LOCKED up behind bars with 15 life sentences for the murder and attempted murder of 14 babies, former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby is set to die in prison.
The 34 year old ‘Angel of Death’ is among the ‘whole life’ club alongside some of Britain’s most wicked female killers, meaning she will never see the light of day again.
However, in a fresh bid for freedom after failing to have her convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal in May, Letby has hired a new legal team.
An application will now be made to the Criminal Cases Review Commission which will argue that Letby’s case should be sent back to the Court of Appeal, according to her barrister Mark McDonald .
Experts have questioned her convictions previously including Cambridge Educated statistician Richard Gill.
He helped free another paediatric nurse, Lucia de Berk, who was jailed for life in 2003 at a Dutch court after being found guilty of the murders of seven patients and the attempted murders of another three.
It was determined that she was wrongfully convicted, and she was released from prison in 2010 after serving six-and-a-half year’s of her sentence.
Referring to Letby, Gill, 72, told The Sun: “I’d bet you a million to one she’s innocent.
It is very difficult to overturn a conviction, particularly when the case has been back before the court of appeal once which this case has
Rachel Fletcher, Head of Crime and Regulatory at law firm Slater Heelis
“If she reads this article, my message to Lucy is, ‘It may take us a while but we’re going to get you out’.”
And the recent suggestion that Letby could be the victim of a huge miscarriage of justice is said to be the focus of a new Netflix documentary. It’s claimed the documentary will show Letby’s “defence and point of view”, an agonising prospect for the families of the victims.
A public inquiry probing events at the Countess of Chester Hospital following Letby’s convictions will begin next Tuesday in Liverpool.
Rachel Fletcher, Head of Crime and Regulatory at law firm Slater Heelis, says a new appeal by Letby could be plagued with problems:
“In the case of Lucy Letby which has had everyone transfixed, she has already appealed once.
“The grounds for that appeal were that the jurors may not have been certain of her guilt, the trial judge wrongly directed the jury on points of law and the science behind the prosecution was wrong in a number of ways.
“All these arguments were rejected.
“It is very difficult to overturn a conviction, particularly when the case has been back before the court of appeal once which this case has.”
It sounds implausible that Letby could ever be cleared after such a lengthy investigation and trial.
However, in the cases of other British women, it has happened before.
Here, we take a look at some of the country’s biggest cases involving women who were either convicted or accused of killing, but whose names were later cleared…
Nurse Rebecca Leighton was initially blamed for Victorino Chua’s killing spree, and spent six weeks in prison before she was cleared of any wrong doing.
In 2011, patients at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Manchester, started to suffer unexpected hypoglycaemic attacks, and in July that year, Rebecca was arrested on suspicion of murder.
Chua was later found guilty of two murders and 31 other charges relating to the poisoning of patients, and in September 2011 Rebecca was released and all charges were dropped.
Speaking to The Mirror, she said: “It was such a horrific time. I was wrongly caught up in it, chewed up and spat out.
“I’ll never be able to put this behind me fully.”
Child A, allegation of murder. The Crown said Letby injected air intravenously into the bloodstream of the baby boy. COUNT 1 GUILTY.
Child B, allegation of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby attempted to murder the baby girl, the twin sister of Child A, by injecting air into her bloodstream. COUNT 2 GUILTY.
Child C, allegation of murder. Prosecutors said Letby forced air down a feeding tube and into the stomach of the baby boy. COUNT 3 GUILTY.
Child D, allegation of murder. The Crown said air was injected intravenously into the baby girl. COUNT 4 GUILTY.
Child E, allegation of murder. The Crown said Letby murdered the twin baby boy with an injection of air into the bloodstream and also deliberately caused bleeding to the infant. COUNT 5 GUILTY.
Child F, allegation of attempted murder. Letby was said by prosecutors to have poisoned the twin brother of Child E with insulin. COUNT 6 GUILTY.
Child G, three allegations of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby targeted the baby girl by overfeeding her with milk and pushing air down her feeding tube. COUNT 7 GUILTY, COUNT 8 GUILTY, COUNT 9 NOT GUILTY.
Child H, two allegations of attempted murder. Prosecutors said Letby sabotaged the care of the baby girl in some way which led to two profound oxygen desaturations. COUNT 10 NOT GUILTY, COUNT 11 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
Child I, allegation of murder. The prosecution said Letby killed the baby girl at the fourth attempt and had given her air and overfed her with milk. COUNT 12 GUILTY.
Child J, allegation of attempted murder. No specific form of harm was identified by the prosecution but they said Letby did something to cause the collapse of the baby girl. COUNT 13 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
Child K, allegation of attempted murder. The prosecution said Letby compromised the baby girl as she deliberately dislodged a breathing tube. COUNT 14 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT AT ORIGINAL TRIAL, NOW GUILTY AFTER RETRIAL
Child L, allegation of attempted murder. The Crown said the nurse poisoned the twin baby boy with insulin. COUNT 15 GUILTY.
Child M, allegation of attempted murder. Prosecutors said Letby injected air into the bloodstream of Child L’s twin brother. COUNT 16 GUILTY.
Child N, three allegations of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby inflicted trauma in the baby boy’s throat and also injected him with air in the bloodstream. COUNT 17 GUILTY, COUNT 18 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT, COUNT 19 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
Child O, allegation of murder. Prosecutors say Letby attacked the triplet boy by injecting him with air, overfeeding him with milk and inflicting trauma to his liver with “severe force”. COUNT 20 GUILTY.
Child P, allegation of murder. Prosecutors said the nurse targeted the triplet brother of Child O by overfeeding him with milk, injecting air and dislodging his breathing tube. COUNT 21 GUILTY.
Child Q, allegation of attempted murder. The Crown said Letby injected the baby boy with liquid, and possibly air, down his feeding tube. COUNT 22 JURY COULD NOT REACH VERDICT.
She died of natural causes aged 42 in 2007, but before that British mother Sally Clark served three years of a life sentence after being convicted at Chester Crown Court of killing her two infant sons.
The solicitor was found guilty of smothering 11-week-old Christopher in 1996 and shaking eight-week-old Harry to death at the home she shared with husband Stephen in 1998.
However, she was freed in 2003 after an appeal, with three judges eventually deciding that her conviction was “unsafe”.
Sally had always maintained that her children had died of cot death syndrome.
After announcing her death, Sally’s family said in a statement: “Sadly, she never fully recovered from the effects of this appalling miscarriage of justice.
“Sally was a loving and talented wife, mother, daughter and friend.”
Donna Anthony, from Yeovil, Somerset, spent over six years in jail for murdering her 11-month-old daughter, Jordan, and four-month-old son, Michael.
She claimed their deaths were the result of cot death, but was sentenced to life in 1998, accused of smothering them.
Her trial at Bristol Crown Court relied heavily on evidence from paediatrician Professor Roy Meadow, whose evidence in other cases, including Sally Clark’s, was later discredited.
After her conviction her husband – who was a prosecution witness – divorced her, and her mother died while she was in prison.
Former shop assistant Angela Cannings was convicted of killing two of her children in 2002.
She received a life sentence after being found guilty of smothering Matthew, 18 weeks, in 1999, and seven-week-old Jason in 1991.
Her first child, Gemma, died in 1989 but no charges were brought in relation to her death.
She served 18 months in prison before she was freed in December 2003 on appeal.
Defence lawyers for Mrs Cannings claimed prosecution expert, paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow, had given “misleading” evidence that three cot deaths in the same family was “very, very rare”.
After the conviction was overturned she said: “These last four years have been a living hell, finally today justice has been done and my innocence has been proven.
“I would like to go home now and be mummy to our very precious daughter.”
Three of pharmacist Trupti Patel’s babies, who were all under three months, collapsed suddenly and died in separate incidents between 1997 and 2001.
However she was cleared of murder after a jury of ten men and one woman at Reading Crown Court acquitted Mrs Patel of the three counts following a six-and-a-half-week trial.
She was accused of murdering her two baby sons, Amar and Jamie, and baby daughter Mia.
She had been arrested following the death of Mia but always protested her innocence, and maintained she had not smothered her babies or restricted their breathing by squeezing their chests.
