Lawyers for Lucy Letby say they will reveal “new evidence, which significantly undermines the convictions” of the killer nurse later today.
Letby, 34, is serving fifteen whole life terms in prison for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016.
Her new lawyer Mark McDonald, who has previously said he plans to take Letby’s case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, will hold a news conference later today.
Discussing the case earlier this year, he said: “The day after Lucy was convicted, I raised concerns. I was attacked for speaking out, even reported to my professional body.
“There are many hurdles to overcome in coming years, but one day justice will be done and those wrongly convicted will be freed.”
His words added fuel to the campaign being waged by an unlikely alliance in support of Letby’s case and a mushrooming cloud of expert commentary and online conspiracy theories about her conviction.
In May, a 13,000-word article in the New Yorker magazine raised questions about Letby’s conviction. It mobilised new recruits to the army of armchair Letby pundits.
Two dozen experts then wrote to the government questioning the trial process and whether a failure to look beyond Letby risked missing other potential causes of death of vulnerable babies in hospital.
But lawyers for the families of the babies attacked by Letby have labelled the support for the nurse “distressing” and “offensive”.
They point to the fact that those who have been privy to the evidence, including the juries in her two criminal trials and the judges at the Court of Appeal, have maintained her guilt.
Anything outside of that, they say, is merely speculation.
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The chair of the ongoing public inquiry into how Letby was able to kill and carry on killing at the hospital has noted that the “outpouring of comment” on the validity of Letby’s conviction was from “people who were not at the trial”.
Lady Justice Thirlwall said: “All of this noise has caused enormous additional distress to parents who have already suffered far too much.”
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During the inquiry, a senior doctor who raised the alarm about Letby said it was “likely” she had murdered or assaulted more children before her first confirmed victim in June 2015.
Stephen Brearey said: “On reflection, I think it’s likely that Letby didn’t start becoming a killer in June 2015, or didn’t start harming babies in June 2015.”
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Police are also continuing their investigation into Letby and the care of hundreds of other babies she looked after during her career.
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Detectives have confirmed they interviewed the former nurse under caution in prison over more deaths and incidents in Chester and also at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she spent time on placement in 2012 and early 2015.
It is in that prison that Lucy Letby will turn 35 in January, a woman who is the most prolific child serial killer in modern British history but whose case is still the subject of fevered debate.
