The convictions of child serial killer Lucy Letby have been branded “one of the major injustices of modern times” as her legal team continued its campaign protesting her innocence.
Letby, now 35, is serving 15 whole life sentences for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others – including one she attacked twice.
All of the offences took place between June 2015 and June 2016 while Letby was working at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.
Her trial lasted for more than 10 months and is believed to be the longest murder trial in the UK.
Letby lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal. The Crown Prosecution Service previously said: “Two juries and three appeal court judges have reviewed a multitude of different strands of evidence against Lucy Letby.
“She has been convicted on 15 separate counts following two separate jury trials. In May, the Court of Appeal dismissed Letby’s leave to appeal on all grounds – rejecting her argument that expert prosecution evidence was flawed.”
But at a press conference on Tuesday, MP Sir David Davis described her convictions as “one of the major injustices of modern times”.
Retired medic Dr Shoo Lee, who co-authored a 1989 academic paper on air embolism in babies, presented the findings of a panel of 14 experts who said they had compiled an “impartial evidence-based report”.
“We did not find any murders. In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care,” Dr Lee said.
Here, The i Paper takes a look at five key pieces of evidence outlined in the press conference.
Dr Lee said he would speak about some of the babies, citing baby one, a pre-term boy who collapsed two days after being born, with skin discolouration noted and who did not respond to resuscitation.
The allegation against Letby was that she injected air into his veins causing his collapse and death.
Dr Lee said the prosecution in the trial used a paper he had authored in 1989, but he said he had made a distinction between air in veins and air in arteries.
He told the press conference: “In the cases where air was injected in the veins there was no cases of patchy skin discolouration. So the notion that these babies can be diagnosed with air embolism because they collapsed and had these skin discolourations has no evidence in fact.”
Dr Shoo Lee gestures as he speaks during a press conference to present new evidence regarding the safety of the convictions of former nurse, Lucy Letby (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)Dr Lee added that baby four was born full-term by emergency caesarean section. He said prosecutors alleged during the trial that three days after birth, the baby suddenly collapsed.
“The allegation is that baby four was a stable baby after the baby was born and admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit,” Dr Lee said.
“Then on day three of life the baby suddenly collapsed, and that this was due to injection of air through the intravenous system causing air embolism, resulting in patchy discoloration of the skin and death.
“I would like to just repeat…that there is no evidence that air embolism through the veins results in patchy discolouration of the skin.”
2 – Baby nine’s death was ‘preventable’
The death of baby nine was “preventable”, Dr Lee said. Letby was found guilty of killing the baby by injecting air into the nasogastric tube and through an IV, causing an embolism and leading to respiratory arrest – but Dr Lee said the panel disagrees.
The baby had a number of problems with their lungs, including chronic lung disease and episodes of apnoea, he said.
An antibiotic-resistant pathogen was also present which could have compromised the baby’s breathing, he added.
Dr Lee told the press conference that the air found in the baby’s system was likely introduced by resuscitation attempts when the baby had a severe episode of apnoea before their death.
He said the panel concluded the baby “died of respiratory complications caused by respiratory distress syndrome and chronic lung disease” which was complicated by the bacteria.
“This was likely a preventable death,” he said.
Letby killed several babies by dislodging their breathing tubes. Speaking about baby 11, Dr Lee said: “There’s actually no proof that the tube was even dislodged. It was probably in the right place.
“It says that the consultant didn’t know what he was doing.
“The consultant also stated that he did not hear the alarms but another nurse in her testimony stated in her statement: ‘That when I returned to the unit, I immediately became aware of the alarms sounding and I rushed in to help’.
(left to right) Professor Neena Modi, barrister Mark McDonald, Sir David Davis MP and retired medic Dr Shoo Lee (Photo: Ben Whitley/PA Wire)“So there is actually a statement from another nurse saying that the alarms were not off. They were actually working. Perhaps the consultant just didn’t hear them?
“There is no evidence to support a dislodged endotracheal tube…The consultant did not understand the basics of resuscitation, of air leak or mechanical ventilation, and the equipment that he was using.”
4 – ‘Traumatic delivery’ caused death of baby 15
Turning to baby 15, Dr Lee said it is “nothing but conjecture” to say air was injected through the baby’s intravenous system or through a nasogastric tube – as Letby was found guilty of doing at trial.
The baby collapsed after half of their blood was lost into the abdomen due to a rupture of a subcapsular haematoma, he said.
The haematoma was “highly likely” formed as a result of “extremely rapid delivery” during birth, Dr Lee told journalists.
Subsequently ventilating the baby under high pressure was “a mistake”, he added.
“Baby 15 died from a subcapsular liver haematoma, caused by traumatic delivery, resulting in haemorrhage into the peritoneal cavity and profound shock,” Dr Lee said.
5 – Hospital under fire with ‘no evidence of murder’
Concluding his remarks, Dr Lee said: “In summary, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders.
“There was no medical evidence to support malfeasance causing death or injury in any of the 17 cases in the trial.
“Death or injury of all the affected infants were due either to natural causes or to errors in medical care.
Lucy Letby giving evidence during her trial at Manchester Crown Court (Photo: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire)“There were serious problems related to medical care of patients at this hospital.”
He then turned more closely to the hospital, hitting out at a list of failures he perceives, including incomplete medical histories, failure to consider pregnancy and birth history and misdiagnosis of diseases.
Dr Lee, a retired medic from Canada, added: “I would say if this was a hospital in Canada, it would be shut down.”
What could this mean for Letby?
Lucy 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.
If the CCRC feels evidence presented to them by Davis’s expert panel and Letby’s legal team is sufficient to raise the prospect of her conviction being overturned or her sentence reduced, then Mr McDonald could score a significant legal victory.
To launch a fresh appeal, the CCRC needs “something important like strong new evidence or an argument that makes the case look different now”.
There is still no guarantee the Court of Appeal in that instance will rule in Letby’s favour, particularly with the court having already blocked the convicted killer in October from directly appealing a single one of her convictions.
Letby lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal – in May for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.
At the first of those appeals, a bid to admit fresh evidence from Dr 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 CCRC spokesperson said: “We have received a preliminary application in relation to Ms Letby’s case, and work has begun to assess the application. We anticipate further submissions being made to us.”
They added: “We are aware that there has been a great deal of speculation and commentary surrounding Lucy Letby’s case, much of it from parties with only a partial view of the evidence.
“We ask that everyone remembers the families affected by events at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.”
The Thirlwall Inquiry
A public inquiry into how Letby was able to get away with her crimes for so long is currently being led by Lady Justice Thirlwall.
At the opening of the hearing, Justice Thirlwall said the Court of Appeal ruling which upheld Letby’s convictions should have been a “watershed” moment in the case.
However, since then there has been an “outpouring of comment from a variety of quarters on the validity of the convictions.
“As far as I am aware it has come entirely from people who were not at the trial. Parts of some of the evidence have been selected and criticised, as has been the conduct of the defence at trial, about which those lawyers can say nothing,” said Lady Justice Thirlwall.
“All of this noise has caused enormous additional distress to the families who have already suffered far too much.
“I make it absolutely clear, it is not for me as chair of this inquiry to set about reviewing the convictions. The Court of Appeal has done that with a very clear result. The convictions stand.”
Countess of Chester Hospital’s chief executive Jane Tomkinson told the Thirlwall Inquiry last month that significant changes and improvements have been made at the hospital since Letby’s crimes and the case would be “handled completely differently from ward to board” today.
Findings from the inquiry are expected to be published in the autumn.
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