LUCY Letby should be released immediately and put under house arrest, says the doctor whose work was used to prosecute her.
Dr Shoo Lee, one of Canada’s top neonatologists, believes the nurse is “innocent” and her conviction was based on “wrong evidence”.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
He assembled a group of neonatologists and paediatric experts to analyse each of the 17 deaths and found their was no medical evidence to suggest they were murdered.
Their report, which was revealed at a press conference on Tuesday, has been sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to decide whether the nurse’s sentence could amount to a miscarriage of justice.
He’s now said it would be “reasonable” to release Letby as she had “already spent several years in jail”, reports The Telegraph.
Dr Lee, whose academic paper on air embolisms was used to prosecute the nurse, added “there is the option of house arrest”.
One parent of a baby boy killed by Letby called the review a “publicity stunt” staged by the nurse’s defence team.
The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, called the panel “so disrespectful”. “It is very upsetting,” she added.
Letby is serving 15 whole-life sentences for the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of seven others in her care at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
At her trial, Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said: “The truth is that Lucy Letby had a fascination with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families.
“She took pleasure in her murderous handiwork.”
The prosecution used an academic paper by Dr Lee to support the theory that she killed some of the infants by injecting them with air.
But according to the doctor, his paper was “misrepresented”.
Despite enjoying a peaceful retirement on his farm in Canada, he decided to testify for Letby at her appeal in October 2023 – which subsequently failed.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun – after launching a renewed bid to challenge her conviction – he revealed why he came out of retirement to try to clear Letby’s name.
He said: “Sometimes in life we need people to stand up for us and if we don’t do that then we’re a bit short on humanity.”
The charges Letby has been convicted of in full
Child A, allegation of murder. The Crown said Letby injected air intravenously into the bloodstream of the baby boy. COUNT 1 GUILTY.
Child B, allegation of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby attempted to murder the baby girl, the twin sister of Child A, by injecting air into her bloodstream. COUNT 2 GUILTY.
Child C, allegation of murder. Prosecutors said Letby forced air down a feeding tube and into the stomach of the baby boy. COUNT 3 GUILTY.
Child D, allegation of murder. The Crown said air was injected intravenously into the baby girl. COUNT 4 GUILTY.
Child E, allegation of murder. The Crown said Letby murdered the twin baby boy with an injection of air into the bloodstream and also deliberately caused bleeding to the infant. COUNT 5 GUILTY.
Child F, allegation of attempted murder. Letby was said by prosecutors to have poisoned the twin brother of Child E with insulin. COUNT 6 GUILTY.
Child G, three allegations of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby targeted the baby girl by overfeeding her with milk and pushing air down her feeding tube. COUNT 7 GUILTY, COUNT 8 GUILTY, COUNT 9 NOT GUILTY.
Child H, two allegations of attempted murder. Prosecutors said Letby sabotaged the care of the baby girl in some way which led to two profound oxygen desaturations. COUNT 10 NOT GUILTY, COUNT 11 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
Child I, allegation of murder. The prosecution said Letby killed the baby girl at the fourth attempt and had given her air and overfed her with milk. COUNT 12 GUILTY.
Child J, allegation of attempted murder. No specific form of harm was identified by the prosecution but they said Letby did something to cause the collapse of the baby girl. COUNT 13 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
Child K, allegation of attempted murder. The prosecution said Letby compromised the baby girl as she deliberately dislodged a breathing tube. COUNT 14 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT AT ORIGINAL TRIAL, NOW GUILTY AFTER RETRIAL
Child L, allegation of attempted murder. The Crown said the nurse poisoned the twin baby boy with insulin. COUNT 15 GUILTY.
Child M, allegation of attempted murder. Prosecutors said Letby injected air into the bloodstream of Child L’s twin brother. COUNT 16 GUILTY.
Child N, three allegations of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby inflicted trauma in the baby boy’s throat and also injected him with air in the bloodstream. COUNT 17 GUILTY, COUNT 18 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT, COUNT 19 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
Child O, allegation of murder. Prosecutors say Letby attacked the triplet boy by injecting him with air, overfeeding him with milk and inflicting trauma to his liver with “severe force”. COUNT 20 GUILTY.
Child P, allegation of murder. Prosecutors said the nurse targeted the triplet brother of Child O by overfeeding him with milk, injecting air and dislodging his breathing tube. COUNT 21 GUILTY.
Child Q, allegation of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby injected the baby boy with liquid, and possibly air, down his feeding tube. COUNT 22 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
He added: “I can say she is innocent. Our conclusion was that there was no murder.
“If there’s no murderer, then I don’t know what she’s doing in prison.”
But despite the support of Dr Lee and others like him, there are still many who believe and support the court’s guilty verdicts.
Letby’s trial judge said she showed “deep malevolence bordering on sadism” after she was convicted of preying on babies small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.
Seven consultants who had worked alongside Letby — with more than 100 years experience between them — are also convinced she was deliberately harming newborns.
And the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) this week urged people to “remember the families” of the victims amid the storm of “speculation…from parties with only a partial view of the evidence”.
But Dr Lee is insistent, adding: “If the prosecution had properly interpreted my paper, she wouldn’t have been convicted in the first place.”
If the medical care had been better, perhaps some of the babies may have survived
Dr Shoo Lee
Letby’s failed appeal left him utterly “disturbed” knowing this meant she would spend the rest of her life behind bars, he said.
Dr Lee added: “It didn’t seem right because someone has just been convicted using wrong evidence.”
He added: “Perhaps the clever thing to do would be to do nothing and say, that’s none of my business.
“It’s not even my country for heaven’s sake. But it just didn’t feel right.
“I thought if the evidence being used was wrong then this would be a real miscarriage of justice.”
Talking after the press conference, Dr Lee told The Sun that staff shortages and lack of medical knowledge played a key role in the babies’ deaths.
“If the medical care had been better, perhaps some of the babies may have survived,” he said.
As for Letby, he claims she had no involvement in the infants’ deaths at all.
I thought if the evidence being used was wrong then this would be a real miscarriage of justice
Dr Shoo Lee
Instead, he believes the blame is more likely to land on senior members of NHS staff if a fresh investigation is launched.
He said: “As far as Lucy is concerned, I don’t know of anything I could see in the medical records that would suggest she was part of the poor care that was provided.
“I suspect that some of the doctors will be at the receiving end of some of these [lawsuits].
“I didn’t see anything that would suggest that Lucy would be involved with that.”
According to the paediatrician, the fact that Letby was present at the death of each child is not evidence of her murdering antics.
After reviewing her files, he said it was more likely because Letby had a “specific skillset” that meant she was often caring for the “sickest babies”.
He added that Letby often picked up extra shifts when the hospital was understaffed.
He said this could account for why she was always around babies who died or were very sick.
‘Hospital failures’
During the press conference, Dr Lee said if the Countess of Chester Hospital had been in Canada, where he’s from, it would have been shut down.
In addition to individual faults, he believes failures in the healthcare system are largely to blame.
The doctor said this was highlighted when one baby who was born prematurely and who weighed just 800g was delivered and cared for at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s tier 2 neonatal unit.
“It should have been in a level three hospital but it was cared for there because there was no bed for the mother in the level three hospital,” he said.
Neonatal care – the treatment of new born babies – is split into four categories in the NHS depending on the severity of the child’s condition.
He added: “The question is, how much of it is the doctor’s fault because they were negligent?
“Or how much of it is because they were being asked to do something they shouldn’t have been doing?
“Or that they were not trained to do? That’s something the system has to look at, the hospital has to look at.
“It is quite unreasonable perhaps to ask doctors to look after babies for which they were never trained or have the expertise.
“Then they make mistakes and they don’t even know they’re making mistakes.”
‘No proof’
At the press conference, where the experts’ findings were revealed, the retired doctor said that one of the babies actually died from thrombosis and not air embolism.
Thrombosis is a condition where a blood clot forms in a blood vessel – blocking blood flow.
Dr Lee also told the hearing that another baby was said to have collapsed when air was injected into them.
Prosecutors said the air embolism resulted in “patchy discolouration of the skin and death”.
The medic said today: “I would like to just repeat what I said earlier, that there is no evidence that air embolism through the veins results in patchy discolouration of the skin.
“So let’s just dismiss that, that’s not a consideration.”
The panel also heard one baby girl’s death was preventable and that there was no evidence of an air embolism.
Dr Lee suggested medics caring for her failed to respond in a timely way to a bacterial infection with antibiotics.
He also concluded the child died from respiratory complications.
Jurors heard Letby used insulin and air to inject newborns while working on the neo-natal ward and dislodged their breathing tubes.
But Dr Lee said in the case of one baby, there was “no proof” their tube was dislodged.
Instead, the youngster’s deterioration was caused by the use of an undersized tube, he added.
‘Poisoner at work’
Letby’s barrister Mark McDonald described today’s evidence as a “game-changer” and vowed to bring the case back to the Court of Appeal “by the summer”.
The neo-natal nurse has so far lost two bids to appeal against her convictions at the court.
Her latest in October was over her most recent conviction for the attempted murder of a baby girl.
The killer declared “I’m innocent” as she was handed another life order in July after the retrial.
Jurors heard how she tried to kill Baby K by dislodging her breathing tube less than two hours after she was born.
Baby K was transported to Arrowe Park Hospital and sadly died three days later – although prosecutors do not believe the nurse caused her death.
Letby became only the fourth woman ever to be handed a whole life tariff after Rose West, Joanna Dennehy and Myra Hindley when she was sentenced.
She was originally convicted of seven counts of murder in August last year following a nine-month trial and 22 days of jury deliberation.
During her trial, prosecutors argued the collapses and deaths of the children were not “naturally-occurring tragedies” and instead the gruesome work of “poisoner” Letby.
Her rampage was finally uncovered after staff grew suspicious of the “significant rise” in the number of babies dying or suffering “catastrophic” collapses.
Letby was found to be the “common denominator” among the horrifying incidents.
A public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes began in September, with closing legal submissions expected in March.
The findings of Lady Justice Thirlwall are expected to be published this autumn.
What’s next?
A probe into whether Letby harmed any other babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital is ongoing.
Letby has been interviewed at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey, under caution in relation to the ongoing investigation.
A spokesperson for the CCRC said: “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.
“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.
“It is not for the CCRC to determine innocence or guilt in a case, that’s a matter for the courts.
“It is for the CCRC to find, investigate and if appropriate, refer potential miscarriages of justice to the appellate courts when new evidence or new argument means there is a real possibility that a conviction will not be upheld, or a sentence reduced.”
The CCRC said it is “not possible” to give a timeframe over how long the probe will take.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
