Prosecutors believed the collapses and deaths of 17 babies were the work of nurse Lucy Letby. Photo / Supplied, File
Prosecutors believed the collapses and deaths of 17 babies were the work of nurse Lucy Letby. Photo / Supplied, File
Lucy Letby’s lawyers claim new evidence could prove a miscarriage of justice in her case.
Dr Shoo Lee will present an independent review by 14 experts on the causes of the babies' deaths.
Letby, who lost two appeals in 2024, hopes the review will support her claims of innocence.
New evidence to be unveiled this week is Lucy Letby’s final hope of proving she was right all along and is a victim of a miscarriage of justice, her lawyers have said.
On Tuesday, 18 months after the former nurse was given a whole-life sentence, retired neonatologist Shoo Lee will unveil details of an independent review into the causes of death and non-fatal collapses of the children she is accused of harming.
Mark McDonald, Letby’s barrister, said that his client had been following developments closely from her prison cell in HMP Bronzefield in Surrey and was “very much engaged with everything that is going on”.
He said she continued to protest her innocence, adding: “This international panel is her final hope to show that what she has been saying all along is right.”
Lucy Letby is in jail for murdering 7 babies. Photo / Getty Images
Letby, 35, lost two attempts in 2024 to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal. She lost the first in May, for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and the second in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl, which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.
Lee, who is professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, will give a press conference in London alongside Letby’s legal team and Sir David Davis, the Conservative MP, who has called for a retrial.
He will outline details of an independent review carried out by 14 international medical experts into the cause of death, and collapse, of 17 babies Letby was accused of harming.
Lee co-authored an academic paper 30 years ago about air embolisms which was relied upon repeatedly during the trial by medical experts to help convict Letby. He now believes expert witnesses in the trial misinterpreted his findings.
Prosecutors alleged that seven babies had been harmed by the injection of air into them, which caused an embolism, and led to either non-fatal collapses or deaths.
Dewi Evans, a retired consultant paediatrician, gave evidence about Letby targeting infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit by injecting air into their bloodstream.
A large television screen near Manchester Crown Court broadcasts the judge sentencing convicted hospital nurse Lucy Letby on August 21, 2023 in Manchester, England. Photo / Getty Images
Supporting his theory, Evans referenced the 1989 academic paper by Lee, which looked into air embolism in the bloodstream of babies.
Evans said skin discolouration pointed to air embolism as a result of high-pressure ventilation and his evidence is believed to have proved vital to Letby’s conviction.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Lee said he had reviewed the court transcripts of the trial.
He said: “I wasn’t very happy because what they were interpreting wasn’t exactly what I said.”
He agreed to give evidence in Letby’s appeal and said that none of the descriptions of the skin discolourations in the nurse’s case matched those characterising air embolism.
He said: “So what they were saying during the trial was that the baby collapsed and he had this skin discolouration which equals air embolism. And what I said during the appeal was, ‘No it doesn’t’.”
Since Letby’s failed appeal, Lee has updated his original academic paper.
The latest version, published in the American Journal of Perinatology, found no cases of skin discolouration linked to air embolism by the venous system, the route by which air was said to have been injected into Letby’s victims.
It is understood that British journals refused to publish the new paper but American journals were keen to do so.
Lee also said that skin discolouration was only a factor in around 10% of air embolism cases, whereas in the case of Letby’s victims it was present in nine of the 17 babies.
Lee brought together experts from six countries, the United States, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Germany and the UK, to review each of the baby’s cases.
Each baby was randomly assigned to two experts to independently review the case.
Lee previously said that he would publish the findings irrespective of whether or not they were favourable to Letby.
Davis, Letby’s legal team and Lee all declined to comment when asked what the findings would be.
