Lucy Letby's legal team today made wild claims that no babies were murdered in her care. Led by her barrister Mark McDonald KC and MP David Davis, who branded the case 'one of major injustices of modern times', they produced 'medical evidence' from 14 neonatal medical experts which they say debunks the medical evidence presented at trial by the crown's witness. Retired medic Dr Shoo Lee, who co-authored a 1989 academic paper on air embolism in babies, presented the findings of a panel who said they had compiled an “impartial evidence-based report”. He went on to give seven examples of how the care of each baby had, he claimed, wrongly been blamed on Letby, when there was "clear evidence" something else "really happened".

Moments before the press conference, it was announced Letby’s case will be reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, after her lawyers made an application to the body on Monday. Here we take a look at the case against the former nurse and what led to her conviction. The jury spent 22 days and more than 96 hours deliberating the string of charges levelled against the nurse.

In August 2023, they found her guilty of seven counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder. She was found not guilty of two counts of attempted murder. Verdicts were not reached on six counts of attempted murder. She was retried on one count of attempted murder in July 2024 and found guilty. Letby was sentenced to 15 whole-life prison orders meaning she will spend the rest of her life in prison. In May 2024, she was refused leave to appeal by three high court judges. Dame Victoria Sharp, Lord Justice Holroyde and Mrs Justice Lambert declined to give the go-ahead for the challenge.

Dame Victoria said: “Having heard her application, we have decided to refuse leave to appeal on all grounds and refuse all associated applications. A full judgment will be handed down in due course.”. Lucy Letby worked on the neonatal ward at the Countess of Chester hospital between 2015 and 2016. The prosecution presented evidence that the nurse used various methods to attack babies, including: the injection of air and insulin into their bloodstream; the infusion of air into their gastrointestinal tract; force feeding an overdose of milk or fluids; impact-type trauma.

They said her intention was to kill the babies while deceiving her colleagues into believing there was a natural cause. Pascale Jones of the CPS said after her conviction: “Lucy Letby sought to deceive her colleagues and pass off the harm she caused as nothing more than a worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability. “In her hands, innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids - or medication like insulin - would become lethal. She perverted her learning and weaponised her craft to inflict harm, grief and death. Time and again, she harmed babies, in an environment which should have been safe for them and their families. Her attacks were a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her.".

The prosecution claimed she killed the children to get the attention of a male doctor. The doctor, who cannot be identified, was described by prosecutors as her “boyfriend”. But Letby insisted: “I loved him as a friend. I was not in love with him.” The jury heard she exchanged messages with him at work and at home and her nursing colleagues teased her about flirting with him. The court was told she kept "souvenirs" included resuscitation notes, nursing handover sheets, and a blood test result relating to the babies who died. A photo of a condolence card which she sent to the parents of one of the babies who died in October 2015 was found on her phone.

The prosecution claimed Letby regularly searched for the families of victims. She looked up the mother of one baby nine times and even searched for their names on Christmas Day. Letby admitted the searches, which totalled up to 2,380 in a single 12-month period, saying it was “out of curiosity”. Letby denied all the allegations and gave evidence in the witness box for 14 days during the trial. She denied doing anything harmful to any child and that the sudden collapses and deaths could have been due to natural causes, or for some unascertained reason, or from failure by others to provide appropriate care.

Her defence claimed she was a “hard-working, dedicated and caring” nurse who loved her job. During the trial Letby, who is a qualified Band 5 nurse, recalled the moment she received a letter from the Royal College of Nursing to inform her she was being held responsible for the deaths of babies on the neonatal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital. She told the court: "I don't think you can be accused of anything worse than that. I just changed as a person, my mental health deteriorated, I felt isolated...from my friends on the unit. From a self-confidence point of view, it made me question everything about myself.".