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Lucy Letby Murder or Mistake Season 1 Episode 1
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00:00If you're a doctor called to see a baby who's not very well at birth, not moving, not breathing,
00:19and within a few minutes of resuscitation you hear this very annoyed cry.
00:30It's brilliant, and eventually they go home and when they return for a routine review,
00:45now being well developed, two big eyes, big smile, that's very, very satisfying.
00:57Most babies who receive care in a neonatal unit not only survive, but survive and become healthy adults.
01:09Nursing staff in neonatal units are crucial. You rely on your nurses completely.
01:19What Lucy Lethby did is beyond understanding. It's utterly, incredibly shocking.
01:29Is she evil?
01:30Yes, she's evil. And I have no idea why anyone thinks that she's anything but guilty.
01:48She's evil.
02:04You know, when I first went to see her on my first visit, she was very wary of me.
02:26She doesn't know who I am.
02:30Why is it you're here?
02:33She wanted to know, what, why me?
02:37To which I said, because I believe you're innocent, and she started to cry.
02:48Our criminal justice system has failed, has fundamentally failed.
02:56She's not innocent.
02:58The evidence was compelling, overwhelming, consistent.
03:04I'm astonished with what her current barrister is doing.
03:09I think it's been absolutely disgraceful.
03:15Behind these children are parents that are suffering.
03:21And what they will want, I am sure, at the end of the day, is the truth.
04:04The box, I hate.
04:10The box is normally shoved in a cupboard.
04:15The box just gives you a horrible feeling in your stomach.
04:23We cried, didn't we, when we heard the verdict?
04:26Because it was the verdict that we wanted.
04:29So we thought that she would get punished for what she'd done.
04:33And we were able to then move on.
04:37But obviously it's not really worked like that.
04:42It's hard because obviously it's on the news and the radio most days.
04:46Even now?
04:48Even now?
04:48Yeah.
04:49I'm Commandant Sheborn and Brad.
05:03I'm Commandant Sheborn and Brad.
05:18My parents had a dairy farm just five miles away from where I now live.
05:23If you look back to the 1970s, the care of premature babies was very, very limited.
05:31So I set about developing a newborn service more or less from scratch.
05:38So I've got over 30 years of hands-on experience looking after sick babies.
05:44I heard about concerns regarding deaths of babies in Chester by chance from a Sunday newspaper.
05:57By that time, I'd prepared dozens of reports for police authorities as an expert witness.
06:03And on this particular occasion, I was exchanging emails about a completely unrelated case.
06:11And I sort of added and said, by the way, I've heard about this case where there are concerns regarding babies dying.
06:20And just added, it sounds like my kind of case.
06:24These are the Let Me Files.
06:2917 cases, 20,000 pages.
06:34When I first met Cheshire Police, they didn't know, nor did I, that they were investigating a crime at that time.
06:44They were just looking at a number of deaths on a near-death leave leave.
06:47There was a need for somebody from my background to find out what had led to these babies dying.
06:56So I said, let's look at a window of two years, 2015 and 2016.
07:05Get me the clinical notes.
07:07I wanted to see all of them.
07:09What I discovered was that there were events where a baby would suddenly collapse, with most failing to respond to resuscitation.
07:21So all of this was very, very peculiar because babies on neonatal units don't suddenly deteriorate and die.
07:30It just doesn't happen suddenly.
07:31I identified a time and a date where there's somebody hurting these babies.
07:41This is not some sort of accident.
07:44This is not incompetence.
07:46Something deliberate has happened here.
07:51Intentional harm.
07:52What I said to the police was that they should look at the shift systems and find out who was on duty for all of these collapses.
08:05And in looking at all of these cases, all of these events occurred when these babies were in the care of one particular nurse.
08:12Quite often in the sole care of one particular nurse.
08:19Hello Lucy, is this?
08:20Yeah.
08:20Hello, it's mine.
08:21I'm from Chesterfield.
08:22So I did step in two seconds.
08:23Oh, yes.
08:24Yeah, thank you.
08:28Can you send yourself to the next step?
08:29Yeah.
08:30No problem.
08:33I'm in.
08:43So you're probably in the back seat over here.
08:46At the beginning, we didn't know that much about her,
08:50but we knew, you know, she was this blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pretty nurse that was the face of the hospital's fundraising campaign.
08:58There was nothing unusual about her, she was kind of this typical girl next door, I suppose.
09:07I think everyone was shocked.
09:08Everyone was shocked.
09:09I really don't think people could quite believe that a nurse could be responsible for something so horrendous.
09:17Within the space of a year, unusually, 15 babies died on the neonatal unit.
09:25And doctors noticed a common factor.
09:28Lucy let me.
09:29The nurse had been on shift for all of the unexplained collapses.
09:34They told me that there would be a lot more deaths and that I've been linked to somebody that's there for a lot of them.
09:40Did you have any concerns that there was a rise in the mortality rate?
09:46Yes.
09:47Okay, so tell me about that.
09:48What concerns did you have?
09:49Lucy Letby was born in Hereford, grew up there, went to school there, had dreams of becoming a child nurse.
09:56Lucy Letby had been working at the hospital since graduating from the University of Chester.
10:19She would go on holiday with friends that she worked with, attended salsa dance classes,
10:26all these things sound very normal, they don't sound like someone who was able to carry out such heinous crimes.
10:33Searches of her home in Chester and her parents' house in Hereford uncovered patient records and handwritten notes.
10:42In which she says, I am evil, I did this.
10:45I don't deserve to live, I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough, I am a horrible person.
10:52Dr Dowie Evans was the lead prosecution expert. It was his job to explain to the jury how these babies came to be murdered by Lucy Letby.
11:03She poisoned some with insulin, some she injected with excessive air and others she simply physically assaulted.
11:12Her denials kept coming.
11:14I was in court as Lucy Letby gave evidence. She said all of this was a conspiracy against her, that she did nothing wrong.
11:22We can now report that Lucy Letby has been found guilty of the murder of seven babies.
11:28Do you feel as though justice has been served?
11:31Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
11:41Lucy Letby has now exhausted all her attempts to overturn these convictions.
11:48So she's now facing 15 life orders in prison.
11:57She will die in prison.
12:04She will die in prison.
12:32You know I grew up in a very rough councillor state in Birmingham. I saw on a
12:39daily basis injustice. I started working on miscarriage justice cases actually
12:46when I was at university and I wanted to help those who have been wrongly
12:51convicted of crimes but I wasn't always a criminal defence
12:58I spent 14 years in the National Health Service working as an operating theatre
13:04assistant so my whole background has been NHS and an understanding of the
13:09difficulties working under pressure with lack of resources. I have a client that
13:16says that they're innocent. I have a conviction from murder. If they are
13:23innocent then something went wrong.
13:31During the trial the tsunami of media attention on her of guilt it all came
13:39from a specific perspective and that perspective was all very one-sided. I
13:47need to turn that around. I need to change the narrative.
13:55Now let these planning a fresh appeal. I'm joined by Mark McDonald her new
14:01barrister. Mark thank you so much for joining us. Look she was convicted in two
14:06separate trials and in the last year wasn't she? Is there really a strong case
14:11here that she's innocent? Absolutely there is. I'm right at the start of this
14:18process. There are thousands of pages I need to read and get my head around.
14:23This is the Lucy Letby story and certainly this story really doesn't seem to be
14:28going away Owen does it? No it really doesn't. It just seems to me that if you
14:33write down I did it I'm an evil person but you're pretty much I mean Lucy Letby
14:37sort of pretty much bang the rights here. Can I ask you finally Mark McDonald this is the first time
14:41some of these families are speaking publicly and this article starts with
14:45them saying we want to say shame on you all. That's the message from those who
14:49are calling for the release of Lucy Letby.
14:55Lucy was convicted of seven counts of murder and seven counts of attempted
15:02murder. It's always a pattern in these cases and that pattern is that nurse is on
15:10duty.
15:13Then you have a number of unexplained deaths and then in hindsight it's always because
15:22that nurse did something. It's happened a number of times. There are four nurses
15:28currently in prison serving life for this type of event.
15:34being armed and having the knowledge that I had of the nurse cases from the moment she
15:42was arrested I knew how it was going to play out. I could have written the
15:50prosecution speech. It was textbook.
15:57I start right back from the beginning. Right back as if Lucy had just been arrested and she knocked on my door and she said help me.
16:04I start right back as if Lucy had just been arrested and she knocked on my door and she said help me.
16:11I'm going to try and focus on six areas. So we know that she's been convicted and just recently her appeals have failed in the court of appeal.
16:26So there's only one option.
16:41Criminal cases review commission.
16:48This is a body set up to see whether or not the matter should be sent back to the court of appeal based upon new evidence.
16:54So that's the body I've got to deal with. That's what I've got to do.
16:58I've got to make an application based upon anything I can discover from going through these six main points.
17:08That's really my main focus of attention.
17:13If you're going to the criminal cases review commission, public pressure around a conviction will play upon the mind of those people.
17:25It will. Inevitably so.
17:31Now, you don't overturn a conviction because there's an article in the Times about it.
17:38The only way to overturn this conviction is to not just question the evidence that was put before the jury, but demolish it.
17:52I've been involved in court cases for over 30 years. And where my report was supportive of the prosecution, I've not lost a case.
18:11So on the whole, I think my track record is very satisfactory.
18:20People seem to have forgotten that the victims are the babies. The victims are the families.
18:30The only people that know is our close friends and family. We've never gone public at all.
18:52It's nice to be able to tell our story because so many people have an opinion, but they weren't actually there and they didn't deal with her.
19:07Our son was born in the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015. He was full term and healthy.
19:22He'd been healthy all the way through the pregnancy, up to that point.
19:27He was taken away somewhere. They just said, oh, it's okay. He just needs a little bit of help breathing.
19:35We were taken back to the room where I'd been in labour and we were just left there on our own, not really knowing what was going on.
19:44We were obviously worried. We were there a couple of hours, wasn't we?
19:48Mm. Seemed to last forever, didn't it?
19:53Then a nurse came in with the box. She came straight up to us.
20:08I didn't really see her. I just saw the box and I burst into tears.
20:15I remember saying to her something like, oh my God, is he dead? And she just laughed.
20:25She was laughing when she thought that we thought the worst had happened.
20:33And she said, no, we just give these boxes out to all the parents of babies who've been really poorly.
20:40When she offered to take us to go and see him, Dr. Breary was there.
20:47And he just explained that he didn't know what was really the issue.
20:53Three times he'd been resuscitated. They couldn't explain why.
21:01I was very upset. I was frightened.
21:04Yeah, just felt confused and just didn't make, just didn't make any sense.
21:12Dr. Breary told us that he felt that with his condition, our son would be better cared for if he was sent to Liverpool Women's Hospital.
21:25Personally, I think he would have stayed at Chester. I think he'd have died.
21:29That decision is what saved him, I think.
21:34Yeah, and we'll always be grateful to that doctor for that, won't we?
21:38Um, so away from Chester, we picked up really quickly and then we were sent back home again.
21:46It was only when we saw her face in the newspaper later on that we both recognised her straight away.
21:53And the nurse that gave us the box was Lucy Latbey.
22:00A lot of people asked me whether I think she's guilty or not and I said the honest answer is I don't know.
22:18A lot of people ask me whether I think she's guilty or not
22:26and I say the honest answer is I don't know.
22:29I just don't think she had a fair trial.
22:33I'm Dr Phil Hammond.
22:34I was an NHS doctor for 35 years
22:36and alongside that throughout my career
22:39I've worked as an investigative journalist for Private Eye.
22:42The first big story I covered was the Bristol Heart Scandal
22:45which at the time morphed into the largest public inquiry in British history.
22:52I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the trial of Lucy Letby
22:57but when the verdict came out I initially wrote a column supporting it
23:01and then my inbox filled up with emails from really eminent people
23:07including some of the most senior people in these fields
23:09saying actually no I think you're wrong
23:11and that really started to worry me so that's when I stopped sleeping.
23:15I knew it was going to be tough and difficult
23:19but there was no alternative other than to investigate.
23:23The bottom line for me is does the evidence stack up?
23:29This is the trial of Lucy Letby.
23:32Today we'll be bringing you everything that happened.
23:34In the end the jury decided that Lucy Letby was guilty
23:37but I think all of us that were sat there in that courtroom
23:41understood why they'd come to that decision.
23:45It was multiple strands of evidence.
23:47The medical evidence was obviously important
23:49but there was lots of different pieces of the jigsaw that came together.
23:54One of the most incriminating pieces of evidence
23:56was the green post-it note on which she'd written
24:01I am evil, I did this and I killed them on purpose.
24:07I think the police couldn't quite believe it
24:09that they'd found something so significant
24:13when they'd raided her house.
24:16I think the confession notes matter
24:17and I think they were highly convincing to the jury.
24:21What the jury didn't hear is that she was encouraged
24:24to write them by her counsellor.
24:26It's all the difficult emotions and feelings going to your mind
24:29I want you to write them down.
24:32She also wrote slander, discrimination, why me?
24:36I haven't done anything wrong.
24:38It was a counselling exercise.
24:43The police uncovered 250 handover notes
24:47most of which were in a bag under her bed.
24:51Those notes are supposed to go in the confidential waste bin
24:53they aren't ever supposed to go home with staff.
24:57The prosecution said this was evidence
24:59that Lucy Letby was keeping trophies of her crimes.
25:04Loads of nurses have said to me
25:05that they commonly take handover notes home with them by mistake.
25:08They've got them there and it just happens
25:10because you're so busy at the end of the day.
25:12They discovered that she'd done hundreds and hundreds
25:15of Facebook searches, often for the parents
25:18of the babies that she murdered and harmed.
25:20Some of the searches took place at very odd times
25:24late on Christmas Day.
25:27The nurse who I interviewed said,
25:29yeah, we do Facebook searches.
25:30We keep in touch with people.
25:33It's only seen as suspicious
25:34through the context of someone you think is a mass murderer.
25:37So after a trial lasting for over 10 months
25:40and more than 110 hours of painstaking deliberation,
25:43the jury of seven...
25:44It was the sum total.
25:47You can't take one piece of evidence
25:49and say that proves she's innocent or guilty.
25:53It was almost entirely circumstantial.
25:57It was a very proficient and aggressive prosecution case.
26:01But when you actually said, where's the evidence?
26:05It just wasn't there.
26:06It's right, isn't it, not to say, as many people have said,
26:17that the health of many of these babies was very poor.
26:23At the time, none of these deaths were seen to be deliberate actions.
26:49There were a number of post-mortems on the babies
26:53that found that they had died of natural causes.
26:57And once the police got involved, they contact a senior coroner.
27:00She goes back and she says, there's nothing suspicious here.
27:04But they don't listen to that.
27:07And they carry on with the investigation.
27:11Then, fallen into their lap,
27:14appears Dr. Barry Evans.
27:19Dr. Barry Evans jumps in a car,
27:31drives up to the police station.
27:34They give him a set of notes
27:35of one of the patients
27:37to which Lucy Letby had been looking after.
27:42And he says,
27:43Within ten minutes, I knew that deliberate harm
27:47had been caused to this baby.
27:53There were other medical experts in this case for the prosecution.
27:58And there was a neonatologist called.
28:02She was only brought in to peer review
28:05what Darry Evans had said.
28:11He's the one that was there right at the beginning.
28:15That the whole thing rests upon him.
28:17If he is wrong,
28:23then like a pack of cards,
28:24the whole case falls apart.
28:26Since the trial,
28:34I can't find another neonatal expert
28:36who's prepared to back up his ideas.
28:38Find me one.
28:39I've said to Darry Evans,
28:40you must know people who prepare to back you up.
28:42He said, oh, I'm out of touch with everyone now.
28:44I can't find anyone.
28:45That's extraordinary to me.
28:47At the trial of Lucy Letby,
28:53the question was,
28:54did she do it?
28:56Now, the start of the public inquiry,
28:59set up to answer different questions
29:01about what happened at this hospital.
29:04But with growing speculation
29:06about this case in recent weeks,
29:08with more questions about the verdicts,
29:11the chair of the inquiry
29:12began this morning by saying this.
29:15In the months since the Court of Appeal
29:18handed down its judgment,
29:20there has been a huge outpouring of comment
29:23from a variety of quarters
29:25on the validity of the convictions.
29:30So far as I'm aware,
29:32it has come entirely from people
29:34who were not at the trial.
29:36I think the inquiry is looking at all events
29:38leading up to the deaths of these babies.
29:42It's not looking at whether Lucy Letby
29:45is guilty or not.
29:46That's been agreed in a court.
29:48So there's no question about her guilt.
29:52What is astonishing is the noise
29:55from people who feel
29:57that they can make outrageous comments
30:00through scientific papers
30:06such as Private Eye.
30:07The most hysterical support
30:13for Lucy Letby
30:15has come from the great metropolitan elite,
30:19or what I call them,
30:20God's most entitled.
30:22In Wales, we've been told
30:24for the past 700 years
30:26that we're not good enough.
30:29Ever since the Lucy Letby case
30:47came up on my radar,
30:48I haven't really slept.
30:51I'm thinking about it every single night.
30:53I'm waking up in the middle of the night
30:54thinking, have we got this right?
30:55Are we going wrong?
30:56I think what worries me most about this
31:01is, you know,
31:03hundreds of babies die avoidably
31:05in the UK, in the NHS every year
31:07because they don't get superb care.
31:09There has to be a false reading.
31:10The question is, is it just a little bit...
31:12And Chester clearly had problems with staffing.
31:16You probably should send it to the borough.
31:17I mean, in the middle of the deaths,
31:19one of the consultants wrote to the manager
31:20and said, we're seriously understaffed.
31:23We don't have enough incubators.
31:24The whole thing's falling to pieces.
31:26And if you don't sort it out,
31:27babies are going to keep dying.
31:29There was clearly serious problems.
31:31So if there are plausible alternative explanations to this
31:36that aren't murder,
31:37such as suboptimal care,
31:39and Mark McDonnell can show that in a few cases,
31:43then all of the cases may fall.
31:46I think it would be good to do it face-to-face with him.
31:59I've now been approached by two neonatologists.
32:02Both of them seem to be incredibly experienced.
32:06And both of them are willing to help.
32:09They've got access to the medical records
32:12and they are working on it.
32:14All right, speak to you soon.
32:15I've been working as a consultant
32:23in a tertiary neonatal unit
32:25for just over 25 years now.
32:28My role as a medical expert witness
32:32is to go through the evidence in detail
32:36and to try to reveal the truth
32:39of what has happened to these babies.
32:45The first report that we looked at was on Baby O.
32:50Today, in this episode,
32:55we're focusing on the 15th baby in the case,
32:58who the prosecution say Lucy Letby murdered
33:00during her first shift back at work
33:02after her holiday to Ibiza at the end of June 2016.
33:07Baby O was a baby that was one of three identical triplets.
33:10And when Lucy Letby came on to shift, there were no concerns about Baby O's health.
33:15But a few hours later, he collapsed and started to deteriorate.
33:20He then collapsed the second time and then passed away.
33:28The doctors could find no medical explanation for this
33:30other than Lucy Letby was around at the time of his collapse.
33:34I saw pictures of the autopsy.
33:39There were incredible abnormalities in the liver.
33:45The pathology opinion was that the liver abnormalities were so severe
33:49that they looked like what you'd get in a road traffic accident.
33:53I had concluded that this baby had suffered from trauma to the liver.
34:00But as well as that, this baby was the victim of air injected into the bloodstream.
34:13You both put together a joint report on Baby O.
34:19And for the purpose of this discussion, Baby O is the one said by the prosecution
34:27that Lucy Letby somehow damaged the liver by some blunt trauma.
34:36Is there a reason for his collapse?
34:39I think the overall conclusion that we came to is that there are justifiable medical explanations
34:49which led to the collapse of Baby O.
34:56And the first signs of a change happened around about midnight.
35:01We can see in those charts changes in temperature, changes in heart rate
35:06and some gradual increase in abdominal distention that was noticed by the nursing staff.
35:14He had two medical reviews and neither picked up on the changes.
35:19This had happened overnight.
35:21I mean, is that surprising? Is that something that you would expect?
35:23I think that's not desirable.
35:26It should have been picked up?
35:27It should have been picked up.
35:28Yes.
35:29Yes.
35:29It was then at 2.40.
35:31I can see there was the emergency call.
35:34Why do you think this trial did not respond to the resuscitation?
35:40I was instantly struck by the use of these extreme high ventilator pressures.
35:46During the resuscitation?
35:47During the resuscitation.
35:48The resuscitation meant that the lungs were pushing right down on the diaphragm.
35:52At a late point in the resuscitation, one of the consultants who was there
35:56decided to put a needle into the abdomen to decompress it.
36:00Would that have been a cause of action you would have chosen to have done?
36:04Absolutely not.
36:06So the most likely consequence of that is that as you put the needle in,
36:11there would be some bleeding.
36:14And you would cause damage to the liver.
36:16This cannula insertion into the liver have caused the amount of bleeding.
36:20Yes.
36:20We believe there is good evidence to suggest that it did so.
36:24Without a doubt, this is not a query.
36:27This is what happened.
36:28It is obvious.
36:32Okay.
36:33All right.
36:33Well, thank you for that.
36:35That's very helpful.
36:38I think it's now my turn to get this to the Criminal Cases Review Commissioner
36:43as soon as I can.
36:46I have never read a more detailed report than the report that they repaid.
36:59The two experts say that no crime was committed.
37:04If they are all right, then Lucy Letby did not harm his child.
37:12When Lucy Letby came in and gave me the box, I opened it.
37:24There's a wrist strap.
37:33There's a baby hat.
37:35There's a blanket.
37:36And then we had the notepad, which she told me, oh, you can keep that as a diary.
37:44I think if something like the box would be given later on, or after we'd seen him,
37:56or after they'd explained something, it might have been different.
37:59But at that point in time, to come in and laugh, it's just not normal, is it?
38:10I just think she's done something.
38:12Obviously, there's no concrete evidence.
38:14We don't have a magic ball that we can go back and look at, but it's just too much.
38:22He was fine when he was smaller, wasn't he?
38:24Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:25It wasn't until he was about five years old when we started having serious issues with him.
38:33He is delayed at school by about two years from where he should be.
38:37He still can't write very well.
38:40And he's had really bad seizures where they've not stopped for 15, 20 minutes.
38:51The first one was horrific, wasn't it?
38:54Yeah, just come out of nowhere, didn't it?
38:58Occasionally, he'll ask us, if he has a fit, will he die?
39:02And that, I find, the most scary thing.
39:05All weekend, he kept saying to me, I wish I was normal, I wish I was normal.
39:10And it's so sad, because I keep trying to say to him, well, you are normal for you.
39:16Like, we love you how you are.
39:18But he just wants to be like everyone else.
39:20The day that she was given a sentence, obviously, it was all over the news.
39:27He'd seen it on the telly.
39:30And he saw our reactions.
39:32Yeah.
39:33And obviously, he wanted to know why Mummy and Daddy were upset.
39:37He was always crying, wasn't he?
39:38And he was asking, he was saying, is that who I think it is?
39:43He said, that's the nurse, isn't it?
39:46That's the naughty nurse that tried to kill me.
39:48She's not guilty.
39:53You're sure of that?
39:54Yes.
39:55Yes.
39:56Listen, I'm working night and day on this case.
40:00If I thought for the moment that she was guilty, I wouldn't be doing this.
40:05My argument is, and I know, expert evidence from leading neonatologists.
40:14Well, let's have a look at it.
40:16Yeah.
40:16If they got the evidence, publish it.
40:20Send me a copy.
40:22Let's see where we go to.
40:24Yeah.
40:27He's a barrister.
40:27None of that argument regarding miscarriage of justice applies in any of these cases.
40:43These were stable babies.
40:46They were vulnerable babies because of their prematurity, but their prospects of survival
40:51was excellent.
40:52Now, this is a kind of chart that was used in Chester to monitor a baby's well-being.
41:03This one is for illustrative purposes only to avoid any difficulties with confidentiality.
41:09It shows a heart rate, which is nice and normal.
41:13All of these are indications of a baby being well.
41:17But despite all of this, what happened here?
41:21Well, Lucy Letby arrived.
41:26The little baby was assaulted, and he died as a consequence.
41:32The babies that collapsed all had records similar to this.
41:39Letby appears, and suddenly one has a baby who is at death's door.
41:45When those believing in her guilt say, well, she was on duty for so many of these deaths,
42:03the answer is, of course she was.
42:05Because if she hadn't been, she couldn't have had the finger pointed at her.
42:11My name is Peter Elston.
42:16I've spent most of my career in the financial industry applying statistics.
42:20As an investment manager for 35 or so years, when it comes to these sorts of criminal cases,
42:29many of them can be appraised using statistics.
42:32There were a lot more than just the seven deaths that Letby was being charged with.
42:39There were 17 in total.
42:41So what was going on there?
42:43Was there another serial killer?
42:44When the verdicts were announced, I wrote about it on my blog, saying that I think anybody
42:51can see from that roster chart with this uninterrupted line of Xs.
42:57That would have been extremely convincing.
42:59But frankly, this was deeply, deeply flawed indeed, and I don't think any statistician would give
43:07it any credence whatsoever.
43:08The actual rota evidence that every time a baby died, it was Lucy and only Lucy who was
43:14there, is just plain wrong, because you only included the babies who died while she was
43:18there.
43:21Statistics did not play a part in Letby's conviction.
43:25Whilst statisticians said, well, what about the babies who died who are not on the spreadsheet?
43:35And, of course, my answer was, well, their deaths were not suspicious, you know, or there
43:40was an explanation for the deaths.
43:42I suppose I found myself, after the trial, really at the centre of this network.
43:59Statisticians, doctors, scientists, many of us are working quite closely with Mark McDonald,
44:06the lawyer.
44:06Before the retrial, it became apparent that that swipe data was actually incorrect.
44:12Have I been to see Lucy?
44:13No.
44:14I think she knows that I exist.
44:17I think she knows that there are a number of people who are working hard to get her out.
44:22So, one of the members of this growing network is a computer scientist who's actually based
44:35in the U.S.
44:38Hi, Stephen.
44:40Good to see you.
44:41Hi, Peter.
44:42Good seeing you.
44:43Stephen's been doing some really detailed research by reading through the transcripts,
44:51looking into one particular case, the case of Baby C.
44:55Maybe we should just go through this, Baby C, guys, because this is, like, one of the most
44:59unbelievable things I've seen.
45:00Lucy Letby wasn't the designated nurse for Baby C, but she was on duty, and in fact,
45:13she was around a lot of the time when he was sadly passing away.
45:17The prosecution alleged that she injected air into his tummy via his feeding tube, and this
45:24caused his tummy to inflate like a balloon, and his diaphragm to splint, which eventually
45:30caused him to suffocate.
45:35Basically, what happened is they identified the attack that took place on Baby C as taking
45:43place on the 12th of June.
45:44All of the experts, like Dr. Evans, agreed that this attack took place on the 12th of
45:49June.
45:50They developed a theory, and that theory revolved around an x-ray taken on the 12th of June,
45:56and they said it had too much air, and the explanation was that it was an injection of
46:01air.
46:02During the trial, they realized Letby wasn't there, and they're now saying the attack happened
46:08on the 13th, right?
46:10But they're still trying to take the evidence from the 12th, right?
46:15But what is in evidence is sworn witness testimony saying she wasn't there.
46:20Yes.
46:21And at what point did the prosecution council realize that there was this mistake, do you
46:31think?
46:32So the prosecution circulated a draft of their opening speech to the media before they gave
46:39it.
46:40So in their draft, they said their radiologist identified this harm on the 12th.
46:46But when they talked to the juries, when they actually gave the speech in the transcript,
46:51there's no mention of the day.
46:52So they kept what the radiologist said and just removed the day, because the day was
47:01wrong.
47:02It's kind of, it's quite brazen, what they did there.
47:05Well, you've uncovered something quite remarkable here.
47:08What do you plan to do with all this?
47:11I've been working with a number of journalists.
47:15Hopefully it should make a splash.
47:17There's just been a really good Radio 4 documentary.
47:33It transpired that Lucy Letby wasn't on duty.
47:37And it's possibly one of the reasons that the lead prosecution expert, Dr. Dowie Evans,
47:42appears to have changed his mind.
47:44And in my email exchange with him, he says he now believes that the babies were only destabilised
47:51by having air injected into the stomach and weren't killed.
47:54Now, to me, that's really serious, because that means the jury was misdirected.
47:57They were told this was the cause of death and it was something else.
48:01The thing I find extraordinary is that Dowie Evans is now saying he's only just finished
48:05the final report, well over a year after the trial ended.
48:09So that suggests he still hasn't quite got to grips with the case and there may be significant
48:14doubt as to how BBC died.
48:21Dr. Dowie Evans says he's drafted a new report.
48:28So out there is a new report from an expert who's changed his mind.
48:35On a murder case, I have never known anything like this to happen.
48:47They thought she was there.
48:49They made a mistake.
48:52She wasn't there.
49:00Today's a bit of a game changer.
49:01Mark McDonald managed to get the best experts in the world.
49:05The report demolished the case against her.
49:08People were speechless.
49:09Free, mercy, left.
49:10The families are devastated.
49:12I could not believe what I read.
49:14They're hopeless.
49:21And support information can be found online at channel4.com slash support.
49:27And stay with Channel 4.
49:29That next part is coming up.
49:30Or you can stream both parts of Murder or Mistake on Channel 4.
49:35Whenever you wish.
49:35Whenever you wish.
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