Top Doctors Question Conviction of ‘Killer Nurse’ Lucy Letby in 7 Baby Deaths

An international panel of neonatal and pediatric specialists on Tuesday raised grave doubts about the evidence used to convict Lucy Letby, a British nurse who was found guilty in 2023 of murdering seven babies at the hospital where she worked and attempting to murder seven others.

In a dramatic news conference in London, the chairman of the panel, Dr. Shoo Lee, a Canadian neonatologist, said an extensive independent review had found no evidence that Ms. Letby had murdered or attempted to kill any of the infants in her care.

He also highlighted what the 14-member panel determined were errors in medical care at the unit where the deaths occurred, at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwestern England, in 2015 and 2016, and serious failings in the management of neonatal conditions. Some of the deaths had been preventable, he said.

But, Dr. Lee said, “Our conclusion was there was no medical evidence to support malfeasance causing injury in any of the 17 cases in the trial,” referring to the original charge of harming 17 babies. He added: “In summary, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders.”

The review is significant because it was carried out by some of the most respected and experienced neonatal and pediatric specialists in the world.

The findings raise the most serious questions yet about a case that horrified Britain and led to Ms. Letby being called “the killer nurse” by the news media and vilified as one of the worst serial murderers of children in the country’s modern history. The prosecution told the jury in two trials that she had harmed babies through a macabre range of attacks: injecting them with air, overfeeding them with milk, infusing air into their gastrointestinal tracts and poisoning them with insulin.

However Ms. Letby was never seen harming a baby and has always maintained her innocence. She was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison in 2023, and has already been detained for more than four years, after being charged in November 2020.

The review’s findings could fuel scrutiny of the state of Britain’s National Health Service, which has struggled after years of underfunding and staff shortages, while also highlighting weaknesses in the justice system when it comes to complex medical cases.

Dr. Lee, who lives in Canada, became aware of Ms. Letby’s case after her conviction. The prosecution, in making its case, had relied heavily on a 1989 research paper that Dr. Lee coauthored, and her defense team wrote to him to ask if he would review the case.

He concluded that the prosecution’s expert witness had misinterpreted his research, and later proposed chairing a panel of neonatal specialists to provide an impartial analysis of the causes of death or injury of all the babies. The experts had access to all available medical records and witness statements related to the babies, and they delivered their assessment pro bono. Although Ms. Letby was originally charged with harming 17 babies, but two juries ultimately found her guilty in the murder or attempted murder of 14.

Major questions about the case were first raised in a 13,000-word New Yorker article in May last year. Since then, dozens of experts in neonatology and statistics have raised concerns about the evidence and argued that there might have been a miscarriage of justice.

The Countess of Chester Hospital, when contacted for comment about the new allegations, said the hospital was focused on the ongoing police investigations and a public inquiry related to the case.

That inquiry has proceeded on the basis that Ms. Letby is guilty, considering questions such as whether the hospital failed to protect babies from her because of its culture and management.

One senior doctor told the inquiry that at the time of the deaths, the unit, which cared for premature or seriously unwell infants, was “almost at breaking point” because of staffing shortages. And an earlier regulator’s assessment had warned of chronic understaffing, and said the unit lacked the resources to care for babies requiring strict infection control.

Dr. Lee’s panel included specialists from Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden and the United States. When they embarked on their investigation, Dr. Lee said, they were clear that the report would be released whether the findings were favorable or unfavorable for Ms. Letby.

Dr. Lee’s 1989 academic paper looked into air embolisms in the bloodstreams of babies and noted that some babies showed signs of skin discoloration — a finding cited by Dr. Dewi Evans, the prosecution’s lead expert witness in the Letby case. Dr. Evans argued that some of the babies who died or deteriorated had exhibited similar patterns on their skin, and that, therefore, the babies must have been injected with air by Ms. Letby.

Dr. Evans has repeatedly stood by his evidence, and he told The Times of London this past weekend that he was “very concerned people are getting their facts wrong.”

But Dr. Lee gave evidence in one of Ms. Letby’s attempts to appeal, telling a hearing that Dr. Evans had misinterpreted his findings about what could lead to skin discoloration, and that none of the babies should have been diagnosed with air embolism. But the court said his evidence would not be heard, arguing that Ms. Letby’s defense team should have called Dr. Lee in the original trial.

During the briefing, Dr. Lee gave a summary of the panel’s detailed findings, and highlighted a few of the cases. The report underlined the serious pre-existing conditions of some of the babies, as many were born prematurely or with health issues.

In the case of “Baby 1,” whom prosecutors alleged was killed by Ms. Letby by injecting air into the infant’s veins, the panel determined the cause of death to be thrombosis from an existing issue.

In the case of “Baby 11,” the prosecution had argued that Ms. Letby had deliberately dislodged a breathing tube. But the experts said there was no evidence to support that claim. They argued instead that an initial attempt by a consultant doctor to resuscitate the baby had been “traumatic and poorly supervised,” that the wrong equipment had been used and that the doctor “didn’t understand the basics” of how mechanical ventilation equipment worked.

“It was just that the consultant didn’t know what he was doing,” Dr. Lee said in summation.

Dr. Neena Modi, a member of the panel and a neonatology professor at Imperial College London, said “there was a combination of babies being delivered in the wrong place, delayed diagnosis and inappropriate or absent treatment.”

Ms. Letby lost two separate attempts last year to appeal her convictions. In December, her lawyer, Mark McDonald, said he would ask the Court of Appeal to review them.

On Tuesday he said he had also applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is responsible for investigating claims of miscarriages of justice. He noted that he had shared the evidence with Ms. Letby, and, while he declined to share further details of her state of mind, he said, “She has hope, and that’s all I can say.”

“There is overwhelming evidence that the conviction is unsafe,” Mr. McDonald said.

The commission confirmed that it had received a request to look at the case, but it was unclear how long that would take.

“We are aware that there has been a great deal of speculation and commentary surrounding Lucy Letby’s case, much of it from parties with only a partial view of the evidence,” a spokesperson for the body said, adding that the families affected by the events should be kept in mind.

It is not for the commission to “determine innocence or guilt in a case,” the spokesperson noted. “That’s a matter for the courts.”