Lucy Letby: Angel of death or victim of one of ‘major miscarriages of justice in modern times’?

Lucy Letby is one of Britain’s most notorious mass murderers who killed or tried to kill new-born, vulnerable babies who had been placed in her care. That was the conclusion of a Crown Court jury at the end of a mammoth ten-month trial, and remains the legal conclusion – the reason she is jailed for life with no chance of ever getting parole. Letby was branded a “monster“ and the “Angel of Death“ in the media after she was convicted of seven counts of murder and seven charges of attempted murder.

Yet condemnation of Letby has not been universal, especially online and internationally, with sceptics suggesting there was not enough evidence to hold her responsible for the fate of those babies. On Tuesday, a panel of highly-respected medical experts went further and asserted there had been “no murders“, while putting forward alternative explanations for the deaths at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2015 and 2016.

Letby’s cheerleader-in-chief Sir David Davis told a press conference called by her legal team that he believes the convictions and incarceration is “one of the major injustices of modern times“. But despite her growing band of supporters, as well as online sleuths who think they can uncover the “truth“, Letby faces a huge task in convincing judges that her case is even worthy of revisiting, let alone the exoneration she is seeking.

Letby, now 35, was a nurse on the neonatal unit at the Chester hospital when she was accused of attacking babies between June 2015 and June 2016. She was arrested in 2018 and ultimately was charged with seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder, all of which she denied. Letby blamed deficiencies at the hospital for the deaths and illnesses of the babies in their care, and entered not guilty pleas to all charges.

The trial at Manchester crown court pored over in harrowing detail the events leading up to each baby death, as heartbroken parents told of their loss and the role played by Letby. Prosecutors said the nurse, who grew up in Hereford, was linked to all incidents of baby’s health declining as she was present on the ward, and had the chance to cause harm. Jurors were shown pages from Letby’s diaries and handwritten notes, where she had recorded the initials of dead babies and penned what was said to amount to a confession: “I am evil“.

Letby herself said she wrote notes as a coping mechanism, while overburdened by the pressures of her work. She said evidence that she had looked up the families of babies who had died on Facebook, especially on anniversaries and Christmas Day, was not – as alleged – her “hunting for grief“, but instead were acts of idly curiosity for a person constantly hooked to their phone. All of this evidence was placed before the jury during the course of Letby’s trial, as part of the prosecution’s case that she was responsible for the deaths.

Juries in England and Wales are never asked to explain their decisions or point out which evidence weighed heaviest in the deliberations. At the heart of the prosecution case was the expert evidence of Dr Dewi Evans, a consultant paediatrician for 29 years and a provider of expert medical advice since 2010. Dr Evans was asked to review the medical records of 61 babies whose health had declined at the hospital, to provide his expert opinion on the possible reasons.

Six possible causes of death were presented to the jury - air embolus caused by air being injected via intravenous lines, air being forced into the stomach down a nasogastric tube, dislodging a tube which had been inserted to help breathing, insulin poisoning, overfeeding with milk, and violent trauma. Dr Evans’ evidence was challenged strongly during the criminal trial, as Letby’s legal team first tried to block his opinion being put before the jury and then they probed him on his clinical experience and ability to offer expert comment, particularly on air embolus.

In his evidence at trial, Dr Evans pointed out several babies had died when they were previously stable, and their collapses were sudden and unexpected. A substantial amount of focus had remained since Letby’s convictions on Dr Evans, as he has faced accusations that his opinion on some of the baby deaths has "changed". Responding, Dr Evans said those claims are "unsubstantiated, unfounded, inaccurate".

Tuesday’s press conference was called by Letby’s legal team led by barrister Mark McDonald, it was opened by Sir David Davis, but it was Dr Shoo Lee who did most of the talking. Dr Lee is a highly respected neonatologist and health economist, and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He has assembled an international panel of experts to analyse the evidence in the Letby case and come to independent conclusions on the causes of deaths of the babies.