Lucy Letby ‘continuing to try to control the narrative’, say families of victims
An international panel working for Letby’s defence said bad medical care and and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.
Child serial killer Lucy Letby is continuing to attempt to “control the narrative” in requesting the suspension of the public inquiry over her crimes, say families of her victims.
On Tuesday, their lawyers told inquiry chairwoman Lady Justice Thirlwall that the former neo-natal nurse had cynically tried to shift the focus by pleading her own victim-hood from the moment that she faced accusations of deliberating harming babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016.
The families also said that recent medical evidence presented on her behalf with “great fanfare” as new and incontrovertible “turns out to be old and full of analytical holes”.
Last month, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists, working pro bono for Letby’s defence team, said bad medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths attributed to Letby.
Those findings will be passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and the former nurse’s legal team hope her case will eventually be referred back to the Court of Appeal after two previous failed bids.
Letby and the hospital’s former senior executives want a pause to the inquiry until her legal battle to clear her name is resolved.
All evidence has been heard at the inquiry, which started in September, and a final report is due to be delivered in the autumn.
Letby’s solicitors wrote to Lady Justice Thirlwall to suggest that report would be “redundant and likely unreliable” unless proceedings were halted pending the outcome of her legal challenge.
Kate Blackwell QC, representing former chief executive Tony Chambers, former medical director Ian Harvey, former director of nursing Alison Kelly and former HR director Sue Hodkinson, told the inquiry there was a “real possibility” that Letby’s convictions for murder and attempted murder may be overturned.
Her convictions and whole life sentences were the “bedrock” of the inquiry’s terms of reference, she said, but that was “in real danger of dissolving into a beach of shifting sands”.
She denied claims that the senior managers were “attempting opportunistically” to seek to suspend the inquiry’s work.
Ms Blackwell said that any consideration of the alternatives to deliberate harm and the extent to which they may well be held responsible for poor clinical care on the neo-natal unit would “not necessarily exonerate them”.
In response, Richard Baker KC, representing one group of families, said: “The families will say that the applications to stop the inquiry are on Letby’s part an attempt to control the narrative and are on part of the executives to avoid criticism.
“Neither should stand in the way of the important work that you are undertaking.
“From the moment she faced accusations at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Lucy Letby has cynically tried to change the narrative away from the suspicions levelled against her by pleading for her own victimhood and seeking to recruit others to support her.
“The families have seen nothing different in the approach taken in response to appeals, nothing different in a decision to hold a press conference just before Christmas and nothing different in decisions to hold press conferences during pauses in this inquiry.”
He said this was not a case where “unequivocally new and determinative evidence” has been found which demonstrates innocence.
Mr Baker said: “The families would say, for all the bells and whistles that will be attached to a press conference, there is nothing remarkable or new about the evidence being presented.
“We would suggest based upon what has already been through the Court of Appeal, that Letby will have a serious mountain to climb in convincing the CCRC or indeed the Court of Appel that this is fresh evidence.”
Mr Baker said Letby had access to medical experts to support her case at her first 10-month trial but they were not called by her and she instead relied on her own testimony and an estate plumber.
He said: “The elephant in the room, one which neither Letby nor her legal team are prepared to explain, is why she did not call the evidence at trial.
“The families note that her counsel appears regularly in the media, is rarely asked a question and when he is refuses to answer.
“The only reason why a defendant would choose not to call their own experts to give evidence is because they know that those experts, if tested in court, would be likely to convict them.
“A defendant cannot choose to call their experts at trial and then ask for permission to roll the dice again when the gamble doesn’t pay off. That is the definition of expert shopping.”
Peter Skelton, representing a second group of families, said a “cursory analysis” of the reports published by the 14-strong panel of experts last month, identify “multiple problems”.
He said: “What has been presented with great fanfare as new and incontrovertible evidence turns out to be old and full of analytical holes.
“Critical medical and non-medical evidence, and expert medical evidence from the trial and from this inquiry, is ignored or dismissed, and medical hypotheses are advanced based on fragile towers of speculation.
“From the families’ perspective, the only fair and sensible course is for you to complete your work and submit your report based on the established facts of the criminal convictions and the many additional facts that you have carefully adduced over the last seven months.
“These provide a comprehensive picture of individual, collective and systemic failures to respond appropriately to Letby’s suspected offending.
“Otherwise the families, the core participants, the NHS and the public will be waiting indefinitely for your asssement of what went wrong at the hospital, and the recommendations that you need to make for the immediate improvement of patient safety in the NHS.
“These, the families argue, are compelling reasons why you should complete your work.”
Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted across two trials at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
Mr Baker read out a statement from the mother of Child C, murdered by Letby, who said: “The executives’ attempt to halt the inquiry shows their own self-serving intentions and ongoing lack of respect or care for the families.
“The media PR campaign aimed to garner public sympathy for Letby demonstrates a complete lack of understanding for Letby’s crimes and the complexity of the case.
“The misinformed and inaccurate media circus surrounding this case, our son and the other babies is potentiating the distress of all of the families involved.”
Lady Justice Thirlwall adjourned the hearing until 12pm on Wednesday when she will give her closing remarks and “if appropriate” will give her decision on the applications to pause the inquiry.
Following the hearing, Richard Scorer, head of abuse law and public inquiries at Slater and Gordon and solicitor for three of the families of children killed or injured by Letby, said: “We do not believe that any postponement of the inquiry is necessary or appropriate.
“Given the serious failings exposed by the inquiry, the need for change is urgent and any delay on the part of the inquiry in making recommendations will only expose other families to the risk of harm.”
