What happens next in Lucy Letby case after new evidence shared?
After a panel of doctors said they found no evidence that Lucy Letby murdered babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, here's what's next for her legal team.
New evidence casting doubt over Lucy Letby's convictions has been presented by an international team of medics who say they found nothing to suggest the neonatal nurse murdered seven newborn babies.
At a press conference in London, Canadian retired neonatologist Dr Shoo Lee, said his panel of 14 experts from six countries spent days, and in some cases weeks, looking through each case in which Letby was accused of killing or harming infants at the Countess of Chester hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.
Of each case, he said: “We did not find any murders. In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care.”
Crucially, the panel - who delivered their assessment pro-bono and agreed to publish their findings even if it did not work in Letby's favour - said there was no evidence of a key murder method alleged by the prosecution – that she killed newborn babies by injecting them with air.
Painting a picture of inadequate staffing, a lack of teamwork, misdiagnosis of babies and disregard for warnings about infections at the neonatal ward where Letby worked, Lee said that if some of these incidents had happened in a hospital in Canada "it would be shut down".
Tuesday's conference comes one day after 35-year-old Letby's lawyers made an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), in a bid to get her case back in the Court of Appeal, following two failed attempts to overturn her conviction.
What happens next?
Taking questions from reporters, Letby's barrister, Mark McDonald, said the CCRC has the application and that his team are waiting for a report on it, expected at the end of February.
"Then, it's up to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to decide whether or not to refer it back to the Court of Appeal."
He added that on the basis of what was presented at Tuesday's conference, "there is overwhelming evidence that the conviction is unsafe".
"And if Dr Shoo Lee and the panel are correct, no crime was committed. And if no crime was committed, that means a 34-year-old woman is currently sitting in prison for the rest of her life for a crime that just never happened," McDonald added.
After the conference, McDonald said he would like to see the matter “certainly referred to the Court of Appeal by the summer”.
The case is now being looked at by the CCRC, an independent body that investigates potential miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Responding to this week's developments, a CCRC spokesperson said: “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 spokesperson added: "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 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.
“At this stage, it is not possible to determine how long it will take to review this application. A significant volume of complicated evidence was presented to the court in Ms Letby’s trials.
“The CCRC is independent. We do not work for the government, courts, police, the prosecution or for anyone applying for a review of their case. This helps us investigate alleged miscarriages of justice impartially.”
A public inquiry into how Letby committed her crimes is also underway, and detectives from Cheshire Constabulary are continuing their review of the care of some 4,000 babies admitted to hospital while Letby worked as a neonatal nurse.
What has happened so far?
In October 2022, Letby went on trial at Manchester Crown Court accused of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of 10 more between June 2015 and June 2016.
She was found guilty in August 2023 of all seven counts of murder, as well as seven counts of attempted murder relating to six other babies.
Letby was found not guilty of two counts of attempted murder, while jurors were unable to reach verdicts on six counts of attempted murder. She was later sentenced to 14 whole-life terms for the convictions.
In July last year, Letby was also convicted at a retrial of attempting to kill a two-hour-old baby girl on the same hospital ward where she murdered her other victims.
Letby lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal – in May for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl which she was convicted of in her retrial.
At the first of those appeals, a bid to admit fresh evidence from Dr Lee was rejected as three senior judges concluded there had been no prosecution expert evidence diagnosing air embolus solely on the basis of skin discolouration.
Dr Lee said that the prosecution had used his 1989 paper as evidence, but told the conference he had made a distinction between air in the veins and arteries, claiming it had been misinterpreted in court.
He said an update he published in December 2024 said there were no cases of skin discolouration linked to air embolism by the venous system.
In December McDonald said that separately from the CCRC application, he would also seek permission from the Court of Appeal to apply to reopen her case on the grounds that Dr Dewi Evans, the lead prosecution medical expert at her trial, was “not reliable”.
He accused Dr Evans of "remarkably" changing his mind over the mechanism of death involving three of Letby’s murder victims.
In a statement, retired consultant paediatrician Dr Evans said: "Mark McDonald's observations regarding my evidence is unsubstantiated, unfounded, inaccurate.
"His method of presenting his information reflects clear prejudice and bias. I find his style most unedifying, most unprofessional. It's highly disrespectful to the families of babies murdered and harmed by Lucy Letby.
Dr Evans told BBC-produced Welsh-language news programme Newyddion S4C that the only change in his evidence related to the date on which a child referred to as Baby C died, claiming this was a simple error by the prosecution.
Read more
What we know about Lucy Letby murder appeal after new evidence revealed (Yahoo News)
The 10 baby deaths that cast doubt on Lucy Letby’s guilt (The Telegraph)
Spike in baby deaths in Lucy Letby unit warranted inquiry, says statistician (The Guardian)
Watch: Lucy Letby convictions branded ‘one of major injustices of modern times’