Why the Lucy Letby inquiry is not dealing with the safety of her conviction
The latest stage of one of the most significant criminal cases in recent legal history begins this week with the start of the inqury into child serial killer Lucy Letby's crimes.
Over the course of two trials – the first of which ended in August 2023 and the second in July this year –the former nurse was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more when she worked on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby is now serving 15 whole-life orders.
However, in recent weeks, a number of experts have raised concerns about some of the evidence presented in court, amid suggestions her conviction could prove to be unsafe.
But the inquiry, which begins on Tuesday and will be led by High Court judge Lady Justice Thirlwall, will not address these issues directly and is instead examining what enabled Letby to commit the offences and how the hospital handled concerns about her.
Experts question safety of Letby convictions
Following the lifting of reporting restrictions in July after her final conviction, questions have been raised over the evidence presented in Letby's trials.
Peter Green, a former president of the Royal Statistical Society, raised doubts about the staffing rota which showed jurors that Letby was on duty for every suspicious death or collapse in those 12 months. He told the BBC: "It doesn’t include any of the events that happened when Lucy was not on duty." There were six other deaths during that time.
The jury found that Letby targeted a number of infants by injecting air into their bloodstream, causing an air embolism which blocked their blood supply and led to sudden and unexpected collapse. In her trial last year, her defence team claimed the evidence for this was "poor”.
The trial heard Letby also poisoned her victims with insulin. But forensic toxicology expert Prof Alan Wayne Jones has challenged the way the evidence was presented to jurors, telling the BBC that the tests carried out only measured the babies' reaction to insulin, as opposed to levels of insulin itself.
The Guardian reported on 3 September how messages scribbled by Letby on Post-it notes – which were presented in her trial as evidence of a confession – were written on the advice of counsellors she had been seeing between July 2016 and July 2018, when she was reportedly dealing with extreme stress having been taken off the ward following the cluster of deaths.
On one note she wrote: “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them” and “I am evil I did this”. In the trial, prosecutor Nick Johnson had invited the jurors to read the note “literally” as a confession.
Amid these questions, Dr Phil Hammond, the medical correspondent at Private Eye, said on Wednesday this could be “the biggest medicolegal mistake ever made" and that the arguments raised should be “tested in the Court of Appeal”.
However, Dr Hammond added he had spoken at length with retired consultant paediatrician Dr Dewi Evans, who remained "certain beyond reasonable doubt that Letby is guilty". Dr Evans was tasked by Cheshire Police to look at the series of collapses on the neonatal unit and gave evidence in the trial about many of the children Letby was said to have harmed.
Furthermore, questions over the safety of a conviction do not necessarily mean the people raising them believe she may be innocent. As Prof Green told the BBC: "I have no idea whether she is innocent or not. My concern is simply about the possibility that this was not a safe conviction."
The parents of twin boys who were victims of Letby have criticised those who have raised questions about her convictions, saying it has added more grief and distress on top of a traumatic trial.
“Our family is deeply shocked by the ongoing speculation surrounding what is being referred to as a miscarriage of justice,” the parents of babies E and F, as they are known for legal reasons, told The Sunday Times.
“Certain pieces of evidence being discussed in the media are grossly out of context and misrepresented. Misinformation is being circulated about what transpired in court. Having attended the trial ourselves, we are fully aware of what was said.”
Letby has previously failed to successfully appeal against her convictions. In May, Dame Victoria Sharp and Lord Justice Holroyde dismissed her challenge.
In a 59-page ruling, Dame Victoria said Letby’s appeal complaints were “not arguable” and declined to formally accept proposed fresh evidence.
She said: “The judge was accordingly correct to direct the jury that they must be sure, on the evidence as a whole, that the applicant had deliberately done something to harm a baby, with the requisite intent for murder or attempted murder, and in the case of those babies who died, that her act or acts had caused or contributed to the death.
“It was not necessary for the prosecution to prove the precise manner in which she had acted.”
On Thursday, it was reported Letby had changed her legal team with a view to launching a fresh appeal attempt.
What is the inquiry looking at?
A group of experts last week called for the Thirlwall Inquiry into Letby's crimes to be delayed due to the concerns over the evidence.
However, a spokesperson for the inquiry said it would begin as planned on Tuesday - and "follow the terms of reference set by the secretary of state".
The inquiry will address the conduct of those working at the hospital and whether the police and other external bodies should have been informed sooner of suspicions about Letby.
It will also focus on the responses to concerns raised about the nurse from those with management responsibilities within the Countess of Chester Hospital Trust, as well as investigating whether the trust’s culture, management and governance structures and processes contributed to the failure to protect babies from her.
This means it is unlikely questions over her convictions will be directly addressed during the inquiry - though it may be possible some of them are indirectly discussed.
The inquiryhas set out three terms of reference it will investigate:
the experience of the parents of the babies at the hospital
the conduct of people working at the hospital and how Letby was able repeatedly to kill and harm babies on the neonatal unit
the effectiveness of the NHS management and governance structures and processes, examining relationships between different groups of professionals, the culture within its hospitals and how these affect the safety of newborns in neonatal units
Upon completion, it will be Lady Justice Thirlwall, the judge in charge of the inquiry, who makes recommendations to the government "as she considers appropriate".
