'Angel of Death' victim fears serial baby killer would leave prison in weeks and 'get her'

Serial baby killer Beverly Allitt would be eligible to get parole or ask for an early release in just a few weeks, which has left one of her victims scared for her life.

Kayley Asher, who was left disabled after the serial killer attempted to take her life, said that she fears the killer nurse would be out to "get her" to finish what she started. Allitt, who was named the "Angel of Death" for killing infants including those she was looking after in the hospital where she was a nurse, had injected Asher with air causing her lungs to collapse and triggering two cardiac arrests.

Asher, who was a one-year-old getting treated for a chest infection during the attempt on her life in 1991, almost died at the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire. She was thankfully resuscitated, but sustained severe brain damage and has spent years checking under her bed and in her drawers for the twisted killer.

Asher is now 31, but the fear of Allitt lurking around her has not gone out of her mind. Her father Alan revealed to The Mirror that his daughter often asks him, "Will she come and get me?"

"Kayley looks under her bed and in her wardrobe for Allitt. This can go on for days and days and often we find her in the early hours of the morning searching," Alan said, adding that the family has "genuine fear" the criminal could "walk into their lives one day.

"It's scary to think Allitt could one day be free. I can't see the ­difference between her and Peter Sutcliffe," he said, noting that they fear she too could be allowed to get a new identity for her safety like other serial killers and commit more crimes.

The killer was given 13 life sentences in 1993 for killing four babies and harming nine other children, but her minimum sentence tariff of 30 years expires in November. The 52-year-old is currently being held at a high-security psychiatric hospital, but if she is deemed fit to transfer to a prison in November, she will be given the right to apply for parole, or early release.

Allitt had attacked Asher during a terrifying 59-day killing spree, whose deceased victims are four children- seven-year-old Liam Taylor, 11-year-old Timothy Hardwick, two-month-old Becky Phillips and 15-month-old Claire Peck. She attempted to kill nine other infants by tampering with injections at the hospital. It was after the staff noticed the high death toll happening during her shifts that they called the police.

During her imprisonment in 1993, the judge had told her that she was "a serious danger" to others and was unlikely ever to be considered safe enough for release. But 14 years later, a high court ruled that she must serve only a minimum of 28 years and 175 days in jail.