LINE of Duty creator Jed Mercurio is developing a drama based on child serial killer Lucy Letby.
Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner and Killing Eve leading lady Jodie Comer are among a handful of top actresses in the frame to take on the extremely challenging role.
The show is being made by Jed and his team with the help of the whistle-blower from the Letby case, hospital consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram.
A TV insider: “Jed sees this as an important story that should not just be chronicled in a drama but also explored.
“It aims to try to explain how her crimes could have gone on for so long and how others — particularly Dr Jayaram — tried to act when suspicions were raised.
“Bagging a high-profile name to play Letby would help give the show the attention it deserves too, but it’s not a role to take lightly.”
Former neonatal nurse Letby, now 34, was jailed for life last year for murdering seven infants and attempting to murder six others between 2015 and 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Chester.
During her ten-month trial, which ended last August when she received a whole life sentence, it was revealed she injected her victims with air or insulin, overfed them and physically abused them with medical tools.
An application to appeal against her sentence was rejected in February of this year.
Letby is only the fourth woman ever to be handed a whole-life sentence in the UK.
And she is due to face a retrial at Manchester crown court this month on a single count of attempting to murder a baby girl, known only as Child K, in February 2016.
It is not yet clear whether the new drama would be a one-off or a series, but it is expected to eventually air on ITV1.
Jed is best known for making high-octane cop thrillers, including BBC1’s Line of Duty and Bodyguard — two of the most-watched dramas in TV history.
Recently he has turned his hand to more true crime and health-based drama, such as the ITV show Breathtaking, which was set during the Covid crisis.
Starring Downton Abbey actress Joanne Froggatt, it was based on medic Rachel Clarke’s personal account of batting on the front line in the pandemic.
Jed has a personal interest in medics as he spent three years as a hospital doctor, with his experiences partly inspiring his first drama, BBC1’s Cardiac Arrest, which aired from 1994 to 1996.
