‘There was no murder’: British nurse Lucy Letby wrongly convicted, says Canadian doctor
A group of international medical experts, led by Canadian doctors, are raising concerns about the conviction of Lucy Letby, a former neonatal nurse in Britain who was found guilty of murdering seven premature infants and attempting to murder seven others. Letby was convicted in two trials in 2023 and 2024 for these crimes, which occurred between 2015 and 2016 at the Countess of Chester hospital where she worked. She was sentenced to 15 whole life terms, meaning she will never be paroled.
The prosecution alleged that Letby had deliberately injected the babies with air, poisoned them with insulin, or overfed them with milk. British newspapers dubbed her as “Britain’s worst child serial killer” and “a cold, calculating killer.” However, Dr. Shoo Lee, the retired head of the neonatology department at the University of Toronto, believes that Letby may have been wrongly convicted.
Dr. Lee was approached by Letby’s defense team in 2023 to review the case. He put together an international panel of neonatology experts to examine the medical evidence presented in the trials. The panel, which included experts from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, and Sweden, unanimously concluded that there was no evidence of murder in the deaths of the infants.
They found that the babies either died of natural causes or poor medical care, not deliberate harm by Letby. Dr. Lee presented these findings at a news conference in London, highlighting discrepancies in the prosecution’s medical evidence and the lack of a clear motive or psychological background for Letby to be a serial killer.
Despite Letby’s conviction and the dismissal of her appeals, Dr. Lee is calling for a review of the case and a potential retrial. He believes that the evidence presented by his panel warrants a second look at the conviction. Letby’s lawyer has submitted an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, urging them to reassess the case based on the new findings.
The Letby case has sparked controversy and conspiracy theories, but Dr. Lee stands by the panel’s findings and is confident in their assessment. He believes that justice requires a thorough review of the evidence and a fair consideration of the possibility of a miscarriage of justice in Letby’s case. The fate of Lucy Letby now rests in the hands of the independent commission, which will decide whether to reopen the case for further examination.
