Evidence 'casts doubt' on UK nurse baby murders

A public inquiry examining how UK nurse Lucy Letby was able to murder babies in her care should be suspended because new evidence casts real doubt on her convictions, the lawyer for the hospital's senior managers says.

Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder eight more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital (COCH) in northern England, making her the United Kingdom's most prolific serial child killer of modern times.

But medical experts have since publicly challenged the evidence on which she was convicted, casting doubt on whether the babies were murdered.

Letby's lawyer has applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which examines potential miscarriages of justice, to have her convictions re-examined.

"There now appears to be a real likelihood that there are alternative explanations for these deaths and unexplained collapses, namely poor clinical management and care and natural causes," Kate Blackwell, lawyer for the senior managers at the COCH, said in written submissions to the inquiry, set up to determine how the killings went undetected.

She asked for the inquiry to be paused until there was clarity as to Letby's involvement in the deaths, as determined by a proper appeals process.

"If there is evidence to indicate that there are alternative explanations, then it would be wrong for the inquiry to ignore it because it is inconvenient."

On Monday, the inquiry chair Kathryn Thirlwall said at the start of closing submissions she would hear arguments why the inquiry should be paused after the managers, a senior MP and Letby's own lawyer asked for a suspension.

Amidst the doubts voiced about Letby's guilt, police are still investigating whether she murdered other babies, and have expanded their inquiry into possible corporate manslaughter at the COCH, which is focused on the hospital's senior leadership, to also consider gross negligence manslaughter by individuals.

Blackwell said senior managers accepted they had got things wrong but said they vociferously denied accusations they "deliberately and knowingly" protected a murderer.

She said if Thirlwall did not have the power to pause the inquiry, she should ask the health minister to do so.

Peter Skelton, a lawyer representing a number of families of children involved, said completing the inquiry was the only fair and sensible course of action, adding there were multiple problems with the doubts raised about Letby's guilt.

"What has been presented with great fanfare as new and incontrovertible evidence turns out to be old and full of analytical holes," he told the inquiry.