Fresh doubts were raised about the conviction of ‘killer’ nurse Lucy Letby last night, with the bombshell revelation of police notes suggesting the jury was misled over key evidence.
The documents raise serious questions over the courtroom claim that Letby was the common link between all the suspicious incidents involving babies at the Chester hospital where she worked.
And the dramatic development comes as an expert cited by the prosecution prepares to go public to say his research was misrepresented in court.
A growing number of experts have voiced fears about the evidence against the nurse, who is serving 15 life sentences after being found guilty of murdering seven babies and trying to kill seven more at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
An appeal has been rejected but former Cabinet Minister David Davis has called for a retrial, branding her conviction a ‘clear miscarriage of justice’. In the Commons he claimed that key evidence helpful to Letby’s case, is being withheld by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Now the previously undisclosed police notes, obtained by the UnHerd news website, reveal a discrepancy between the initial analysis of suspicious incidents at the hospital and what the Manchester Crown Court jury was told.
The papers show that when the chief prosecution witness, Dr Dewi Evans, originally looked at those 28 cases, Letby was absent for ten of them – more than a third. But the jury did not hear that.
At the trial, they were told by prosecuting counsel Nick Johnson KC that Letby was ‘the one common denominator’ in unexpected deaths or collapses.
Fresh doubts have been cast over Lucy Letby’s conviction following suggestions from police notes the jury was misled over key evidence
Chief prosecution witness Dr Dewi Evans. The new papers show that when he looked at the 28 cases, Letby was absent for ten of them
Former Cabinet Minister David Davis has branded Letby’s conviction a ‘clear miscarriage of justice’ and has called for her to be retrialled
In the absence of any forensic evidence or plausible motive, that statistical correlation became the key plank of the case against her.
At the trial, Dr Evans referenced a 1989 academic paper by Dr Shoo Lee, one of Canada’s top neonatologists, to back the prosecution’s case that Letby, 35, had killed the babies by injecting them with air.
But Dr Lee, who retired recently, has now flown to the UK where he will stage a press conference on Tuesday casting doubt on how his work was used in court. He will argue that none of the descriptions of the babies’ skin discolourations given at the trial matched the kind seen with air embolism.
The respected medic is expected to say that none of the babies should have been diagnosed with air embolism because it is a ‘very rare and specific condition’ and should not just be the default after other causes of death have been discounted.
Last night, Dr Lee said that he was planning to unveil details of an independent review by a ‘blue ribbon committee’ of 14 international medical experts into the causes of death of the 17 babies Letby was accused of harming.
It is understood that the experts will argue that in a ‘large number’ of cases – potentially ‘every one’ according to one source – they have recorded a different cause of death from the one cited against Letby.
Dr Lee, 67, told The Sunday Times: ‘This is not fair, because the evidence that was used to convict her, in my opinion, wasn’t quite right. What I can say is that we looked at the cases in great detail and we came to very definite conclusions about what happened in every case.’
Bafflingly, Letby’s original defence team did not call Dr Lee to dispute the prosecution’s claim and the Court of Appeal did not allow him to clarify how his evidence should have been interpreted – meaning he is being forced to go public instead.
Questions about Dr Evans, a retired consultant paediatrician, were raised during Letby’s trial. In an unusual move, Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Jackson wrote to the trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, telling how a report Dr Evans drew up in an unrelated case had been dismissed as ‘worthless’ and claimed Evans had breached his duty as an expert by deciding on the outcome he wanted then ‘working out an explanation’ to achieve it.
Dr Evans said concerns about his evidence in the Letby trial were ‘unsubstantiated, unfounded, inaccurate’. But he declined to comment further until the conclusion of Lady Justice Thirlwall’s public inquiry into events at the hospital.
Cheshire Police said they ‘declined to be involved in much of the ongoing commentary within the media’.
When asked about the latest developments, a spokesman added: ‘There is a significant public interest in these matters, however, every story that is published, statement made, or comment posted online that refers to the specific details of a live investigation can impede the course of justice and cause further distress to the families concerned. It is these families and the ongoing investigations that remain our primary focus.’
The police documents raise questions over whether Letby (pictured) was the common link between all the suspicious incidents involving babies at the hospital where she worked
Prosecutor Nick Johnson at Manchester Crown Court in October 2022, where Letby was found to have murdered babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire
Last week, The Mail on Sunday reported that Letby’s appeal against her murder convictions will identify a doctor whose ‘sub-optimal care’ is alleged to have led to the death of one of the victims, identified as Baby O.
Hospital notes, quoted by David Davis in the Commons, show that consultant Dr Stephen Brearey inserted a needle into the wrong side of the child’s abdomen to release gas pressure, penetrating the liver and causing serious internal bleeding.
The note said: ‘This was undoubtedly a significant contributory factor in the baby’s death, if not the outright cause.’
A new legal team, led by criminal defence barrister Mark McDonald, has been instructed to take Letby’s case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates potential miscarriages of justice and can refer cases back to the Court of Appeal.
UnHerd likens Letby’s case to that of the Birmingham Six, the men wrongly convicted of killing 21 people by bombing pubs in 1974 and finally freed in 1991 – one of the worst miscarriages of justice in English legal history.
The website concludes: ‘In the wake of her convictions, Letby, like the Six, was portrayed as an evil monster, a woman who fully deserved to rot in prison for the rest of her life. What an appalling vista if she were revealed to be a victim, not a perpetrator.’
