The parents of a baby murdered by Lucy Letby have blasted a ‘sick’ campaign calling for her to be freed run by activists who claim the neonatal nurse’s conviction for killing seven infants is not safe.
Letby is serving 15 whole-life sentences after she was convicted of murdering seven newborns and attempting to murder six others – with a further attempted murder conviction secured following a retrial in July.
But a host of medical experts and other professionals have since expressed concerns over the strength of the evidence used to convict the nurse.
However, their calls for the convictions to be revisited have outraged the parents of two babies targeted by the serial killer, who worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire.
Baby E, as the infant is known for legal reasons, was murdered by Letby after she caused an internal bleed and injected the baby with air. Baby F was one of the survivors of Letby’s attempts to kill despite being poisoned with insulin.
Lucy Letby is currently serving multiple life sentences for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others
Letby worked at the Countess of Chester hospital (pictured) when she killed the infants on the hospital’s neonatal ward
Letby’s police mugshot, released after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six babies. The seventh conviction for attempted murder came following a later retrial
Protesters and experts have sought to undermine the prosecution case in Letby’s trials, arguing that the evidence was not safe
Letby was found to have scrawled notes reading ‘I am evil, I did this’ that were used in the evidence presented at her trial
The parents of the two youngsters, who were twins born to a mother following a number of IVF attempts after she had been told she could not have children, have hit out at those who claim their children had not been attacked by the nurse.
They sat through the trial in full – and have criticised campaigners who they say were not present in court to hear all of the evidence.
Some of those who have signed open letters calling for Letby’s convictions to be reexamined have also refused to identify themselves, claiming that to do so would jeopardise their careers.
‘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 said, blasting claims about the safety of the convictions as ‘misinformation’.
‘This whole traumatic experience made us question humanity,’ they told The Sunday Times. ‘Why are people going out of their way to support a serial killer of babies?’
The parents, who retain legal anonymity, have criticised the piecemeal approach to analysing the evidence used to send Letby down, describing the prosecution case as building a ‘wall of evidence’ that was ‘overwhelming’ in assuring the nurse’s guilt.
They added: ‘The spread of lies and misinformation is deeply distressing and makes us sick to our cores. We just want some peace to grieve, knowing the person who caused so much agony is where she belongs.’
An inquiry is set to begin next week looking at how the nurse – who scrawled notes reading ‘I am evil, I did this’ – was able to kill seven babies and attempt to kill seven others at the Countess of Chester hospital and remain undetected for so long.
She was found guilty of the killings, which occurred across 2015 and 2016, across two trials last summer and this July, after being arrested in 2018.
Bodycam footage of Lucy Letby being arrested in July 2018 on suspicion of murdering babies
An image shows the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal ward where Lucy Letby worked
Tory MP Sir David Davis used parliamentary privilege to discuss a New Yorker article about the case against Letby’s conviction that had been blocked inside the UK
Letby was described as friends as ‘geeky’ and images issued by the police after her conviction showed twee wall decorations and cuddly toys on her bed
One baby died days after Letby returned from Ibiza. In her absence, there were no suspicious events on the ward
Two separate applications from Letby to appeal against her convictions have been denied – but she has since geared up with a new legal team, led by human rights lawyer Mark McDonald.
Mr McDonald has previously been involved in several high-profile appeals, including that of Ben Geen, another nurse jailed for life in 2006 for murdering two of his patients and poisoning 15 others.
Geen’s application to appeal his convictions was denied by the Court of Appeal in 2009 and two further applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), in 2013 and 2015, were also refused.
But the lawyer told Channel 5 News this week he had been ‘so encouraged’ by those who had come forward to lend their expertise to the appeal case.
He says statisticians were looking particularly at claims made during the trial that deaths on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester spiked whenever Letby was on duty – a notion he says is not supported by the evidence.
‘You may remember that there were some bold assertions made during the trial in relation to, for example, (that) there was a spike of deaths, she was always on duty,’ he told the broadcaster.
‘When in fact, when analysed by some of the leading statisticians in the country, they’re seeing flaws in those assertions made by the prosecution to such a fundamental extent we believe it undermines the conviction.’
New medical evidence, which contradicts that presented by prosecution experts at the trial, has also been brought forward, Mr McDonald said.
‘I knew almost from the start, following this trial, that there is a strong case that she is innocent,’ he previously told BBC’s File on 4.
‘The fact is juries get it wrong. And yes, so do the Court of Appeal, history teaches us that.’
Police at Lucy Letby’s home in 2019 as the investigation continued into the deaths and near-deaths of infants that were found to have been in her care
A court sketch of Lucy Letby giving evidence during her trial at Manchester Crown Court
Her new lawyer has compared Letby’s conviction to that of the Birmingham Six (above), who were wrongly convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings and sent to jail for life
Mr McDonald compared Letby’s conviction to that of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six – two groups of people wrongly accused of carrying out IRA pub bombings in the 1970s whose convictions were later quashed.
‘These were some of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history, and yet they were found to be innocent,’ he said.
Friends had described Letby as ‘geeky’ and were shocked when she was arrested. Images of her bedroom showed cuddly toys, schmaltzy wall decorations and fluffy pink dressing gowns hung on the back of the door.
The prosecution has insisted its case was built on solid evidence examining the medical history of each baby that died, or came to close to death.
But questions were raised about the safety of her conviction on the internet – where the reporting restrictions preventing the UK media from reporting details of Letby’s retrial had little effect.
The New Yorker published a hugely detailed analysis of what it said were the flaws in the prosecution’s case – and the Tory MP Sir David Davis used parliamentary privilege to discuss the report in the House of Commons.
But the article – which was ‘geoblocked’ in the UK, meaning British readers could not see it – did not include details of some of the stronger cases against Letby, such as that of Baby O, which had suffered a liver injury and internal bleeding.
His death happened while Letby had been on duty – after she came back from a week in Ibiza. There were no suspicious incidents reported on the ward while she was away sunning herself.
A group of anonymous nurses claimed last month that medical staff were ‘terrified’ to continue working in the NHS for fear of becoming the next Lucy Letby – urging Sir Keir Starmer to conduct a ‘full forensic review’ of the evidence used to convict her.
But the Court of Appeal, made up of some of Britain’s most senior judges, concluded that the trial had been handled with ‘exemplary skill and patience’.
It added of the convictions: ‘The various rulings challenged in this renewed application were swiftly delivered in every case, and were thoughtful, fair, comprehensive and correct.’
The parents of Baby E and F, meanwhile, remain resolute – and want those trying to deny their sense of justice to stop.
‘We have seen all the comments circulating on social media and in the mainstream news,’ they said, ‘And we find them both hurtful and distasteful.’
