All the babies that Lucy Letby was convicted of killing actually died of natural causes, often due to poor medical care, and were not murdered, a panel of 14 medical experts has concluded.
This morning the panel of experts in the care of newborn babies presented “significant new medical evidence” in Letby’s case. Here are some excerpts from the Telegraph’s coverage:
Dr Shoo Lee, an eminent Canadian neonatologist, and Head of the Division of Neonatology at the University of Toronto, is now giving evidence about each of the babies.
His research paper from 1989 was a key plank in the prosecution’s case that some of the babies had died from air embolism.
Dr Lee had found that in some cases of air embolism, the skin goes blue with bright pink blood vessels standing out – a skin discolouration that doctors claimed was present in some of the Letby babies.
Crucially, the prosecution never contacted Dr Lee to check if their interpretation of his work was correct. It wasn’t.
Dr Lee has since found that injecting air into a vein never gives that pattern on the skin.
“If that was true it would be the first case ever described,” he told today’s press conference.
The doctors at the Countess of Chester are not being cast in a good light:
The new medical review suggests that many of the babies died from sub-optimal care at the hospital.
In the case of one baby, Dr Lee said that doctors had failed to spot a dangerous bacterial infection called Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and so failed to give life-saving antibiotics.
“This was a preventable death,” he told the press conference.
According to the panel of experts, another baby died after getting a blood clot when doctors left lines in the body without an infusion.
The review panel believes a blood clot built up at the spot where the line entered the body, and when the infusion was switched on, it, dislodged and travelled to the brainstem, causing sudden collapse.
In the case of Baby K, Letby was convicted of attempting to murder the infant by dislodging her tube. But Dr Lee said the tube was never inserted correctly by a doctor.
“The consultant did not understand the basics of resuscitation, air leak and mechanical ventilation,” he said.
New data on the insulin charges suggests the babies may not have been poisoned at all:
Letby was convicted of attempting to murder two babies by poisoning their feeding bags with insulin.
The convictions were based on blood test readings that showed high insulin levels but low c-peptide levels in the blood – a clear sign that artificial insulin has been administered.
However Professor Geoff Chase, a world expert in insulin, from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. says that the prosecution and police were basing their readings on ratios from adults and children.
In fact, he says the ratio of c-peptide to insulin was completely normal for a pre-term infant.
This is important because even the defence accepted that the two babies had been poisoned. It just said it wasn’t Letby that was responsible. Now it appears they may not have been poisoned at all.
The panel found the babies all died of natural causes and bad medical care rather than murder:
Dr Lee told the hearing: “In summary, we did not find murders.
“In all cases death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care.
“Lucy was charged with seven murders and seven attempted murders. In our opinion, the medical opinion, the medical evidence doesn’t support murder in any of these babies – just natural causes and bad medical care.
“Our full report will go to Lucy’s barrister later this month and then it will be up to him and the courts to decide what next to do.”
It has further emerged this morning that Lucy Letby was charged with fewer than half of the baby deaths that occurred at the Countess of Chester Hospital during the unexpected mortality spike, casting further doubt on her guilt. The Telegraph has more.
Data released by the Thirlwall Inquiry, which is examining how the harm could have been prevented, revealed there were 18 deaths linked to the hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.
But Letby was only charged in connection with eight of the deaths.
During her trial, the jury was shown a chart that placed the neonatal nurse at each one of the babies’ deaths or collapses.
But the chart did not include the extra 10 deaths that occurred during that period, which were far more than the usual “one to three” expected annually on the neonatal unit.
It is the first time the figures have been released and show that the hospital death rate was abnormally high, even without the Letby deaths.
Sir David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “The chart released by the Thirlwall Inquiry shows that the original evidence shown to the jury was, at the very least, misleading.
“Letby ended up being charged with fewer than half of the baby deaths at the Countess of Chester, the rest of which are not explained adequately by the prosecution’s case.”
Critics of Letby’s conviction say that there were other explanations for a high death rate at the neonatal unit in 2015 and 2016 including a lack of staff, sub-optimal care and an increase in admissions of more premature and sicker babies.
The 10 babies which Letby was not accused of killing died from various causes including congenital issues present at birth, prematurity, sepsis, pneumonia and a lack of oxygen, the new documents show.
A review by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) at the time warned that there should have been more doctors available, given the vulnerable nature of premature babies. Staff had contacted the management team to warn the unit was “at breaking point”.
New documents released by the Thirlwall Inquiry also show how the Countess of Chester refused to take part in research to improve outcomes for premature babies.
Prof Neena Modi, the former president of the RCPCH, who leads the UK National Neonatal Research Database (NNRD) said the programme called ‘Opti-Prem’ sought to find out if babies were better off in intensive care units.
“The purpose of the research was to assess, for babies born at 27 to 31 weeks gestation and admitted to a neonatal unit in England, whether care in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit versus care in a Local Neonatal Unit affected survival and key morbidities,” Prof Modi said in a statement to the inquiry.
“The Countess of Chester was the only hospital to decline participation.”
Read in full here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.