Experts have case more doubt on the convictions of Lucy Letby, currently serving 15 life sentences for the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of eight more
Doubts have been cast over Lucy Letby’s guilt as unearthed papers show the convicted baby killer may have been absent for many of the infant deaths for which she was found guilty – and a top doctor claims his expertise was used incorrectly at her murder trial.
Disgraced neo-natal nurse Letby was found guilty of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of eight more between June 2015 and June 2016 at The Countess of Chester Hospital. She is currently serving 15 life sentences behind bars for the crimes.
However, a growing number of people have shared doubts over her guilt, with her legal team set to announce “new medical evidence” from a panel of international experts next week. Ahead of that, newly released notes reportedly obtained by the Mail on Sunday show she may have been absent for a third of the 28 cases. At the trial the jury were told Letby was the “one common denominator” in the deaths of the tiny babies.
The prosecution used a paper by Dr Shoo Lee to back their case suggesting Letby murdered the youngsters by injecting them with air. However, Dr Lee himself is set to join the panel of experts this week to cast doubt on the use of his own work in Letby’s conviction.
The retired neonatologist is expected to disclose new analysis at a press conference on Tuesday. Dr Lee was the top paediatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Canada for more than a decade, and founded the Canadian Neonatal Network, which includes 27 hospitals and 16 universities.
He told the Sunday Times: “I don’t usually do medical legal cases, I just don’t enjoy them, so I don’t do them. But this one got me interested because they had used my paper.
“They asked me whether I would look at the evidence for them … and wanted to know if [the paper] was correctly interpreted. I looked at [the court transcripts] and I wasn’t very happy, because what they were interpreting wasn’t exactly what I said.
“What I can say is we looked at the cases in great detail and we came to very definite conclusions about what happened in every case. What we have done is to remove all the emotion and conjecture to basically just look at the evidence.”
Her legal team last month said it would make a fresh bid to challenge her convictions on the grounds the lead prosecution medical expert at her trial was “not reliable”. A public inquiry examining events at the Countess of Chester Hospital following Letby’s multiple convictions was launched, and findings by chairwoman Lady Justice Thirlwall are expected this autumn.
Last month former Tory minister Sir David Davis demanded a retrial for Lucy Letby, and claimed she will be cleared. He said there was no “hard evidence” implicating Letby and the case against her was “built on a poor understanding of probabilities”.
Sir David told MPs: “If, as I believe it will, a retrial clears Lucy Letby she shall be released in her 30s, not in her 50s.” There was no hard evidence against Letby, nobody saw her do anything untoward.
“The doctor’s gut feeling was based on a coincidence – she was on shift for a number of deaths, and this is important, although far from all of them, far from all of them. It was built on a poor understanding of probabilities, which could translate later into an influential but spectacularly flawed piece of evidence.”