Lucy Letby: a condensed update on recent developments

[Kittybythelighthouse]

So, in the past week or so alone we’ve had:

Leading neonatology expert Dr Shoo Lee (Professor Emeritus at University of Toronto, Honorary Physician at Mount Sinai Hospital, President of the Neonatal Foundation, Founder of Canadian Neonatal Network, Previously Head of Neonatology at University of Toronto and a hospital for sick children) says his 1989 paper, which the prosecution relied on as their only proof of alleged intravenous air embolism (skin discolouration) was misused by the prosecution. He actually went to the appeal hearing and had his paper Judge-splained to him by three CoA judges who probably don’t even have a science A level (the judiciary have a poor record regarding science). He was so astonished and aggrieved that he has has published a new peer reviewed paper filling in all new evidence since 1989 and distinguishing between intravenous and arterial air embolism which the 1989 paper didn’t do. The conclusion: there is zero evidence for skin discolouration in intravenous air embolism, which is the only possibility in this case. This means there is absolutely no evidence to support an allegation of air embolism. It didn’t happen.

https://t.co/TRokh1hneu

Dr Shoo Lee pulled together a blue ribbon panel of the world’s best experts in relevant areas. Never before in legal history has a group of such highly regarded international experts come together to challenge the evidence against a convicted serial killer. They went through all of the evidence independently and pro bono (with the proviso that they would publish reports regardless of findings). Yesterday they held a press conference. Conclusion: there were no murders. There was plenty of poor care, medical malpractice, mistakes, and a poorly run struggling hospital.

“If this was a hospital in Canada, it would be shut down”

Link to their summary report: drive.google.com/file/d/1aV4zwwdBYw8Z_E-Tpe9_-iPR7n8cZdFk/view

A leak from an Operation Hummingbird detective which reveals that deaths were chosen as suspicious or not based on whether Letby was on shift (remember, most of the babies had uncontroversial post mortems at the time). There were ten other cases originally classed as suspicious until it was established Letby couldn’t have done them, then they magically became unsuspicious.

“Four more children would later be added, two children would be dropped, collapses deleted and added as the focus was turned in different directions, and the whole chart thoroughly chopped and changed. The guiding principle being, always, that Letby must be in the frame.” Trials of Lucy Letby on X.

https://t.co/FOO55lWlCi

Chester Police responded with a statement to The Mail on Sunday:

“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.”

“Cheshire Constabulary's statement to the Mail on Sunday is remarkable, coming from a police force that put out an HOUR-LONG promotional video about their own investigation.

They claim to be demurring from commenting now because "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."

Such concerns did not stop them, less than two years ago, from flooding the press with incendiary and prejudicial commentary, going so far as to announce that they'd be reviewing the care of 4,000 babies that Letby may have ever come into contact with.

The lead investigator, Paul Hughes, even sat down with the co-hosts of the Daily Mail podcast for an episode called "Catching the Killer Nurse," where he speculated to no end about the supposedly evil and cunning machinations behind Letby's every move, and concluded that "she clearly does love the attention. I think she's loved the attention of a trial." (From The Trials of Lucy Letby on X).

Is Letby the one who loved the attention? The investigation was as active then as it is today. Why the silence now? 🤔

Thirlwall released the witness statement of Michelle Turner on behalf of Liverpool Women’s Hospital. She speaks about Letby's placement in 2012 & 2015, including how unlikely she would have been in an intensive care room without another nurse present.

thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/upl…

Former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord MacDonald to BBC’s World at One: “It is clear that there is now this quite impressive body of work. Something may have gone wrong here. That clearly has to be taken seriously.”

"New documents released by the Thirlwall Inquiry also show how the Countess of Chester refused to take part in research to improve outcomes for premature babies."

Neena Modi: "The Countess of Chester was the only hospital to decline participation."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/04/the-10-baby-deaths-that-cast-doubt-on-lucy-letbys-guilt/

Meanwhile the CPS still (as far as we know) refuse to hand over former Dr Dewi Evans new report about how one of the babies died - written in October 2024 after BBC’s File on Four challenged him about Letby not having been on shift when an ‘incriminating’ x ray was taken. In fact she hadn’t been on shift since the baby was born. She was convicted of killing this baby.

The CCRC announced yesterday that they have opened their investigation of the case. They assembled a team specifically for this case late last year, in anticipation of an application. This is an extraordinarily speedy and organised response from the CCRC.

https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/lucy-letby-application-received-by-criminal-cases-review-commission/

This has been a remarkable, historic, run of events. It is now looking very likely that the case will go back to the Court of Appeal, or there may be a more expedient solution. Whatever happens, it’s very unlikely to take the CCRC their usual 10 years to deal with it. They are on the ropes recently, with a CEO stepping down and a raft of bad press. I am not Mystic Meg, but my money is on an exoneration within the year.

This thing about the not calling the pathologists who carried out the post mortems to the Thirwall enquiry confuses me. The enquiry is supposed to be looking why Lucy wasn't stopped earlier, predicated on the idea that she is a murderer.

Surely the key reason this happened is that all the deaths were deemed to be of natural causes initially otherwise there would have been a police investigation straight away.

So you would have thought these pathologists would have been absolutely key witnesses to the enquiry to understand how the evidence of malfeasance shown by the prosecution in the trial was overlooked in all these cases.

Or are they afraid the pathologists would say that the reason their reports showed natural causes was because there was no evidence of anything else?

Is this enquiry basically a giant waste of taxpayers money?

I don't think that anyone thinks that the CEO or whoever emailed the supportive staff/potential character witnesses a memo threatening to sack them - things can be 'made known' much more subtly without any kind of 'paper-trail' or any other evidence

And the 'threat' was much vaguer ie that it 'could affect their careers' not that they would be sacked

Lots of plausible deniability - and not an unusual experience for NHS whistle-blowers and well-known

Seeing what had happened and was happening to LL in court/in the media would be intimidating enough without little whispers that the CEO/whoever wasn't entirely on-board with their plans to testify/was concerned about their well-being/whatever

I've also worked in the NHS - read about it in Private Eyes very detailed and credible articles too

Don't think there will be any one 'source' that anyone will be able to provide for you

And the 'threat' was much vaguer ie that it 'could affect their careers' not that they would be sacked

Well it has certainly affected the careers of everyone else who got involved, so possibly not the worst advice as it turns out?

It's great to see that people who waded in on discussion over the last couple of days have actually looked at the latest evidence now.

The trial was supposed to last 6 months not nearly 10 months -if more witnesses had been called it would have been even longer

Each juror was given an ipad and each days evidence was down-loaded every evening IIRC this was un-precedented in recognition of the sheer volume of evidence

At one point later in the trial one or more jurors just didn't turn up on at least 2 or 3 Monday mornings because of 'sickness' which could have been due to anything but not inconceivable that it was due at least in part to stress

Can't help but wonder how close the trial was to collapsing due to the pressures on the jurors - and even if there was a sense of needing to wrap it all up before that happened

I was one of the early concerned about this case, but think we shouldn’t get outraged by the babies’ first post-mortems and pathologists being over ridden.

The whole crux was that these were delicate, poorly children, hard to keep alive. Their deaths were not suspicious. That was supposed to be her modus operandi, if you like.

The fact that the initial pathology didn’t find anything was part of the signature.

The case rested on her cleverly targeting victims that were already at high risk, so unlikely to be considered suspicious.

However it’s all very witch trial- damned either way. You can see how hard it is to fight.

Mind it goes to show the mindset of us as a population, that people were so convinced by so little.

When I was bullied, there were plenty of people who said they saw what was going on but would not stand up for me - and several of them told me that they wouldn't. Nothing, as far as I know was ever said directly, but the main bully would have his "in crowd" who got to do everything good, and be heavily praised often for doing almost nothing.
It was known that anyone who even made a vague compliment in my direction was promptly frozen out. He even formed a couple of committees that basically were set up to be echo chambers and put out information that made out that his crowd did everything and anything others did was knocked back, refused or discredited.

Most people who had seen and been effected directly by his behaviour were not prepared to say anything because of this.

But the prosecution (and doctors) weren't even consistent about Letby targetting the sickest children. They had their cake and ate it. The police must investigate because the children were well and stable and just growing and feeding, and the postmortems must have missed murder because the children were already terribly ill and at risk.

Bearing in mind that nobody ever saw Letby harm a child or found evidence of malfeasance before Evans showed up, that's no basis for a case.

The coroner in charge of these cases pointed out that his pathologists conducted postmortems just as rigorous as they would have been in any police investigation. The case depended on Evans's inventions, which - to be generous to him - he perhaps justified because he thought the statistics were significant.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/feb/10/ccrc-chief-spent-public-funds-on-luxury-hotels-and-business-courses-in-france

This is one of two articles in the Guardian today that really suggest the CCRC is not fit for purpose under recent leadership.

The cynic in me has thoughts such as "will the government suddenly feel a need for audits and enquiries that will take staff away from the actual purpose of the CCRC" and "Gosh if it's that bad, what's the point of it existing at all" and "it would be rather convenient for some if just before it approaches the LL case it was decided to suspend operations pending further investigation" also " what if all this leads to a staffing crisis as employees resign in protest" and quite a few other concerns.

Essentially if LLs last hope is portrayed as no hope at all, what then?

As to the scope of the criticism aimed at the woman on the article, given that high profile government officials often have plenty of lucrative side hustles, and rarely rock up to their local Travelodge on business, where exactly is this going?

No, I get that @oftenaddled. It’s a paranoid mindset though- once you think there may be a killer targeting sick babies, you can’t rest until you find one.

And a baby found by its mother. Blood round its mouth and Lucy Letby standing over it doing nothing. So many folk in this media frenzy jumping on the she's innocent bandwagon. Well I for one won't be.

That's not correct. A mother saw dried blood around her baby's mouth. Letby was not standing over him - she was at the computer, i.e. either making or checking notes, and explained that it was probably the tube rubbing and that she had called the doctor to check.

Do you mean Baby E?

The small amount of blood on this baby's chin - described by the mother as 'like a goatee' was just one part of a bigger story of this baby's death

This was indeed headlined by the media - so part of the 'media frenzy' that you are okay with?

Sats dropping to the 80’s isn’t unusual for a v small preemie, I watched two go through it, and watched them desat and pull themselves out of it for months and months. Sometimes all you have to do is stroke their leg and they bring it back up themselves. It’s normal to stand by and watch. It’s absolutely heart wrenching but if you’re not a neonatal nurse or have never watching your own children going through it, you wouldn’t understand it.

But the prosecution (and doctors) weren't even consistent about Letby targetting the sickest children. They had their cake and ate it. The police must investigate because the children were well and stable and just growing and feeding, and the postmortems must have missed murder because the children were already terribly ill and at risk.

That isn't an inconsistency. The babies wouldn't have been in the unit unless they were at risk. However, that is within the parameters of being normally a well-managed risk - they're there because it is set up to deal with small premature babies or babies with other risk factors, and because there is the staff and equipment available to deal with that. Hence the unit's good record previously. What that doesn't take into account is extra risk factors due to having a murderer in the ward. On the other hand, the known fragility of these babies means that a murderer will get away with killing, at least for a time, because unsurprisingly the minds of hospital staff don't leap to murder every time a fragile patient takes a turn for the worse and/or dies suddenly.

It kind of does, if any appeal is going to be based on the alleged failures of the original defence team.

Yep, bit of a double standard there re media frenzies and bandwagons.

That's not a likely basis for appeal

McDonald has said that he is requesting return to court of appeal based on the incompetence / inadequate performance of duty of the chief prosecution witness.

Beyond that, his grounds are likely new evidence and argument.

Can someone tell me, if the CCRC agree that the new report makes LLs conviction unsafe, would there automatically be another trial or might the CPS decline to prosecute the case again?

I watched the press conference over the weekend with my jaw on the floor. I always had doubts that she was guilty but it seems to me as if her main accusers (the consultants) were actually covering their own poor medical care, knowingly or not. I'm not a doctor BTW, username is a fictional character!

The minds of staff won't leap to a murderer - agreed.

But why would pathologists find plausible cause of death at postmortem?

The unit had a good record previously, but from May 2015 it started to deal with more acutely ill and low weight babies (hospital"s statistical analysis published by Thirlwall). They stopped dealing with babies needing intensive care in July 2016. All of Letby's "crimes" fall between those two months.

But the risk wasn't being 'well-managed' as evidenced by the RCPCH report into the unit in Sept 2016 ie

Insufficient consultants and lack of consultant ward rounds

Less than 50% of junior doctor posts filled

Less than 50% of nursing staff posts filled + wrong skill mix

Specialist equipment not being well maintained eg blood gas machine

There was a spike in all admissions to the unit a disproportionate number of whom were smaller and sicker covering the period in question

All these factors contributed to the change in the balance of risks

Plus the negative QCC report incl a similar spike in late term miscarriages/stillbirths on the Maternity Unit where no murders were found lurking but also probably significantly changed the sort of babies being admitted to the NICU

The judge ruled the RCPCH report inadmissible so the true state of the general functioning of the unit could not be made available to the court

Evidence from the Coroner was also not heard - tho' it's not clear why

CPS could decline, yes

The unit upgraded to level 2 in 2012/13. So it had an ok record at level 2 for 2/3 years before the shit hit the fan.

The unit was understaffed, under resourced, too small - so the cots were too close leading to easy infection, consultant rounds only 2x a week instead of 2x a day. From the original pathology reports, to the medical data presented at trial, to Drs Hawdon and McPartland’s review, to the findings of Dr Lee’s panel - these were all sick/vulnerable babies, some of whom should hand been in Level 3 from the start. Have you been following this case at all?

Xpost. Yes.

Beyond that, his grounds are likely new evidence and argument.

On this basis the CoA will have an expectation that any new defence team has been in communication with the previous defence team to understand why they did or did not put forward certain arguments during the original trials and appeal applications. And if the appellant has not waived privilege to allow this to happen then the CoA can draw inferences from it.