July 2026: Government declines to widen the Thirlwall terms of reference (16 July) · new 100-page insulin report to the CCRC challenging the trial evidence (9 July) · Thirlwall report still expected no earlier than September · inquests relisted to 2027 · Shoo Lee Panel: no medical evidence of deliberate harm.
Medical explainer
Necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious gut disease of premature babies, with a recognised radiological signature including pneumatosis intestinalis (intramural gas) and portal venous gas. It can cause sudden deterioration.
Several prosecution counts described 'air' findings on imaging as evidence of injection. Independent paediatric radiologists have re-read the imaging and argued the findings are consistent with NEC rather than air injection.
Several counts described gas findings on imaging as evidence that air had been injected, either into the bloodstream or via a nasogastric tube.
Independent paediatric radiologists have re-read the imaging and argue the findings are consistent with necrotising enterocolitis, which has a recognised radiological signature including pneumatosis intestinalis and portal venous gas. NEC is a serious and common disease of premature babies and causes sudden deterioration on its own.
Radiological re-reading is an opinion on images taken for clinical rather than forensic purposes, and post-mortem gas redistribution complicates the interpretation of any gas finding. The dispute is about which reading the imaging better supports, not about a fact that imaging alone can settle.
A serious gut disease of premature babies in which sections of bowel become inflamed and can die. It causes sudden deterioration and is one of the leading causes of death in preterm infants.
It has a recognised signature including pneumatosis intestinalis — gas within the bowel wall — and portal venous gas in the liver.
Because gas findings the Crown attributed to injected air are also the classic radiological signs of NEC, which occurs naturally in exactly this population.
No. It is one differential among several, and the argument is that it was not adequately excluded count by count before deliberate harm was inferred.
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