Case of UK baby killer nurse for review

The case of a British nurse sentenced to life imprisonment for killing seven newborn babies is being reviewed as medical experts Tuesday argued there was no evidence to support her conviction for murder.

Lucy Letby is serving 15 whole-life sentences for the deaths of babies at neo-natal units in the northwest of England, where she worked between 2015 and 2016.

Letby was convicted of murdering seven newborn babies and attempting to kill seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital neo-natal unit, making her Britain’s most prolific child serial killer in modern UK history.

But her defence team on Tuesday applied to the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to probe whether there had been a possible miscarriage of justice in her two trials in 2023 and 2024.

Letby, 35, who maintains her innocence, was accused of attacking the babies by various means including injecting air into their bloodstreams which caused an air embolism that blocked the blood supply and led to sudden and unexpected collapses.

But Shoo Lee, a retired Canadian doctor who co-authored a 1989 academic paper on air embolism in babies which featured in Letby’s 10-month trial, told a press conference on Tuesday Letby had exhausted all her appeals “and yet it remains that the evidence was wrong”.

“The evidence that was used to convict her was wrong and for me that is a problem,” he said.

He was speaking at a London news conference to present the findings of an international panel of 14 independent experts in the care of very young babies.

Lee said the panel’s conclusion was that the evidence they found “does not support murder in any of these cases”.

Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald said Tuesday’s “fresh evidence” had “demolished” the medical findings presented at Letby’s trial.

– ‘Major injustice’ –

A spokesperson for the CCRC said: “We have received a preliminary application in relation to Ms Letby’s case, and work has begun to assess the application.”

The commission has the power to refer cases back to the Court of Appeal if it determines there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

“It is not for the CCRC to determine innocence or guilt … that’s a matter for the courts,” it said in a statement.

Rather the commission’s role was to investigate and “refer potential miscarriages of justice to the appellate courts when new evidence … means there is a real possibility that a conviction will not be upheld, or a sentence reduced”.

Former Conservative minister David Davis, who has raised Letby’s case in parliament, told reporters her convictions were “one of the major injustices of modern times”.

She lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal.

At the first appeal, a bid to admit fresh evidence from Lee was rejected as three senior judges concluded there had been no prosecution expert evidence diagnosing air embolus solely on the basis of skin discolouration.

A months-long separate public inquiry examining the wider circumstances around Letby’s case opened in September and is currently hearing evidence.

AFP