22 May 2023

Published 22 May 2023

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Jerome of Operation Magenta said: ‘The independent investigation into deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital is one of the largest and most complex of its nature in the history of UK policing. Our team consists of around 150 serving and retired detectives who have so far assessed more than three million pages of documents including the medical records of over 750 patients, and taken witness statements from more than 1,150 individual family members.

‘The investigation is ongoing and continues to make good progress, with 19 suspects currently identified. The interviews under caution remain ongoing. Whilst we have never provided anyone with an estimate of how long our enquiries will last, family members can be confident we are working as quickly and thoroughly as possible to ensure Operation Magenta is the decisive police investigation into what happened at Gosport.

‘Every single patient who died is important to us and their individual cases must be reviewed in full in order for an assessment to be made on their evidential strength. We also owe it to their families to investigate each death to the same high standard, and at the conclusion of the investigation all families who want to will be told everything we discovered about the nature of their care.

‘It is these families who are at the heart of everything we do. We remain committed to building and maintaining trust and confidence among them and will continue to keep them updated on the progress of the investigation.’