A report co-authored by an expert on newborn children has cast further doubt on the safety of the convictions for murder that led to nurse Lucy Letby being jailed for life.
The report was written by Neil Aiton, a consultant neonatologist at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton, and Hilde Wilkinson-Herbots, an associate professor at the Department of Statistical Science, at University College London.
Dr Aiton is also an honorary senior lecturer at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
Letby, 36, was a neonatal nurse who was jailed for murdering seven newborn babies and trying to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Dr Aiton and Dr Wilkinson-Herbots are the latest in an array of experts to identify flaws that could render Letby’s conviction unsafe.
According to Private Eye, the 100-page analysis by Dr Aiton and Dr Wilkinson-Herbots has been sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission by Letby’s legal team.
The report questions the evidence given at her trial by Peter Hindmarsh, a professor of paediatric endocrinology at University College London.
It alleges that there were errors of fact and omissions in the evidence presented to the jury.
Private Eye said: “It also alleges that an email from Hindmarsh suggests he was aware of other potential causes for the babies’ insulin levels, which could have led the jury to come to a different conclusion, but these were never placed before the court.
“Even though poisoning remained a possibility, how Letby was meant to have achieved this when she was not on duty, by predicting when a baby would need a nutrition bag change, predicting which bag would be selected from many and then secretly spiking it with insulin even though it had a tamper-proof wrapping, has never been explained.”
Both of these issues deserve serious, independent scrutiny. If there are genuine questions about convictions or about paternity in family court cases, they must be investigated thoroughly and transparently. Above all, no one should be playing God with babies’ lives or families’ futures. The truth matters, and so does justice.