I truly and deeply regret having started that conversation… this is completely unprofessional.”
No support or counselling given to parents
The parents of two triplet boys murdered by Letby told the inquiry they were given no support or counselling after the deaths of their children.
The children died on successive days in June 2016. Letby was their designated nurse and their deaths led to her being removed from the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit to a non-patient facing role.
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How the police caught Lucy Letby
The triplets’ father said: “Following the deaths of our children, we didn’t receive any support or counselling from anyone. Had we received some support, we might have been in a better position to try and act on what our instincts were telling us, which was that something had gone badly wrong.”
Senior consultant: ‘I should have been braver’
Letby’s trial in 2023 heard that senior paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram caught the serial killer “virtually red-handed” after an incident in a nursery room at the hospital in February 2016.
Addressing that incident while giving evidence at the inquiry, Dr Jayaram said he had walked into the nursery after feeling “significant discomfort” that Letby was alone with Child K.
After walking in, he said he saw “a baby clearly deteriorating” and the child’s endotracheal tube (ET) dislodged. Despite his concern over the incident, the consultant did not tell anyone at the hospital, or the police.
Explaining why he said nothing, Dr Jayaram said: “It’s the fear of not being believed. It’s the fear of ridicule. It’s the fear of accusations of bullying.
“I should have been braver and should have had more courage because it was not just an isolated thing. There was already a lot of other information.”
Image: Dr Ravi Jayaram. Pics: Rex/ITV/Shutterstock
Hospital boss: ‘I should’ve done better’
Tony Chambers, the former chief executive of the Countess of Chester Hospital, was a key witness to give evidence during the inquiry.
During his evidence, Mr Chambers offered an apology to the families who had fallen victim to Letby and said his language had been “clumsy” in telling the killer nurse the hospital had “her back”.
“I absolutely acknowledged that we hadn’t got that right. We could have done better, we should have done better. I should have done better,” he said.
When pressed on if he tried to “stall and obstruct the police being called or this being made public”, he added: “Had that been what I had done then it would be. But I think it’s an outrageous statement and I do not believe it represents my actions.”
Image: Lady Justice Thirlwall at Liverpool Town Hall. Pic: PA
Jeremy Hunt: ‘Terrible tragedy happened on my watch’
Jeremy Hunt appeared at the inquiry in January where he apologised to the victims’ families, saying he was sorry “for anything that didn’t happen that could potentially have prevented such an appalling crime”.
Mr Hunt was health secretary at the time Letby committed her crimes in 2015 and 2016.
Image: Hunt arrives at Thirlwall Inquiry. Pic: PA
The MP told the inquiry the former nurse’s crimes were “a terrible tragedy” which “happened on my watch” and “although he doesn’t bear direct personal responsibility for everything that happens in every ward in the NHS” he does have “ultimate responsibility for the NHS”.
He recommended that medical examiners should be trained to see the signs or patterns of malicious harm in the work of a healthcare professional.