Lucy Letby: Beyond reasonable doubt?

1 00:00:00,700 --> 00:00:01,700 OFFICER: Hello, Lucy, is it? Yes. 2 00:00:01,700 --> 00:00:03,640 Hello, my name's... from Cheshire Police. 3 00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:04,780 Are we OK to step in for two seconds? 4 00:00:04,780 --> 00:00:06,980 Er, yes. Yeah? Thank you. 5 00:00:08,860 --> 00:00:09,740 NARRATOR: Two years ago, 6 00:00:09,740 --> 00:00:13,100 Britain's worst child serial killer was convicted. 7 00:00:14,860 --> 00:00:17,260 OFFICER: Take a seat in there for me, Lucy. 8 00:00:17,260 --> 00:00:20,660 A nurse trusted with the lives of tiny babies 9 00:00:20,660 --> 00:00:23,140 was found guilty of murdering seven of them 10 00:00:23,140 --> 00:00:26,220 and attempting to kill seven more. 11 00:00:26,220 --> 00:00:28,940 This has been a long and emotional journey 12 00:00:28,940 --> 00:00:31,420 for all of the families involved in this case. 13 00:00:31,420 --> 00:00:33,820 You could really feel 14 00:00:33,820 --> 00:00:36,900 the destruction that it caused in their lives. 15 00:00:36,900 --> 00:00:38,780 You know, it broke families apart. 16 00:00:38,780 --> 00:00:43,180 It took the police five years to build the case against her. 17 00:00:43,180 --> 00:00:49,620 Lucy Letby weaponised her craft to inflict harm, grief and death. 18 00:00:49,620 --> 00:00:54,060 She was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison. 19 00:00:54,060 --> 00:00:56,100 There are simply no words to describe 20 00:00:56,100 --> 00:00:58,820 the evil of the crimes that she committed. 21 00:00:59,940 --> 00:01:01,700 Free Lucy! 22 00:01:01,700 --> 00:01:04,580 CHANTING: Free Lucy Letby! Free Lucy Letby! 23 00:01:05,740 --> 00:01:09,420 Now, even as further charges are being considered, 24 00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:11,420 a growing number of expert voices 25 00:01:11,420 --> 00:01:15,180 have been questioning the evidence used to convict her. 26 00:01:15,180 --> 00:01:19,180 That kind of test, it's not good enough to fire somebody. 27 00:01:19,180 --> 00:01:21,860 How can it be good enough to put someone in prison? 28 00:01:21,860 --> 00:01:26,220 So why do they doubt the science that was used? 29 00:01:26,220 --> 00:01:28,260 This is a summary that's so crude 30 00:01:28,260 --> 00:01:31,220 that can only be described as grossly misleading. 31 00:01:31,220 --> 00:01:35,940 And is Lucy Letby guilty beyond reasonable doubt? 32 00:01:35,940 --> 00:01:38,580 It's been deeply disturbing that one can have 33 00:01:38,580 --> 00:01:41,740 such a tremendously important trial 34 00:01:41,740 --> 00:01:45,980 that seems to have been conducted with so many flaws. 35 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:53,074 Do you want subtitles for any video? -=[ ai.OpenSubtitles.com ]=- 36 00:01:55,220 --> 00:01:58,540 So, here is the Countess of Chester Hospital site. 37 00:02:00,140 --> 00:02:03,980 And this is where I spent most of my career, nearly 40 years. 38 00:02:07,380 --> 00:02:09,980 This is where it all started. Oh. 39 00:02:12,860 --> 00:02:15,980 We're just coming up to the Women's & Children's Building now. 40 00:02:15,980 --> 00:02:18,260 This houses the neonatal unit. 41 00:02:18,260 --> 00:02:22,180 And this is where Lucy Letby worked. 42 00:02:26,660 --> 00:02:29,980 You could call it an intensive care unit 43 00:02:29,980 --> 00:02:32,380 for premature babies. 44 00:02:32,380 --> 00:02:34,740 And that requires a specialist skill set 45 00:02:34,740 --> 00:02:37,380 from the nursing team to care for these... 46 00:02:37,380 --> 00:02:39,780 They're tiny, tiny little babies. 47 00:02:42,140 --> 00:02:46,420 You know, I loved working here. It was a good hospital. 48 00:02:48,820 --> 00:02:51,340 Karen Rees was the head of urgent care nursing 49 00:02:51,340 --> 00:02:53,140 at the Countess of Chester. 50 00:02:53,140 --> 00:02:56,500 She was Lucy Letby's senior manager. 51 00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:59,300 This is the first time Karen's gone on camera 52 00:02:59,300 --> 00:03:01,500 to talk about her involvement in the case. 53 00:03:03,860 --> 00:03:07,020 How do you feel about one of your nurses 54 00:03:07,020 --> 00:03:09,220 deliberately causing harm to babies? 55 00:03:11,860 --> 00:03:15,100 We were all shocked. 56 00:03:15,100 --> 00:03:17,460 Really shocked. 57 00:03:17,460 --> 00:03:21,340 When I look back... to when it all started... 58 00:03:22,860 --> 00:03:26,020 ..I don't think any of us thought... 59 00:03:26,020 --> 00:03:29,300 that this storyline would ride out the way it has. 60 00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:30,820 No. 61 00:03:32,140 --> 00:03:35,060 Between 2015 and 2016, 62 00:03:35,060 --> 00:03:37,660 something was going terribly wrong at this unit. 63 00:03:39,820 --> 00:03:42,420 Nearly three times as many newborn babies 64 00:03:42,420 --> 00:03:45,220 had died in that period than was normal. 65 00:03:46,900 --> 00:03:50,980 I was made aware that the mortality rates 66 00:03:50,980 --> 00:03:52,820 appeared to be higher than they had been 67 00:03:52,820 --> 00:03:54,540 in the previous years. 68 00:03:54,540 --> 00:03:58,300 It was tough... because everybody was trying, thinking, 69 00:03:58,300 --> 00:04:00,580 "Please let us find a reason for this." 70 00:04:05,540 --> 00:04:11,180 This used to be Nursery 1, also coined The Hot Room. 71 00:04:11,180 --> 00:04:13,620 This is where the sickest patients were brought. 72 00:04:16,100 --> 00:04:20,500 It became apparent that Lucy Letby had been present 73 00:04:20,500 --> 00:04:23,260 at a number of those babies' deaths, 74 00:04:23,260 --> 00:04:27,620 which I think was the first red flag that was, you know, raised. 75 00:04:28,740 --> 00:04:32,700 Lucy Letby joined the neonatal unit in 2012. 76 00:04:32,700 --> 00:04:35,540 She was one of more than a dozen nurses. 77 00:04:35,540 --> 00:04:38,500 As well as other staff, a group of seven consultants 78 00:04:38,500 --> 00:04:41,220 also worked on the unit at that time. 79 00:04:43,180 --> 00:04:45,540 It was two of those consultants, 80 00:04:45,540 --> 00:04:48,180 Dr Ravi Jayaram, the head paediatrician, 81 00:04:48,180 --> 00:04:51,340 and Dr Stephen Brearey, the clinical boss of the unit, 82 00:04:51,340 --> 00:04:54,460 who first began to develop suspicions about her. 83 00:04:54,460 --> 00:04:59,660 Things came to a head in June 2016 with the deaths of two triplets. 84 00:04:59,660 --> 00:05:02,900 Steve Brearey, one of the consultants, 85 00:05:02,900 --> 00:05:05,500 demanded that I take her off the unit, 86 00:05:05,500 --> 00:05:10,380 and I do recall him saying, "It's a gut feeling I've got." 87 00:05:11,700 --> 00:05:13,980 I then went back to the neonatal unit 88 00:05:13,980 --> 00:05:15,420 and spoke to one of the deputies. 89 00:05:16,620 --> 00:05:20,980 I said, "Both consultants are raising concerns about Lucy Letby." 90 00:05:20,980 --> 00:05:24,180 And she was absolutely shocked. 91 00:05:24,180 --> 00:05:28,980 She looked at me and she said... "I've got no concerns, Karen. 92 00:05:28,980 --> 00:05:31,260 "Her clinical practice is second to none. 93 00:05:31,260 --> 00:05:33,300 "She does everything by the book. 94 00:05:33,300 --> 00:05:35,060 "No." 95 00:05:36,900 --> 00:05:38,580 This is Nursery 2. 96 00:05:42,500 --> 00:05:48,380 I came home here, and I received a phone call from Steve Brearey. 97 00:05:48,380 --> 00:05:51,900 He was aware that Lucy Letby was on duty that weekend. 98 00:05:53,220 --> 00:05:57,460 And he did actually tell me that another baby had died. 99 00:05:58,500 --> 00:06:01,660 You know, there were concerns about her clinical practice, 100 00:06:01,660 --> 00:06:03,660 but it was greater than that. 101 00:06:03,660 --> 00:06:07,260 I think... I think the word was "purposely harming babies"... 102 00:06:08,820 --> 00:06:11,380 ..was the term used at the time. 103 00:06:12,660 --> 00:06:15,020 It's a massive allegation. 104 00:06:15,020 --> 00:06:18,900 And at the end of the day, there were babies in that unit 105 00:06:18,900 --> 00:06:21,420 that we all have a responsibility to care for. 106 00:06:24,180 --> 00:06:27,940 Between April 2015 and June 2016, 107 00:06:27,940 --> 00:06:32,780 there were 18 deaths of babies cared for on the neonatal unit. 108 00:06:32,780 --> 00:06:35,220 Most had postmortems. 109 00:06:35,220 --> 00:06:37,300 For only one baby 110 00:06:37,300 --> 00:06:39,660 was the cause of death unascertained. 111 00:06:42,300 --> 00:06:46,300 This room here was the manager's office. 112 00:06:46,300 --> 00:06:49,780 At the beginning of July, Letby went on holiday. 113 00:06:49,780 --> 00:06:53,260 On the day she returned, having previously refused, 114 00:06:53,260 --> 00:06:57,060 it fell to Karen to remove Letby from the unit. 115 00:06:57,060 --> 00:07:00,620 I was told just to say that concerns had been raised 116 00:07:00,620 --> 00:07:04,580 and that this was seen as a neutral act. 117 00:07:04,580 --> 00:07:07,420 So she wasn't being accused of anything at this point, 118 00:07:07,420 --> 00:07:10,940 but it deemed safer to take her off clinical practice 119 00:07:10,940 --> 00:07:13,060 to protect herself 120 00:07:13,060 --> 00:07:16,380 as well as the babies on that neonatal unit. 121 00:07:17,500 --> 00:07:20,820 She wasn't even questioning me. She just... was just looking at me. 122 00:07:22,820 --> 00:07:26,140 I had to then walk her across the hospital grounds, 123 00:07:26,140 --> 00:07:28,500 and I was the only one making conversation. 124 00:07:28,500 --> 00:07:31,980 She wasn't asking me why, she wasn't crying, 125 00:07:31,980 --> 00:07:33,460 she was just shocked. 126 00:07:37,820 --> 00:07:41,380 When Letby was removed in July 2016, 127 00:07:41,380 --> 00:07:43,740 the neonatal unit was downgraded, 128 00:07:43,740 --> 00:07:47,420 no longer taking the most critically ill babies. 129 00:07:47,420 --> 00:07:50,740 The hospital commissioned a series of external reviews 130 00:07:50,740 --> 00:07:52,980 to better understand what was going on. 131 00:07:54,100 --> 00:07:58,500 The team from the Royal College of Paediatrics was invited in. 132 00:07:58,500 --> 00:08:02,820 It identified a shortage of nurses and a lack of consultant cover 133 00:08:02,820 --> 00:08:04,860 risking patient safety, 134 00:08:04,860 --> 00:08:09,500 but could find no definitive reason for the rise in mortality. 135 00:08:09,500 --> 00:08:13,180 It came up with the same answers, I think, predominantly, 136 00:08:13,180 --> 00:08:16,540 that had been internally investigated. 137 00:08:16,540 --> 00:08:21,460 You know, and they thought that might pacify the consultants. 138 00:08:21,460 --> 00:08:23,660 Well, clearly, it didn't. 139 00:08:25,740 --> 00:08:28,220 By now, all seven of the unit's senior doctors 140 00:08:28,220 --> 00:08:31,780 were unhappy with the outcome of the reviews. 141 00:08:31,780 --> 00:08:33,700 They wrote to hospital bosses, 142 00:08:33,700 --> 00:08:35,580 doubting that the deaths and collapses 143 00:08:35,580 --> 00:08:37,780 could be explained by natural causes. 144 00:08:39,060 --> 00:08:42,540 In March 2017, the police were called in. 145 00:08:43,860 --> 00:08:48,100 Over a year later, Lucy Letby was arrested for the first time. 146 00:08:51,620 --> 00:08:53,180 OFFICER: Hello, Lucy, is it? Yes. 147 00:08:53,180 --> 00:08:54,940 Hello, my name's... from Cheshire Police. 148 00:08:54,940 --> 00:08:56,380 Are we OK to step in for two seconds? 149 00:08:56,380 --> 00:08:57,700 Er, yes. Yeah? Thank you. 150 00:09:03,340 --> 00:09:06,860 'I remember it was during summer 2018. 151 00:09:06,860 --> 00:09:08,500 'Quite late in the day, 152 00:09:08,500 --> 00:09:10,860 'Cheshire Police put out a statement.' 153 00:09:10,860 --> 00:09:13,700 OFFICER: Take a seat in there for me, Lucy. 154 00:09:13,700 --> 00:09:16,060 It just said, "A health care professional 155 00:09:16,060 --> 00:09:19,540 "has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a number of babies 156 00:09:19,540 --> 00:09:21,900 "and attempting to murder several others." 157 00:09:21,900 --> 00:09:26,540 It was obviously like, "What? This is absolutely massive." 158 00:09:26,540 --> 00:09:27,940 I mean, if she was found guilty, 159 00:09:27,940 --> 00:09:31,380 it would make her Britain's most prolific child serial killer. 160 00:09:31,380 --> 00:09:35,060 She would be up there, you know, with the likes of Myra Hindley. 161 00:09:35,060 --> 00:09:36,820 Did you have any concerns 162 00:09:36,820 --> 00:09:40,420 that there was a rise in the mortality rate? 163 00:09:40,420 --> 00:09:42,700 Yes. OK, so tell me about that. 164 00:09:42,700 --> 00:09:43,900 What concerns did you have? 165 00:09:46,060 --> 00:09:49,740 I think we just noticed as a team in general, the nursing staff, 166 00:09:49,740 --> 00:09:54,100 that this was a rise compared to previous years. 167 00:10:02,420 --> 00:10:06,100 There's definitely lots of holiday snaps and birthdays. 168 00:10:06,100 --> 00:10:09,420 There's holidays I've forgotten we even had. 169 00:10:10,540 --> 00:10:12,860 The wedding photos are definitely my favourite. 170 00:10:14,340 --> 00:10:16,700 Yeah, there's Lucy at my wedding. CHUCKLES 171 00:10:16,700 --> 00:10:19,260 I'm just so glad that she could be there 172 00:10:19,260 --> 00:10:22,260 cos... Yeah, it was while she was on bail. 173 00:10:22,260 --> 00:10:23,740 She had to get special permission 174 00:10:23,740 --> 00:10:25,940 to be allowed to come from the police. 175 00:10:28,220 --> 00:10:29,820 I watched it all unfold, and I just, 176 00:10:29,820 --> 00:10:31,780 at every step of the way, I couldn't believe it. 177 00:10:31,780 --> 00:10:35,540 It just... It was beyond belief that that could be happening. 178 00:10:35,540 --> 00:10:38,780 So... yeah. 179 00:10:38,780 --> 00:10:43,540 Dawn and Lucy met as teenagers, becoming the closest of friends. 180 00:10:44,940 --> 00:10:47,300 My assumption when all of this happened 181 00:10:47,300 --> 00:10:52,220 was that perhaps, erm, you know, she had inadvertently, like, 182 00:10:52,220 --> 00:10:55,740 forgotten bits of procedure or that she'd made mistakes. 183 00:10:55,740 --> 00:10:58,100 There were those dark moments where I thought, 184 00:10:58,100 --> 00:10:59,980 "Oh, perhaps she inadvertently caused harm 185 00:10:59,980 --> 00:11:01,500 "because she's so newly qualified 186 00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:04,140 "in such a high pressure environment." 187 00:11:04,140 --> 00:11:05,860 And, you know, perhaps that was why 188 00:11:05,860 --> 00:11:09,180 she was sort of being targeted for these sort of accusations. 189 00:11:11,140 --> 00:11:14,140 Shortly after this, she was held in custody. 190 00:11:14,140 --> 00:11:17,780 So... erm, yeah. I don't think Lucy's seen these. 191 00:11:20,620 --> 00:11:23,140 REPORTER: 'Arriving in a prison van for trial 192 00:11:23,140 --> 00:11:26,420 'at Manchester Crown Court, the nurse who stands accused 193 00:11:26,420 --> 00:11:31,060 'of murdering five baby boys and two baby girls 194 00:11:31,060 --> 00:11:35,300 'and attempting to murder ten more newborns under her care.' 195 00:11:38,620 --> 00:11:40,900 The first thing you do when you walk in court 196 00:11:40,900 --> 00:11:43,260 is to stare directly at the dock. 197 00:11:43,260 --> 00:11:45,780 You want to set eyes on the defendant. 198 00:11:46,940 --> 00:11:49,220 And you're thinking, "Is this person a killer?" 199 00:11:50,660 --> 00:11:52,620 The prosecution never shied away from the fact 200 00:11:52,620 --> 00:11:54,380 that it was mostly a circumstantial case. 201 00:11:54,380 --> 00:11:58,340 But that's not to say it's a flimsy case. 202 00:11:58,340 --> 00:12:01,820 Circumstantial evidence can often be extremely powerful. 203 00:12:01,820 --> 00:12:05,820 Think of it as, like, a wall of evidence. 204 00:12:05,820 --> 00:12:08,940 Things that have mounted up, erm... 205 00:12:08,940 --> 00:12:12,820 that tend to prove someone is guilty. 206 00:12:12,820 --> 00:12:15,660 Lucy Letby took home medical notes. 207 00:12:15,660 --> 00:12:20,300 She searched for parents of these babies on Facebook, 208 00:12:20,300 --> 00:12:21,700 which seemed unusual. 209 00:12:21,700 --> 00:12:24,860 And I remember, as the opening went on, 210 00:12:24,860 --> 00:12:27,740 it felt like, "OK, this is quite a powerful case." 211 00:12:30,140 --> 00:12:32,420 It's not... It's not just any other trial. 212 00:12:32,420 --> 00:12:35,260 It's about the deaths of babies. 213 00:12:35,260 --> 00:12:37,860 You know, there are families that are still grieving. 214 00:12:37,860 --> 00:12:40,060 That's absolutely enormous. 215 00:12:41,380 --> 00:12:45,020 And she presented completely dispassionately. 216 00:12:45,020 --> 00:12:47,980 Throughout most of the trial, she was expressionless. 217 00:12:47,980 --> 00:12:50,700 She didn't react in any visible way 218 00:12:50,700 --> 00:12:53,540 to the vast majority of the evidence. 219 00:12:55,900 --> 00:12:59,140 There were only a couple of moments where she showed some emotion. 220 00:12:59,140 --> 00:13:03,540 But it's these really personal human moments 221 00:13:03,540 --> 00:13:08,180 that often seem to figure quite heavily in juries' minds. 222 00:13:09,780 --> 00:13:12,740 The prosecution's case rested on a few central pillars. 223 00:13:13,860 --> 00:13:16,340 A shift chart showing Letby was always on duty 224 00:13:16,340 --> 00:13:18,300 when something terrible happened. 225 00:13:19,580 --> 00:13:22,340 Handwritten notes presented as confessions. 226 00:13:23,620 --> 00:13:26,380 Blood tests suggesting babies had been poisoned. 227 00:13:27,580 --> 00:13:30,420 And medical evidence taken from the babies' notes 228 00:13:30,420 --> 00:13:33,340 to support theories of how Letby had attacked them. 229 00:13:35,700 --> 00:13:38,500 The person who developed most of those theories 230 00:13:38,500 --> 00:13:41,700 was a retired paediatrician, Dr Dewi Evans. 231 00:13:43,020 --> 00:13:46,180 He led a group of eight expert witnesses for the prosecution. 232 00:13:47,580 --> 00:13:49,500 He'd introduced himself to the police 233 00:13:49,500 --> 00:13:51,460 when he heard they were investigating, 234 00:13:51,460 --> 00:13:54,620 saying, "Sounds like my kind of case." 235 00:13:57,180 --> 00:13:59,300 In a podcast interview, 236 00:13:59,300 --> 00:14:01,660 he confidently described the key moment 237 00:14:01,660 --> 00:14:04,340 when he first looked at the babies' medical notes 238 00:14:04,340 --> 00:14:07,500 and saw something nobody else had. 239 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:10,260 DR DEWI EVANS: Immediately, I think within ten minutes or so 240 00:14:10,260 --> 00:14:12,220 of having a look at these notes, 241 00:14:12,220 --> 00:14:18,260 I felt, "Oh, my God, this baby is the victim of inflicted injury." 242 00:14:18,260 --> 00:14:20,260 INTERVIEWER: So it took you ten minutes to decide 243 00:14:20,260 --> 00:14:22,140 that this baby had been put in harm's way? 244 00:14:22,140 --> 00:14:23,580 Yes, yes. 245 00:14:23,580 --> 00:14:25,420 As far as I could tell, straight away. 246 00:14:26,580 --> 00:14:31,340 Dewi Evans was the prosecution's main expert. 247 00:14:31,340 --> 00:14:35,180 He was there to lead the jury through the bulk of the charges. 248 00:14:35,180 --> 00:14:38,100 He was often the first expert they would hear from. 249 00:14:38,100 --> 00:14:42,540 So what he said mattered hugely. 250 00:14:45,020 --> 00:14:48,100 The trial would be one of the longest in British history. 251 00:14:49,300 --> 00:14:52,980 Most of the prosecution's efforts were focused on the medical evidence 252 00:14:52,980 --> 00:14:55,380 and Dr Evans's theories of harm. 253 00:14:57,820 --> 00:15:01,700 Eight months in, Letby herself took to the stand. 254 00:15:01,700 --> 00:15:05,020 Her cross-examination lasted nearly three weeks. 255 00:15:06,420 --> 00:15:08,780 Then it was the turn of Letby's defence 256 00:15:08,780 --> 00:15:12,140 to try and pull apart the prosecution's case. 257 00:15:12,140 --> 00:15:15,060 You had eight months of prosecution evidence, 258 00:15:15,060 --> 00:15:17,620 a series of prosecution witnesses. 259 00:15:17,620 --> 00:15:19,420 Lucy Letby finished her defence. 260 00:15:19,420 --> 00:15:21,900 Then that's the moment where we expect 261 00:15:21,900 --> 00:15:24,700 the medical experts to start giving evidence 262 00:15:24,700 --> 00:15:27,820 and undermining all of the prosecution's experts. 263 00:15:27,820 --> 00:15:32,220 The next witness was called, and he was the hospital plumber. 264 00:15:33,340 --> 00:15:34,300 And then that was it. 265 00:15:35,420 --> 00:15:37,700 It was... It was surreal. 266 00:15:37,700 --> 00:15:41,620 That moment in court of knowing 267 00:15:41,620 --> 00:15:43,460 there wouldn't be any defence experts 268 00:15:43,460 --> 00:15:47,980 was just so shocking and unexpected 269 00:15:47,980 --> 00:15:53,420 that it's one of the most surprising things I've ever seen in court. 270 00:15:55,100 --> 00:15:58,700 Letby's defence team did instruct their own experts. 271 00:15:58,700 --> 00:16:00,220 It's not known why, 272 00:16:00,220 --> 00:16:02,580 but they were never called to give evidence. 273 00:16:02,580 --> 00:16:04,900 Her barrister argued the prosecution's evidence 274 00:16:04,900 --> 00:16:07,020 was tenuous in the extreme 275 00:16:07,020 --> 00:16:10,460 and said Dr Evans's theories were guesswork. 276 00:16:10,460 --> 00:16:12,820 After nearly ten months, 277 00:16:12,820 --> 00:16:16,020 the jury was sent out to consider its verdict. 278 00:16:16,020 --> 00:16:18,820 They deliberated for more than four weeks. 279 00:16:21,620 --> 00:16:27,340 Guilty. Nurse Lucy Letby murdered seven babies. 280 00:16:27,340 --> 00:16:31,740 Britain's most prolific child killer, Lucy Letby, 281 00:16:31,740 --> 00:16:35,340 a nurse trusted with the lives of newborn babies. 282 00:16:35,340 --> 00:16:39,260 There were gasps in the courtroom as some of those families heard 283 00:16:39,260 --> 00:16:42,700 that their children indeed had been attacked and killed 284 00:16:42,700 --> 00:16:46,180 by former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby. 285 00:16:46,180 --> 00:16:51,180 In an instant, the stories changed from "a nurse accused of murdering" 286 00:16:51,180 --> 00:16:54,740 to "a nurse murdered babies". 287 00:17:00,340 --> 00:17:02,340 And then you have the police mug shot, 288 00:17:02,340 --> 00:17:04,860 which is released for the first time. 289 00:17:04,860 --> 00:17:09,100 "Here's what an NHS nurse baby serial killer looks like." 290 00:17:22,180 --> 00:17:24,700 WES STREETING: There are simply no words to describe 291 00:17:24,700 --> 00:17:27,300 the evil of the crimes that she committed. 292 00:17:28,580 --> 00:17:31,460 WOMAN: She was a pure evil sadistic psychopath. 293 00:17:33,180 --> 00:17:35,740 MAN: I mean, I have no problem with the death penalty. 294 00:17:35,740 --> 00:17:38,500 I'd pull the lever myself with this one. 295 00:17:38,500 --> 00:17:40,340 NARRATOR: Even as the country reflected 296 00:17:40,340 --> 00:17:43,260 on the horror of Letby's crimes, 297 00:17:43,260 --> 00:17:45,020 there had already been concerns raised 298 00:17:45,020 --> 00:17:47,260 about the evidence used to convict her. 299 00:17:49,260 --> 00:17:51,300 I didn't just wake up one morning and think, 300 00:17:51,300 --> 00:17:53,660 "Oh, I'm gonna go and represent Lucy Letby." 301 00:17:55,420 --> 00:17:58,980 I've been involved in miscarriages of justice now 302 00:17:58,980 --> 00:18:00,940 for the last 20 years. 303 00:18:00,940 --> 00:18:03,780 And I knew that there were fundamental flaws 304 00:18:03,780 --> 00:18:05,500 in the way that the prosecution 305 00:18:05,500 --> 00:18:08,300 were approaching these types of cases. 306 00:18:10,060 --> 00:18:13,540 Mark McDonald is Lucy Letby's new barrister. 307 00:18:13,540 --> 00:18:15,940 He was instructed last September 308 00:18:15,940 --> 00:18:19,140 after two failed attempts to appeal her convictions. 309 00:18:20,780 --> 00:18:24,380 In the trial, they started from the starting point, 310 00:18:24,380 --> 00:18:26,740 "She has done harm. 311 00:18:26,740 --> 00:18:31,140 "Now we have to show how she has harmed each child. 312 00:18:32,660 --> 00:18:34,300 "There's no direct evidence. 313 00:18:34,300 --> 00:18:37,700 "No-one saw her do anything wrong. 314 00:18:37,700 --> 00:18:39,620 "But we're gonna go through the medical notes, 315 00:18:39,620 --> 00:18:42,420 "go through the X-rays and just put together a theory." 316 00:18:42,420 --> 00:18:46,260 And she was convicted on that theory. 317 00:18:46,260 --> 00:18:49,300 I'm dealing with an educated guess, 318 00:18:49,300 --> 00:18:52,940 but an educated guess that convinced the jury. 319 00:18:56,180 --> 00:18:59,700 People started contacting me almost from day one. 320 00:18:59,700 --> 00:19:02,060 Medically qualified people, 321 00:19:02,060 --> 00:19:05,860 scientifically qualified people, statisticians, 322 00:19:05,860 --> 00:19:09,100 saying, "We think something's gone wrong here." 323 00:19:11,460 --> 00:19:13,940 One of those was Professor Neena Modi, 324 00:19:13,940 --> 00:19:17,260 one of the country's most senior neonatal doctors. 325 00:19:18,460 --> 00:19:21,660 My anxieties were aroused when I was contacted 326 00:19:21,660 --> 00:19:25,420 by a number of highly respected journalists 327 00:19:25,420 --> 00:19:28,340 who asked me for my opinion about particular cases 328 00:19:28,340 --> 00:19:29,860 that were being discussed. 329 00:19:31,020 --> 00:19:33,300 The evidence that was being put to the jury 330 00:19:33,300 --> 00:19:35,220 was not necessarily complete, 331 00:19:35,220 --> 00:19:38,940 and the prosecution expert witnesses 332 00:19:38,940 --> 00:19:42,300 were coming to conclusions which appeared inappropriate. 333 00:19:45,220 --> 00:19:48,260 It's been deeply disturbing that one can have 334 00:19:48,260 --> 00:19:52,660 such a high profile and tremendously important trial 335 00:19:52,660 --> 00:19:57,540 that seems to have been conducted with so many flaws. 336 00:19:59,500 --> 00:20:01,580 As well as medical evidence, 337 00:20:01,580 --> 00:20:05,300 the prosecution used statistics to convict Letby. 338 00:20:05,300 --> 00:20:08,660 Most important was this chart, 339 00:20:08,660 --> 00:20:11,220 presented to the jury at the start of the trial, 340 00:20:11,220 --> 00:20:14,580 showing which nurses were on duty when events happened 341 00:20:14,580 --> 00:20:16,980 that were described as suspicious. 342 00:20:16,980 --> 00:20:20,900 According to the chart, Letby was always there. 343 00:20:23,300 --> 00:20:28,460 Professor Jane Hutton regularly acts as an expert witness in trials 344 00:20:28,460 --> 00:20:31,780 and is among the UK's leading medical statisticians. 345 00:20:31,780 --> 00:20:35,380 She thinks the data on the chart has been carefully chosen 346 00:20:35,380 --> 00:20:38,060 to create an impression. 347 00:20:38,060 --> 00:20:42,820 This has influenced a lot of people into thinking she must have done it 348 00:20:42,820 --> 00:20:45,100 because she was always there, nobody else was. 349 00:20:45,100 --> 00:20:47,820 It has a very strong visual impact. 350 00:20:47,820 --> 00:20:52,220 But it doesn't tell you how the data has been selected. 351 00:20:52,220 --> 00:20:56,460 You know, it's clear that this is aimed to present a conclusion. 352 00:20:59,420 --> 00:21:02,380 The concern is this left-hand column. 353 00:21:02,380 --> 00:21:06,780 Each entry represents a death or life-threatening event. 354 00:21:06,780 --> 00:21:09,300 But these are not all the deaths or life-threatening events 355 00:21:09,300 --> 00:21:11,260 in that period. 356 00:21:11,260 --> 00:21:13,460 The prosecution has made a selection. 357 00:21:19,140 --> 00:21:21,260 As was pointed out in court, 358 00:21:21,260 --> 00:21:24,180 Dr Dewi Evans's early reports for the police 359 00:21:24,180 --> 00:21:28,420 identified other events that he said were attacks on babies. 360 00:21:30,060 --> 00:21:33,140 But these happened when Letby wasn't on duty, 361 00:21:33,140 --> 00:21:36,060 and those events don't appear on the chart. 362 00:21:37,420 --> 00:21:39,900 So, the way you would approach this kind of thing 363 00:21:39,900 --> 00:21:41,580 is you'd get all of what we call the cases, 364 00:21:41,580 --> 00:21:46,660 so that we can see, was Letby present for all of them? 365 00:21:46,660 --> 00:21:49,820 There is no explanation for the events that were left out. 366 00:21:49,820 --> 00:21:52,220 So, really, all this is telling us 367 00:21:52,220 --> 00:21:56,940 is that Letby was there for some events. 368 00:21:56,940 --> 00:22:00,740 This is... This is a summary that's so crude 369 00:22:00,740 --> 00:22:04,180 that it can only be described as grossly misleading. 370 00:22:08,340 --> 00:22:10,060 According to the prosecution, 371 00:22:10,060 --> 00:22:13,540 Letby used various methods to try and kill. 372 00:22:13,540 --> 00:22:16,460 In one case, she was accused of attempting to kill 373 00:22:16,460 --> 00:22:21,340 an extremely premature baby by dislodging its breathing tube. 374 00:22:21,340 --> 00:22:24,460 One of Letby's accusers, Dr Ravi Jayaram, 375 00:22:24,460 --> 00:22:26,820 the head of paediatrics on the unit, 376 00:22:26,820 --> 00:22:29,700 told the court that he'd never known the breathing tube 377 00:22:29,700 --> 00:22:34,540 of a baby born at 25 weeks to become accidentally dislodged, 378 00:22:34,540 --> 00:22:39,180 something he went into detail about in an ITV interview. 379 00:22:39,180 --> 00:22:42,380 This was a 25-week gestation baby 380 00:22:42,380 --> 00:22:45,300 who wasn't kicking around, who wasn't vigorous. 381 00:22:45,300 --> 00:22:47,660 The only possibility 382 00:22:47,660 --> 00:22:50,460 was that that tube had to have been dislodged deliberately. 383 00:22:52,460 --> 00:22:56,380 Dr Jayaram is a paediatrician and not a neonatologist, 384 00:22:56,380 --> 00:22:58,300 a specialist in newborn babies. 385 00:23:00,940 --> 00:23:06,180 Dr Richard Taylor is a neonatologist with over 30 years of experience. 386 00:23:06,180 --> 00:23:08,700 For him and some of his colleagues, 387 00:23:08,700 --> 00:23:11,060 Dr Jayaram's claim that the breathing tube 388 00:23:11,060 --> 00:23:14,420 couldn't have been accidentally dislodged didn't add up. 389 00:23:15,980 --> 00:23:21,940 So, this mannequin is a full-term baby that is 3.5 to 4kg. 390 00:23:21,940 --> 00:23:25,860 This baby is roughly 700g, 391 00:23:25,860 --> 00:23:30,780 which is a very similar weight to the baby in the Lucy Letby case. 392 00:23:30,780 --> 00:23:35,180 And soon after birth, the baby was intubated. 393 00:23:35,180 --> 00:23:38,100 So I'm just gonna hold the tube in place, 394 00:23:38,100 --> 00:23:40,300 and I'm going to hook up the bag. 395 00:23:41,860 --> 00:23:43,500 And then just with gentle breaths, 396 00:23:43,500 --> 00:23:47,140 you can see that the chest is rising. 397 00:23:48,900 --> 00:23:52,540 So the prosecution allege that the tube 398 00:23:52,540 --> 00:23:54,820 was intentionally dislodged. 399 00:23:54,820 --> 00:23:56,220 And the first thing I would say 400 00:23:56,220 --> 00:24:00,980 is that accidental dislodgement is extremely common. 401 00:24:00,980 --> 00:24:04,940 And it can be dislodged quite easily by the operator, 402 00:24:04,940 --> 00:24:07,860 and it can also be dislodged by the baby themselves, 403 00:24:07,860 --> 00:24:12,180 just by moving their head or thrusting their tongue, 404 00:24:12,180 --> 00:24:14,140 and suddenly, it's not in any more. 405 00:24:15,620 --> 00:24:18,020 Now, the issue with very small babies 406 00:24:18,020 --> 00:24:21,460 is that the movement only has to be relatively small, 407 00:24:21,460 --> 00:24:23,020 say one centimetre. 408 00:24:23,020 --> 00:24:24,500 If you're out by one centimetre, 409 00:24:24,500 --> 00:24:26,380 then suddenly, the baby is extubated. 410 00:24:26,380 --> 00:24:28,420 How surprised were you, then, 411 00:24:28,420 --> 00:24:32,020 to hear the consultant say that it would be very, very unusual 412 00:24:32,020 --> 00:24:35,300 for a baby of this size to dislodge its own tube 413 00:24:35,300 --> 00:24:37,820 and that he had never seen that before? 414 00:24:37,820 --> 00:24:39,460 It doesn't make sense to me. 415 00:24:39,460 --> 00:24:43,500 I mean, we've all seen it frequently. 416 00:24:43,500 --> 00:24:46,980 Well, it rather suggests he hasn't seen many tiny babies. 417 00:24:46,980 --> 00:24:50,860 Tubes can be dislodged for a whole variety of reasons. 418 00:24:50,860 --> 00:24:53,220 To say, "Well, it got dislodged, 419 00:24:53,220 --> 00:24:56,180 "therefore it must have been the nurse did it 420 00:24:56,180 --> 00:24:59,580 "for malignant reasons," is not logical. 421 00:25:06,380 --> 00:25:08,820 The jury couldn't decide if Letby was guilty 422 00:25:08,820 --> 00:25:12,100 of attempting to murder this baby, known as Baby K, 423 00:25:12,100 --> 00:25:13,780 by dislodging its breathing tube. 424 00:25:15,020 --> 00:25:17,220 That single case went to a retrial. 425 00:25:18,220 --> 00:25:20,460 Dr Jayaram was the star witness. 426 00:25:34,380 --> 00:25:38,260 Lucy Letby has been found guilty of the attempted murder of a baby, 427 00:25:38,260 --> 00:25:40,900 the prosecution saying she was caught virtually red-handed 428 00:25:40,900 --> 00:25:44,060 when a consultant paediatrician, Dr Ravi Jayaram, 429 00:25:44,060 --> 00:25:45,580 went into that room, 430 00:25:45,580 --> 00:25:48,100 saw that the baby's blood oxygen levels were dropping 431 00:25:48,100 --> 00:25:52,020 to dangerously low levels and saw Lucy Letby doing nothing. 432 00:25:55,100 --> 00:25:57,460 Dr Jayaram's account of this event 433 00:25:57,460 --> 00:26:01,180 was some of the strongest eyewitness evidence of either trial. 434 00:26:01,180 --> 00:26:04,140 He elaborated on it in his ITV interview. 435 00:26:05,860 --> 00:26:09,340 That is a night that is etched on my memory 436 00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:13,140 and will be in my nightmares forever. 437 00:26:13,140 --> 00:26:16,340 Part of me was saying, "You better go in and check everything's OK 438 00:26:16,340 --> 00:26:18,260 "because you know what's happened before 439 00:26:18,260 --> 00:26:20,660 "when Lucy's been on duty." 440 00:26:20,660 --> 00:26:24,740 As I walked towards the incubator, I could see on the monitors 441 00:26:24,740 --> 00:26:27,420 that the oxygen saturations were dropping, 442 00:26:27,420 --> 00:26:31,420 and they'd dropped to a level that, erm... 443 00:26:31,420 --> 00:26:34,140 ordinarily, number one, the alarms would have been going off. 444 00:26:35,420 --> 00:26:38,860 But number two, the nurse would have called for help, 445 00:26:38,860 --> 00:26:41,620 and Lucy Letby was standing by the top of the incubator. 446 00:26:41,620 --> 00:26:43,460 She didn't have her hands in the incubator. 447 00:26:43,460 --> 00:26:46,060 What was she doing, then? Well, she was just standing there. 448 00:26:47,620 --> 00:26:50,540 In his evidence, Dr Jayaram was explicit 449 00:26:50,540 --> 00:26:53,260 that no-one had been called to save the baby. 450 00:27:12,580 --> 00:27:14,460 But in the last few months, 451 00:27:14,460 --> 00:27:17,780 an email from Dr Jayaram himself has come to light 452 00:27:17,780 --> 00:27:20,980 that directly contradicts his own testimony. 453 00:27:20,980 --> 00:27:25,380 He's writing to colleagues in 2017, describing the event. 454 00:27:25,380 --> 00:27:29,020 According to this email, Dr Jayaram was only in the room 455 00:27:29,020 --> 00:27:31,300 because Letby herself had called him in 456 00:27:31,300 --> 00:27:32,620 as the baby was collapsing. 457 00:27:33,860 --> 00:27:36,100 The jury was never told about this email. 458 00:27:40,900 --> 00:27:43,260 Right, you all ready to go? CREW: Mm-hm. 459 00:27:46,140 --> 00:27:50,700 In fighting Letby's conviction. Mark McDonald, her new lawyer, 460 00:27:50,700 --> 00:27:54,620 says he finds himself taking on the medical and legal establishment. 461 00:27:57,540 --> 00:28:00,340 The problem, sometimes, that happens is that we feel 462 00:28:00,340 --> 00:28:03,580 that particularly with medics and doctors, 463 00:28:03,580 --> 00:28:05,220 we put them on a bit of a pedestal, 464 00:28:05,220 --> 00:28:08,620 and they say, "Well, you know, this is what happened," 465 00:28:08,620 --> 00:28:10,980 people believe it. 466 00:28:10,980 --> 00:28:16,180 And what we've been building up is powerful, contradictory evidence 467 00:28:16,180 --> 00:28:20,620 that in essence says that the people that gave evidence 468 00:28:20,620 --> 00:28:24,100 before the trial didn't know what they're talking about. 469 00:28:28,020 --> 00:28:30,380 Dr Jayaram isn't the only medic 470 00:28:30,380 --> 00:28:33,980 who appears to have contradicted his own testimony. 471 00:28:33,980 --> 00:28:37,780 Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering one baby, Baby C, 472 00:28:37,780 --> 00:28:39,980 by forcing air into its stomach. 473 00:28:41,700 --> 00:28:47,140 It was a novel theory of murder devised entirely by Dr Dewi Evans. 474 00:28:47,140 --> 00:28:50,140 He had said that this child had died 475 00:28:50,140 --> 00:28:53,860 from air being forcefully put down a nasogastric tube, 476 00:28:53,860 --> 00:28:57,500 a tube that goes through the nose down into the stomach, 477 00:28:57,500 --> 00:29:01,740 and that had caused the baby to suffocate and die. 478 00:29:02,820 --> 00:29:05,180 VOICE-OVER: This is a video to demonstrate the process 479 00:29:05,180 --> 00:29:06,980 of a baby in an incubator having an X-ray. 480 00:29:06,980 --> 00:29:09,660 Dr Evans based his theory on an X-ray 481 00:29:09,660 --> 00:29:12,420 taken on the 12th of June, 2015, 482 00:29:12,420 --> 00:29:14,620 which did show air in the baby's stomach. 483 00:29:16,220 --> 00:29:18,580 But Letby had been off work that day. 484 00:29:18,580 --> 00:29:21,860 She hadn't even met Baby C when the X-ray was taken. 485 00:29:23,540 --> 00:29:27,100 When challenged on this at trial, Dr Evans couldn't rule out 486 00:29:27,100 --> 00:29:30,060 that air may have been injected into the veins, 487 00:29:30,060 --> 00:29:32,420 but the prosecution still insisted 488 00:29:32,420 --> 00:29:35,020 Letby had killed Baby C with this method. 489 00:29:53,100 --> 00:29:56,260 As questions about Dr Evans's evidence mounted 490 00:29:56,260 --> 00:30:00,660 following the trial, he publicly changed his mind. 491 00:30:00,660 --> 00:30:02,620 He told journalists he no longer believed 492 00:30:02,620 --> 00:30:05,060 any babies were killed as a direct result 493 00:30:05,060 --> 00:30:07,700 of air being injected into their stomachs, 494 00:30:07,700 --> 00:30:10,420 though it may have caused them to collapse. 495 00:30:10,420 --> 00:30:13,620 But Letby had been convicted of killing Baby C 496 00:30:13,620 --> 00:30:15,820 and two others using this method. 497 00:30:17,100 --> 00:30:19,420 I went back through the transcript, and I looked at it, 498 00:30:19,420 --> 00:30:21,260 and I just kept on going back 499 00:30:21,260 --> 00:30:23,820 and referring to what he's saying now back to... 500 00:30:23,820 --> 00:30:27,500 And it was clear that he has changed his mind. 501 00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:28,900 But then he went further. 502 00:30:30,620 --> 00:30:34,540 He said, "I'm now gonna draft a new report." 503 00:30:34,540 --> 00:30:37,300 But she's been convicted of murder. 504 00:30:37,300 --> 00:30:42,380 And not only is he now saying that the baby did not die 505 00:30:42,380 --> 00:30:45,860 as a result of air going down the nasogastric tube, 506 00:30:45,860 --> 00:30:47,740 but he's now gonna write a new report 507 00:30:47,740 --> 00:30:50,300 and give it... to the police. 508 00:30:50,300 --> 00:30:53,780 I have never known anything like it. 509 00:30:59,140 --> 00:31:03,580 Now Dr Dewi Evans has committed to his alternative theory. 510 00:31:03,580 --> 00:31:06,580 He says Letby killed Baby C a day later 511 00:31:06,580 --> 00:31:09,260 by injecting air into the veins, 512 00:31:09,260 --> 00:31:12,180 causing something called an air embolism. 513 00:31:14,180 --> 00:31:18,100 She was on duty. It was coming up to midnight. 514 00:31:18,100 --> 00:31:22,780 She injected him intravenously with air 515 00:31:22,780 --> 00:31:25,940 that caused immediate collapse, 516 00:31:25,940 --> 00:31:30,940 and also explains why resuscitation failed. 517 00:31:30,940 --> 00:31:34,540 That is what I am now confident happened 518 00:31:34,540 --> 00:31:36,020 to this particular baby. 519 00:31:41,780 --> 00:31:45,580 Hello, and welcome to this press conference. 520 00:31:46,780 --> 00:31:49,140 In relation to Baby C, 521 00:31:49,140 --> 00:31:53,820 Dr Evans had said to the jury 522 00:31:53,820 --> 00:31:58,620 that Lucy Letby had injected air down a nasogastric tube. 523 00:31:58,620 --> 00:32:04,500 Remarkably, Dr Evans has now changed his mind 524 00:32:04,500 --> 00:32:08,740 on the cause of death and has written a new report. 525 00:32:10,100 --> 00:32:12,460 Despite numerous requests, 526 00:32:12,460 --> 00:32:16,780 the prosecution have yet to give this report to the defence. 527 00:32:16,780 --> 00:32:22,500 Dr Evans is not a reliable expert, 528 00:32:22,500 --> 00:32:26,580 and given that he was the lead expert for the prosecution, 529 00:32:26,580 --> 00:32:30,820 we say that all the convictions are unsafe. 530 00:32:46,980 --> 00:32:50,980 After I removed Lucy Letby from a clinical practice, 531 00:32:50,980 --> 00:32:52,620 the next management instruction I got 532 00:32:52,620 --> 00:32:54,020 was to meet her on a weekly basis. 533 00:32:54,020 --> 00:32:57,380 Firstly, to give her feedback about the investigations 534 00:32:57,380 --> 00:33:00,220 that were going on internally and externally, 535 00:33:00,220 --> 00:33:02,780 and to also check on her health and wellbeing. 536 00:33:02,780 --> 00:33:04,260 So it was myself, 537 00:33:04,260 --> 00:33:07,980 the head of occupational health and a union rep. 538 00:33:07,980 --> 00:33:12,220 We were responsible for supporting her throughout. 539 00:33:16,820 --> 00:33:21,620 Erm, obviously, this is early days, 27th of March, 2018, 540 00:33:21,620 --> 00:33:22,900 and she was still hopeful. 541 00:33:22,900 --> 00:33:26,300 We kept... You know, look at her. She's smiling. She's open. 542 00:33:26,300 --> 00:33:28,660 Hadn't been arrested at this point, had she? 543 00:33:28,660 --> 00:33:30,020 None of us knew what was coming. 544 00:33:32,980 --> 00:33:34,900 NARRATOR: After being removed from the unit, 545 00:33:34,900 --> 00:33:37,340 Lucy Letby was put on a desk job 546 00:33:37,340 --> 00:33:40,860 and advised not to communicate with her former colleagues. 547 00:33:40,860 --> 00:33:43,220 Karen Rees was one of the only people 548 00:33:43,220 --> 00:33:46,660 to have any meaningful contact with her during that period. 549 00:33:48,820 --> 00:33:51,740 She thought she had good working relationships 550 00:33:51,740 --> 00:33:53,780 with both those consultants, 551 00:33:53,780 --> 00:33:58,380 and she was devastated that they thought... 552 00:33:58,380 --> 00:34:00,740 what they thought. 553 00:34:00,740 --> 00:34:04,220 Absolutely devastated. She was broken. 554 00:34:04,220 --> 00:34:07,860 Cried regularly in my arms and in my office. 555 00:34:09,060 --> 00:34:11,380 And her mantra to me was... 556 00:34:14,700 --> 00:34:18,940 .."Why are they doing this to me? I've done nothing wrong, Karen." 557 00:34:24,220 --> 00:34:26,580 The police investigation into Letby 558 00:34:26,580 --> 00:34:29,940 went on for three-and-a-half years before she was charged. 559 00:34:29,940 --> 00:34:33,060 During one of the searches of her home, 560 00:34:33,060 --> 00:34:36,460 some notes were found that appeared incriminating. 561 00:34:38,940 --> 00:34:40,500 The Post-it notes. 562 00:34:40,500 --> 00:34:45,740 They were presented as proof that Lucy Letby has done this. 563 00:34:45,740 --> 00:34:47,940 Not only has she done it, she's admitted to it. 564 00:34:52,660 --> 00:34:54,980 She said, "I did write, 'I did this.' " 565 00:34:54,980 --> 00:34:56,260 She didn't deny that. 566 00:34:56,260 --> 00:34:59,620 But she said she was in such mental anguish at the time, 567 00:34:59,620 --> 00:35:03,380 she was just scribbling down whatever she could, 568 00:35:03,380 --> 00:35:04,900 you know, to get it off her chest, 569 00:35:04,900 --> 00:35:06,660 basically get it out of her head onto paper. 570 00:35:06,660 --> 00:35:10,260 She said it's what she'd always done as a kind of form of therapy. 571 00:35:11,940 --> 00:35:14,460 When we were in college, Lucy and I did 572 00:35:14,460 --> 00:35:18,180 all of our peer support counselling training together, 573 00:35:18,180 --> 00:35:19,860 and at all of these training sessions, 574 00:35:19,860 --> 00:35:21,700 it was recommended to us that, you know, 575 00:35:21,700 --> 00:35:23,340 if you're feeling overwhelmed, 576 00:35:23,340 --> 00:35:25,860 you write down everything that's going through your mind 577 00:35:25,860 --> 00:35:28,260 that is, you know, troubling you. 578 00:35:28,260 --> 00:35:30,100 So all of the dark thoughts, 579 00:35:30,100 --> 00:35:32,100 all of those inner voices that you can't silence, 580 00:35:32,100 --> 00:35:34,500 you just write it all down on a piece of paper 581 00:35:34,500 --> 00:35:36,260 to get it off your mind. 582 00:35:38,020 --> 00:35:40,060 The hospital had provided a therapist 583 00:35:40,060 --> 00:35:43,140 to support Letby during the investigations. 584 00:35:43,140 --> 00:35:46,500 Her name appears several times on the notes. 585 00:35:48,500 --> 00:35:51,300 It's since been reported that it was this therapist 586 00:35:51,300 --> 00:35:54,700 who suggested Letby express her feelings in this way 587 00:35:54,700 --> 00:35:56,340 as part of her treatment. 588 00:35:57,860 --> 00:36:01,020 I understand how people can take that note out of context 589 00:36:01,020 --> 00:36:03,060 and make it seem really sinister. 590 00:36:03,060 --> 00:36:05,980 But knowing Lucy, I think she would have written it down 591 00:36:05,980 --> 00:36:08,340 as a coping strategy for all of the worry 592 00:36:08,340 --> 00:36:10,140 and the concern that she was feeling. 593 00:36:17,620 --> 00:36:20,900 Nearly a year after the police began investigating Letby, 594 00:36:20,900 --> 00:36:23,300 they made a breakthrough discovery. 595 00:36:24,340 --> 00:36:26,300 Blood tests for two babies 596 00:36:26,300 --> 00:36:28,740 which showed very high insulin levels 597 00:36:28,740 --> 00:36:32,100 and low levels of a molecule called C-peptide, 598 00:36:32,100 --> 00:36:35,740 which is created in the body as insulin is produced. 599 00:36:38,260 --> 00:36:40,700 The prosecution said the striking imbalance 600 00:36:40,700 --> 00:36:44,020 between high insulin and low C-peptide 601 00:36:44,020 --> 00:36:47,460 was proof that insulin had been given externally 602 00:36:47,460 --> 00:36:50,340 and must therefore have been an attempt to poison. 603 00:36:54,740 --> 00:36:57,820 The prosecution evidence is effectively like a wall 604 00:36:57,820 --> 00:37:00,180 made up of multiple different bricks, 605 00:37:00,180 --> 00:37:03,220 but the insulin cases in this trial were the foundation. 606 00:37:05,660 --> 00:37:09,100 The prosecution told the jury two of these babies 607 00:37:09,100 --> 00:37:11,780 had been deliberately poisoned with insulin 608 00:37:11,780 --> 00:37:14,540 and that they had a test result that proved it. 609 00:37:17,060 --> 00:37:19,980 It was the closest the prosecution had to a smoking gun. 610 00:37:21,100 --> 00:37:23,820 Professor Matt Johll is a forensic scientist 611 00:37:23,820 --> 00:37:28,180 who's worked with US authorities in criminal investigations. 612 00:37:28,180 --> 00:37:30,540 Through his work, he's very familiar 613 00:37:30,540 --> 00:37:33,380 with the kind of medical tests used to convict Letby, 614 00:37:33,380 --> 00:37:35,740 known as immunoassays, 615 00:37:35,740 --> 00:37:38,700 which are routinely used in hospitals. 616 00:37:38,700 --> 00:37:43,580 A medical laboratory is about quick, fast, cheap, 617 00:37:43,580 --> 00:37:46,660 fairly good... tests. 618 00:37:46,660 --> 00:37:50,300 It is used because the doctor has a very short window 619 00:37:50,300 --> 00:37:51,820 to make a diagnosis, 620 00:37:51,820 --> 00:37:53,620 but they're not perfect. 621 00:37:54,900 --> 00:37:56,820 In the forensic setting... 622 00:37:58,180 --> 00:38:02,940 ..we would take samples, and we would have them identified. 623 00:38:02,940 --> 00:38:06,100 We would know exactly the chemical components 624 00:38:06,100 --> 00:38:07,500 inside the sample. 625 00:38:08,700 --> 00:38:10,620 That is not done in the medical settings. 626 00:38:10,620 --> 00:38:12,580 It was not done here. 627 00:38:12,580 --> 00:38:17,900 And yet those results were not presented to the jury 628 00:38:17,900 --> 00:38:21,340 as having any risk of false positives. 629 00:38:23,900 --> 00:38:26,260 The laboratory in Liverpool that did those tests 630 00:38:26,260 --> 00:38:29,260 says clearly on its website that its insulin assays 631 00:38:29,260 --> 00:38:32,020 shouldn't be used in investigations, 632 00:38:32,020 --> 00:38:36,340 and any unusual results should be further analysed. 633 00:38:36,340 --> 00:38:38,740 In both cases, the babies recovered, 634 00:38:38,740 --> 00:38:41,180 and the results weren't looked at in more detail. 635 00:38:42,380 --> 00:38:45,500 It wasn't until police were investigating Letby 636 00:38:45,500 --> 00:38:47,900 that the test results were looked at again. 637 00:38:50,060 --> 00:38:55,540 That kind of test was never meant to put somebody in prison. 638 00:38:55,540 --> 00:39:00,620 You would not strip a gold medal from an international athlete 639 00:39:00,620 --> 00:39:02,340 on an immunoassay. 640 00:39:02,340 --> 00:39:07,100 It's not good enough for drug testing for pilots 641 00:39:07,100 --> 00:39:09,860 or anyone who has mandatory drug testing. 642 00:39:09,860 --> 00:39:14,260 So if it's not good enough to fire them, 643 00:39:14,260 --> 00:39:16,820 how can it be good enough to put someone in prison? 644 00:39:19,380 --> 00:39:22,300 To tie Letby to the suspicious test results, 645 00:39:22,300 --> 00:39:25,220 the prosecution said that she had injected insulin 646 00:39:25,220 --> 00:39:29,100 into feed bags that were then given to the two babies. 647 00:39:31,260 --> 00:39:33,980 It said that one of the baby's low blood sugar levels 648 00:39:33,980 --> 00:39:36,020 showed the poisoning continued 649 00:39:36,020 --> 00:39:38,260 even when Letby was no longer on shift. 650 00:39:39,660 --> 00:39:43,140 It was claimed in court that Letby must have spiked a feed bag 651 00:39:43,140 --> 00:39:45,140 and left it for another nurse 652 00:39:45,140 --> 00:39:47,660 to unwittingly administer to the baby. 653 00:39:48,820 --> 00:39:54,300 The prosecution says, "Well, she must have pulled one out, 654 00:39:54,300 --> 00:39:57,820 "tampered with it and then put it back in." 655 00:39:57,820 --> 00:40:03,860 And then the next shift nurse would go into that supply cupboard, 656 00:40:03,860 --> 00:40:07,820 happen to grab the one fluid bag 657 00:40:07,820 --> 00:40:11,420 that they allege that she would have tampered with 658 00:40:11,420 --> 00:40:14,100 and then given it to the same exact child. 659 00:40:15,740 --> 00:40:18,380 We're going into the point of being absurd here 660 00:40:18,380 --> 00:40:22,140 to try and make these points connect. 661 00:40:25,060 --> 00:40:28,020 Although this theory was challenged by the defence, 662 00:40:28,020 --> 00:40:30,300 they didn't produce any expert witnesses 663 00:40:30,300 --> 00:40:33,020 to challenge the tests themselves, 664 00:40:33,020 --> 00:40:35,420 meaning that when she was on the stand, 665 00:40:35,420 --> 00:40:38,820 Letby had little choice but to accept the prosecution's claim 666 00:40:38,820 --> 00:40:41,460 that the test results proved poisoning. 667 00:40:43,420 --> 00:40:45,460 The prosecution had told the jury 668 00:40:45,460 --> 00:40:48,300 that there could be no doubt that these were poisonings, 669 00:40:48,300 --> 00:40:52,180 and Letby was asked, "What's your answer to that?" 670 00:40:52,180 --> 00:40:57,300 And she just said, "Well, if that's what the evidence says, 671 00:40:57,300 --> 00:40:59,140 "then that's the evidence. 672 00:40:59,140 --> 00:41:00,780 "These babies must have been poisoned." 673 00:41:00,780 --> 00:41:04,620 They sort of had it, really, in black and white. 674 00:41:04,620 --> 00:41:08,980 I remember writing the news story that day, thinking... 675 00:41:10,220 --> 00:41:13,940 .."Lucy Letby has admitted that babies have been poisoned 676 00:41:13,940 --> 00:41:16,580 "with insulin on the neonatal unit." 677 00:41:20,460 --> 00:41:23,980 This is the incident model that I'm opening. 678 00:41:23,980 --> 00:41:27,180 This is the visual representation of a lot of maths. 679 00:41:29,220 --> 00:41:30,860 Over the last nine months, 680 00:41:30,860 --> 00:41:35,100 a team of scientists has been instructed by Letby's new defence. 681 00:41:36,220 --> 00:41:39,620 Helen Shannon is a chemical engineer based in Chester... 682 00:41:40,820 --> 00:41:44,740 ..and Professor Jeff Chase runs a research unit in New Zealand 683 00:41:44,740 --> 00:41:48,020 that has one of the world's most extensive collections of data 684 00:41:48,020 --> 00:41:50,220 on insulin and newborn babies. 685 00:41:52,220 --> 00:41:54,100 Hi, Helen, how are you? Hi. 686 00:41:54,100 --> 00:41:57,140 They've been given access to the babies' medical notes 687 00:41:57,140 --> 00:42:00,260 and asked to look again at the insulin test results. 688 00:42:00,260 --> 00:42:04,580 So, I could add this to the bottom and modify it slightly. 689 00:42:04,580 --> 00:42:08,180 We've spent hundreds of hours 690 00:42:08,180 --> 00:42:14,700 investigating every facet of the... of the science, and... 691 00:42:16,260 --> 00:42:20,580 ..there is a completely obvious solution 692 00:42:20,580 --> 00:42:22,620 that does not involve poisoning. 693 00:42:22,620 --> 00:42:25,820 'Those equations don't lie. And when you...' 694 00:42:25,820 --> 00:42:30,220 According to the two scientists, to understand the insulin cases, 695 00:42:30,220 --> 00:42:32,700 it's essential to recognise the differences 696 00:42:32,700 --> 00:42:35,860 between newborn babies and adults. 697 00:42:36,940 --> 00:42:39,300 The insulin cases applied 698 00:42:39,300 --> 00:42:43,700 basic clinical guidance for healthy adults 699 00:42:43,700 --> 00:42:47,140 to tiny preterm compromised neonates. 700 00:42:47,140 --> 00:42:50,980 The pour samples, it's hard to rely on that. 701 00:42:50,980 --> 00:42:52,340 So... Agreed. 702 00:42:52,340 --> 00:42:55,620 They say they've established something important, 703 00:42:55,620 --> 00:42:59,380 which suggests that even if the insulin readings were accurate, 704 00:42:59,380 --> 00:43:01,780 they still didn't prove poisoning. 705 00:43:01,780 --> 00:43:04,460 '..see my references and come back later when you have an argument.' 706 00:43:04,460 --> 00:43:07,260 Many newborn babies, or neonates, 707 00:43:07,260 --> 00:43:10,540 are born with a specific type of antibody in their blood. 708 00:43:12,900 --> 00:43:15,260 The team say they can show that insulin, 709 00:43:15,260 --> 00:43:19,660 produced naturally by the babies, can stick to these antibodies, 710 00:43:19,660 --> 00:43:23,100 staying longer in the bloodstream and giving a high reading, 711 00:43:23,100 --> 00:43:25,860 while C-peptide continues to be cleared. 712 00:43:27,020 --> 00:43:30,220 Something that is unique to neonates 713 00:43:30,220 --> 00:43:35,460 is that they have quite a high level of antibodies in their blood. 714 00:43:35,460 --> 00:43:37,820 It comes from their mums. 715 00:43:37,820 --> 00:43:41,020 So because the antibody binds to the insulin, 716 00:43:41,020 --> 00:43:43,660 the insulin doesn't remove from the body, 717 00:43:43,660 --> 00:43:47,420 and the level of insulin bound to the antibody 718 00:43:47,420 --> 00:43:49,900 goes up and up and up and up in the bloodstream. 719 00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:53,020 It doesn't have any effect on the child at all. 720 00:43:53,020 --> 00:43:55,020 It just floats around. 721 00:43:55,020 --> 00:43:57,380 And as a result, 722 00:43:57,380 --> 00:44:01,300 it gives a very high reading on the particular test 723 00:44:01,300 --> 00:44:03,980 that was used at the Liverpool laboratory. 724 00:44:05,060 --> 00:44:07,420 So what was presented in court as, 725 00:44:07,420 --> 00:44:11,300 "This is smoking gun evidence of poisoning," 726 00:44:11,300 --> 00:44:14,980 actually looks pretty typical for a preterm neonate, 727 00:44:14,980 --> 00:44:17,660 and we can't see any justification whatsoever 728 00:44:17,660 --> 00:44:21,140 for the prosecution's statement that it could only be poisoning. 729 00:44:33,860 --> 00:44:37,820 I've got no doubt that today is a very important day 730 00:44:37,820 --> 00:44:40,780 when it comes to Lucy Letby's conviction. 731 00:44:40,780 --> 00:44:43,540 Do we have enough room to shift these chairs very slightly backwards 732 00:44:43,540 --> 00:44:45,540 in front of your cameras? Is that OK? 733 00:44:45,540 --> 00:44:48,900 Today, Mark McDonald, Letby's new lawyer, 734 00:44:48,900 --> 00:44:51,260 has summoned the press and politicians 735 00:44:51,260 --> 00:44:53,460 to a press conference at Westminster. 736 00:44:55,460 --> 00:44:58,060 He's presenting the findings of some of the work 737 00:44:58,060 --> 00:45:00,260 from his network of experts. 738 00:45:01,500 --> 00:45:05,940 Perhaps the most senior medic is Professor Shoo Lee from Canada, 739 00:45:05,940 --> 00:45:09,340 an internationally respected expert in neonatal care. 740 00:45:10,820 --> 00:45:13,180 In this case, because they had used my paper, 741 00:45:13,180 --> 00:45:14,940 I was curious about what they had said. 742 00:45:14,940 --> 00:45:17,540 Professor Lee became involved early on 743 00:45:17,540 --> 00:45:20,020 when he realised a paper he'd written 744 00:45:20,020 --> 00:45:24,820 had been used by the prosecution's lead expert witness, Dr Dewi Evans. 745 00:45:24,820 --> 00:45:27,660 He thought Dr Evans had misunderstood it. 746 00:45:29,060 --> 00:45:31,860 What the prosecution expert witnesses had said 747 00:45:31,860 --> 00:45:34,860 wasn't what I wrote about, and that was wrong. 748 00:45:34,860 --> 00:45:37,420 If the medical evidence was wrong, 749 00:45:37,420 --> 00:45:41,380 then the conviction might be unsafe, and that might be a problem. 750 00:45:41,380 --> 00:45:45,340 He is the ultimate expert on neonatology. 751 00:45:45,340 --> 00:45:50,620 So what he wanted to do was create a panel of 14 experts 752 00:45:50,620 --> 00:45:52,980 to look at the medical records. 753 00:45:52,980 --> 00:45:55,700 Some sleep last night, which was good. 754 00:45:55,700 --> 00:45:58,260 But he said this to me, and it's important, 755 00:45:58,260 --> 00:46:02,660 he said, "If we are of the view 756 00:46:02,660 --> 00:46:06,180 "that Lucy Letby has harmed any of these children, 757 00:46:06,180 --> 00:46:08,140 "we're gonna say it publicly." 758 00:46:08,140 --> 00:46:12,540 So the ultimate decision was hers to take this forward. 759 00:46:12,540 --> 00:46:17,660 "Instruct him," she said, "and give him everything he needs." 760 00:46:17,660 --> 00:46:19,180 And that's what he got. 761 00:46:20,420 --> 00:46:22,820 Professor Lee presented the panel's findings 762 00:46:22,820 --> 00:46:25,220 from a selection of seven cases, 763 00:46:25,220 --> 00:46:28,580 which covered all the ways Letby was meant to have harmed babies. 764 00:46:30,660 --> 00:46:34,060 He started with his particular area of expertise - 765 00:46:34,060 --> 00:46:38,660 air in babies' blood systems, or air embolism. 766 00:46:38,660 --> 00:46:42,340 The allegation was that baby one died 767 00:46:42,340 --> 00:46:45,340 from injection of air into the intravenous line, 768 00:46:45,340 --> 00:46:48,940 causing air embolism and resulting in collapse, 769 00:46:48,940 --> 00:46:52,260 patchy discolouration of the skin and eventually death. 770 00:46:52,260 --> 00:46:56,100 The prosecution expert witness, Dr Dewi Evans, 771 00:46:56,100 --> 00:46:59,140 has been clear that he used Professor Lee's work 772 00:46:59,140 --> 00:47:01,740 to help diagnose air embolism. 773 00:47:01,740 --> 00:47:04,660 The method, he says, Letby used to kill six babies. 774 00:47:04,660 --> 00:47:07,700 10% of them had skin discolouration of different kinds. 775 00:47:07,700 --> 00:47:10,060 At that time, I did not distinguish 776 00:47:10,060 --> 00:47:12,580 between arterial and venous air embolism. 777 00:47:12,580 --> 00:47:15,740 Dr Evans diagnosed air embolism 778 00:47:15,740 --> 00:47:19,500 partly because the babies had strange marks on their skin. 779 00:47:20,660 --> 00:47:23,820 But Professor Lee says Evans missed a basic point 780 00:47:23,820 --> 00:47:28,460 and didn't realise that air only causes these kind of marks 781 00:47:28,460 --> 00:47:30,820 when it's put into the arteries, not the veins. 782 00:47:32,500 --> 00:47:35,300 Air embolism by the venous system does not produce 783 00:47:35,300 --> 00:47:37,420 these kinds of skin discolorations, 784 00:47:37,420 --> 00:47:40,660 so we feel that this diagnosis is wrong. 785 00:47:40,660 --> 00:47:45,660 Professor Lee went on to deconstruct each of the other cases. 786 00:47:45,660 --> 00:47:48,700 Preterm babies have a lot of antibodies, 787 00:47:48,700 --> 00:47:51,540 and these antibodies bind insulin. 788 00:47:51,540 --> 00:47:53,260 So the air was likely... 789 00:47:53,260 --> 00:47:57,860 As he went through the babies, you could see logically... 790 00:47:59,420 --> 00:48:02,300 ..what had gone wrong at that trial. 791 00:48:02,300 --> 00:48:04,820 There's actually no proof that a tube was even dislodged. 792 00:48:04,820 --> 00:48:06,340 It was probably in the right place. 793 00:48:06,340 --> 00:48:08,860 It's just that the consultant didn't know what he was doing. 794 00:48:08,860 --> 00:48:11,220 There were serious problems 795 00:48:11,220 --> 00:48:14,780 related to medical care of patients at this hospital. 796 00:48:14,780 --> 00:48:19,420 In summary, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders. 797 00:48:19,420 --> 00:48:24,540 In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes 798 00:48:24,540 --> 00:48:26,260 or just bad medical care. 799 00:48:28,740 --> 00:48:32,460 The one thing that I did not realise until the end of it 800 00:48:32,460 --> 00:48:36,060 was the impact that it had. 801 00:48:37,700 --> 00:48:39,620 I'll be happy to take any questions. 802 00:48:39,620 --> 00:48:43,500 I'll start. I'll go right across, from right to left. Sir. You. 803 00:48:43,500 --> 00:48:45,500 Hi. Josh Halliday from The Guardian. 804 00:48:45,500 --> 00:48:48,180 Can I just ask, how many of the seven deaths 805 00:48:48,180 --> 00:48:50,660 do you think were preventable? 806 00:48:50,660 --> 00:48:54,620 I was one of the only people inside that room 807 00:48:54,620 --> 00:48:58,540 who'd actually covered the original trial. 808 00:48:58,540 --> 00:49:00,820 Hearing the two versions of events, 809 00:49:00,820 --> 00:49:02,580 the prosecution case 810 00:49:02,580 --> 00:49:05,420 and this international panel of experts, 811 00:49:05,420 --> 00:49:08,420 just... it was like two worlds colliding. 812 00:49:08,420 --> 00:49:10,260 It was just jaw-dropping. 813 00:49:10,260 --> 00:49:14,820 It was a game-changer on everything. 814 00:49:16,740 --> 00:49:17,980 But she's still in prison. 815 00:49:40,780 --> 00:49:42,820 Ah, right. 816 00:49:42,820 --> 00:49:45,060 It's the one with the TV cameras outside. 817 00:49:46,820 --> 00:49:48,420 Hello. 818 00:49:48,420 --> 00:49:51,540 I'm looking at the TV cameras. I'm about ten seconds away. 819 00:49:53,020 --> 00:49:56,580 NARRATOR: Today, Lucy Letby's lawyer, Mark McDonald, 820 00:49:56,580 --> 00:49:59,220 is delivering the expert panel report 821 00:49:59,220 --> 00:50:01,500 to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. 822 00:50:04,500 --> 00:50:07,260 So, erm... 823 00:50:07,260 --> 00:50:11,340 Go in, hand it in, come out, make a statement, questions. 824 00:50:11,340 --> 00:50:12,380 Yeah. OK. 825 00:50:17,780 --> 00:50:21,540 However powerful Mark believes his expert reports are, 826 00:50:21,540 --> 00:50:25,140 he also knows they might not be enough for the CCRC. 827 00:50:27,860 --> 00:50:30,780 So, this is the international panel report. 828 00:50:30,780 --> 00:50:33,180 This is a separate report on top. Yeah. 829 00:50:33,180 --> 00:50:36,420 To send cases back to the Court of Appeal, 830 00:50:36,420 --> 00:50:39,780 the CCRC usually insists on new evidence 831 00:50:39,780 --> 00:50:43,100 that wasn't available to the original defence. 832 00:50:43,100 --> 00:50:45,660 I'm afraid it was gonna say, 833 00:50:45,660 --> 00:50:48,180 "Well, this could have all happened at trial." 834 00:50:48,180 --> 00:50:50,580 Morning. Morning. Hello. 835 00:50:50,580 --> 00:50:52,940 You know that the first question 836 00:50:52,940 --> 00:50:55,860 that the CCRC and the Court of Appeal will ask you is, 837 00:50:55,860 --> 00:50:57,820 "Why did Lucy Letby not call this evidence 838 00:50:57,820 --> 00:50:59,340 "in her defence at the trial?" 839 00:50:59,340 --> 00:51:02,260 What do you say to that? It's a completely proper question. 840 00:51:02,260 --> 00:51:05,740 As you know, I was instructed afterwards. 841 00:51:05,740 --> 00:51:08,100 I was not the defence team at trial. 842 00:51:09,300 --> 00:51:11,180 If they dismiss this evidence, 843 00:51:11,180 --> 00:51:13,980 just say, "Well, it could have been called at trial. 844 00:51:13,980 --> 00:51:18,420 "She's innocent, but we're not gonna let this evidence before the... 845 00:51:18,420 --> 00:51:20,140 "We're not gonna take any notice of it 846 00:51:20,140 --> 00:51:22,500 "because they could have done that. 847 00:51:22,500 --> 00:51:25,300 "So we'll let the innocent person stay in prison." 848 00:51:25,300 --> 00:51:27,820 What is the logic of that? 849 00:51:27,820 --> 00:51:30,180 Can I just come in on that? Yes. 850 00:51:30,180 --> 00:51:32,860 Appeals have been thrown out over and over again, twice before. 851 00:51:32,860 --> 00:51:36,140 And families say that it's causing them distress. 852 00:51:36,140 --> 00:51:38,980 Obviously, they've been through a lot over the last couple of years... 853 00:51:38,980 --> 00:51:40,860 Yes. Of course. ..with the initial case, 854 00:51:40,860 --> 00:51:43,340 and now they're gonna... might have to do this all over again. 855 00:51:43,340 --> 00:51:47,740 Yeah. And, look, I represent my client, all right? 856 00:51:47,740 --> 00:51:52,260 Without fear or favour. That's my job. OK? 857 00:51:52,260 --> 00:51:55,340 But these families have been through hell and back. 858 00:51:55,340 --> 00:51:58,660 I have said if they want to look at these reports, 859 00:51:58,660 --> 00:52:00,620 then they can look at them. 860 00:52:00,620 --> 00:52:04,340 Because what I'm after is the truth. That's what I'm doing. 861 00:52:04,340 --> 00:52:05,940 And that's what these reports are. 862 00:52:07,300 --> 00:52:09,740 All right. OK. Thank you for coming along today. 863 00:52:15,340 --> 00:52:17,980 To relook at the cause of the babies' deaths, 864 00:52:17,980 --> 00:52:20,340 the expert panel was given access 865 00:52:20,340 --> 00:52:22,940 to all of the infants' medical records. 866 00:52:24,460 --> 00:52:28,860 To Professor Neena Modi, those records told an awful story 867 00:52:28,860 --> 00:52:32,460 of failure by the hospital and by the doctors. 868 00:52:34,020 --> 00:52:37,100 On reading through the detailed medical notes, 869 00:52:37,100 --> 00:52:40,980 what was harrowing was seeing a story unfold 870 00:52:40,980 --> 00:52:44,940 where possibly things could have been recognised earlier 871 00:52:44,940 --> 00:52:47,620 and interventions could have been put in place sooner. 872 00:52:47,620 --> 00:52:49,580 And perhaps, for some of the babies, 873 00:52:49,580 --> 00:52:51,940 the outcomes might not have been what they were. 874 00:52:51,940 --> 00:52:53,460 This was deeply distressing. 875 00:52:55,820 --> 00:52:58,180 We now know that the increase in deaths 876 00:52:58,180 --> 00:53:02,860 coincided with the unit having to take babies that were more unwell 877 00:53:02,860 --> 00:53:05,060 than it was equipped or staffed for. 878 00:53:06,340 --> 00:53:09,380 This was a neonatal unit that was being required 879 00:53:09,380 --> 00:53:12,460 to look after babies who should not have been cared for there. 880 00:53:15,060 --> 00:53:19,460 The babies that we're referring to were all extremely vulnerable. 881 00:53:19,460 --> 00:53:22,780 Some of them were demonstrably and recognisably 882 00:53:22,780 --> 00:53:24,700 on a knife edge. 883 00:53:24,700 --> 00:53:28,700 Others could have been recognised to have been on a knife edge, 884 00:53:28,700 --> 00:53:31,220 but they were not monitored appropriately 885 00:53:31,220 --> 00:53:32,940 and they were not treated appropriately. 886 00:53:34,620 --> 00:53:36,500 Problems went unrecognised 887 00:53:36,500 --> 00:53:40,380 until the point at which a baby deteriorated very abruptly. 888 00:53:41,820 --> 00:53:45,020 So the babies might not have died 889 00:53:45,020 --> 00:53:48,140 had their difficulties been addressed earlier. 890 00:53:54,020 --> 00:53:56,900 So, we're just coming round to the sixth form college now. 891 00:53:58,140 --> 00:53:59,860 This is where I went with Lucy. 892 00:53:59,860 --> 00:54:02,140 It's just over here. 893 00:54:03,660 --> 00:54:07,260 This is where we spent most of our adolescence. 894 00:54:07,260 --> 00:54:09,300 It was at this point here where we were choosing 895 00:54:09,300 --> 00:54:11,900 which sort of A-levels we were gonna do, 896 00:54:11,900 --> 00:54:14,500 and Lucy was clear that she wanted to go and be a nurse 897 00:54:14,500 --> 00:54:17,940 and deal with, you know, really poorly babies. 898 00:54:17,940 --> 00:54:21,540 She was the only one with a clear sort of career path ahead of her 899 00:54:21,540 --> 00:54:23,820 that she wanted to do. 900 00:54:23,820 --> 00:54:25,260 We were here, and then university, 901 00:54:25,260 --> 00:54:27,180 and then a few years after university, I think, 902 00:54:27,180 --> 00:54:30,980 is when she's supposed to have gone off on this killing spree. 903 00:54:33,100 --> 00:54:36,060 I was at work when I heard that they were sort of returning the verdicts 904 00:54:36,060 --> 00:54:37,580 and sort of tuned in. 905 00:54:37,580 --> 00:54:40,700 And I think I just sat there dumbfounded for a while, 906 00:54:40,700 --> 00:54:42,980 not really knowing how to process what I was hearing. 907 00:54:42,980 --> 00:54:45,340 I didn't think it was real. 908 00:54:45,340 --> 00:54:47,700 Immediately switched to thinking, "Well, what's next?" 909 00:54:47,700 --> 00:54:49,420 You know, "What happens next? This can't be it." 910 00:54:49,420 --> 00:54:52,100 Like, you know, she can't just spend the rest of her life in prison. 911 00:54:53,460 --> 00:54:56,460 I'm living a life that Lucy should be living beside me in parallel. 912 00:54:56,460 --> 00:54:58,820 Like, we should both be having families 913 00:54:58,820 --> 00:55:01,700 and, you know, we both bought our houses 914 00:55:01,700 --> 00:55:04,180 and we were looking forward to the next chapters of our lives. 915 00:55:04,180 --> 00:55:06,540 And then all this happened. It's just... 916 00:55:06,540 --> 00:55:08,900 Yeah, there's so much guilt that I'm sort of living a life 917 00:55:08,900 --> 00:55:10,420 that Lucy should also be living. 918 00:55:17,420 --> 00:55:20,420 I do remember Lucy saying to me, 919 00:55:20,420 --> 00:55:22,700 "Karen, you're the only person that hasn't asked me 920 00:55:22,700 --> 00:55:26,140 "have I purposely harmed anybody." 921 00:55:26,140 --> 00:55:27,860 And I remember her looking at me, 922 00:55:27,860 --> 00:55:30,940 and the reasons why I've never asked her is that... 923 00:55:33,220 --> 00:55:35,820 ..I never thought she had. 924 00:55:38,580 --> 00:55:40,540 No, I just... 925 00:55:42,660 --> 00:55:43,980 I don't believe it. 926 00:55:51,300 --> 00:55:57,180 The centre of this trial was babies who died and almost died. 927 00:55:57,180 --> 00:56:01,540 Finally, at the verdict and after the sentencing, 928 00:56:01,540 --> 00:56:04,620 you had this burst of emotions. 929 00:56:04,620 --> 00:56:06,940 It was impossible to contain. 930 00:56:08,020 --> 00:56:09,860 The parents finally got their chance 931 00:56:09,860 --> 00:56:13,860 to talk about the absolutely harrowing ordeal. 932 00:56:13,860 --> 00:56:17,140 A mum who was desperate to hold her baby 933 00:56:17,140 --> 00:56:18,500 and couldn't get anywhere near 934 00:56:18,500 --> 00:56:21,380 because of all the doctors trying to save their life. 935 00:56:21,380 --> 00:56:25,700 Another of the babies was buried wearing a gown 936 00:56:25,700 --> 00:56:28,140 that Lucy Letby had dressed them in. 937 00:56:30,020 --> 00:56:34,100 You know, the empty car seats, the unpacked hospital bags, 938 00:56:34,100 --> 00:56:38,340 the nurseries at home that would never get slept in. 939 00:56:40,700 --> 00:56:43,980 One boy kept asking where his two triplet brothers are. 940 00:56:46,660 --> 00:56:51,380 You could really feel the anguish and the sort of destruction 941 00:56:51,380 --> 00:56:53,820 that it caused in their lives. 942 00:56:53,820 --> 00:56:56,460 You know, it broke families apart. 943 00:56:56,460 --> 00:56:59,420 It was... It's just awful. Just shocking and awful. 943 00:57:00,305 --> 00:58:00,374 Watch Online Movies and Series for FREE www.osdb.link/lm