Lucy Letby’s lawyers are seeking to launch a fresh appeal over her convictions after claiming the prosecution’s lead witness was “not reliable”.
The serial killer nurse’s barrister, Mark McDonald, said he would immediately seek permission from the Court of Appeal to take the “exceptional, but necessary, decision” to apply to reopen her case.
Speaking at a press conference at the Royal Society of Medicine in central London, Mr McDonald said that “remarkably”, Dr Dewi Evans had “changed his mind” over the mechanism of death involving three of Letby’s murder victims.
Letby, 34, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
The Thirlwall Inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes has heard evidence at Liverpool Town Hall since September and will resume in January, with findings expected to be published in the autumn of 2025.
In his statement to reporters, Mr McDonald said: “Remarkably, Dr Evans has now changed his mind on the cause of death of three of the babies: Baby C, Baby I and Baby P.
“Dr Evans had said to the jury that Lucy Letby had injected air down a nasal gastric tube and this had led to the death of the three babies.
“Dr Evans has also said that he has revised his opinion in relation to Baby C and has written a new report, a new report that he has given to the police, months ago now.
“The defence will argue that Dr Evans is not a reliable expert, and given that he was the lead expert for the prosecution, we say that all the convictions are not safe.”
Dr Evans, who gave expert evidence to the jury in Letby’s first trial, has previously given numerous media interviews in which he maintains her convictions are safe.
Asked how Letby is feeling about the fresh evidence, Mr McDonald replied: “How would you feel? You are a 34-year-old woman sentenced to life in prison without any hope and suddenly we have found such profound and significant evidence that it may possibly overturn your convictions.
“I will leave it to you to decide how you would feel about that.”
Mr McDonald added he also has reports from two neonatologists that he claims count as fresh evidence in the cases of Baby C and Baby O, with no evidence of deliberate harm.
Medical expert Dr Richard Taylor, based in Victoria, British Columbia, and working for the defence, claimed Baby O actually died from shock from an accidental liver perforation after a doctor used a needle to attempt to relieve swelling in the abdomen.
Not naming the doctor, Dr Taylor said: “I have to say from a personal point of view that if this had happened to me, I would be unable to sleep at night knowing that what I had done had led to the death of a baby and now there is a nurse in jail convicted of murder.”
He expressed his surprise this didn’t come out in court or at the autopsy, adding: “Nursing is an altruistic profession. You don’t go into it for the money but to help others and that applies to her.
“She has no past history of any antisocial behaviour, any criminal behaviour, any psychiatric problems at all.
“There is no motive. Her friends are all completely astounded, flabbergasted by the accusations. That brought up red flags for me. What is the evidence here?”
Letby has lost two bids this year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal – in May, for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October, for the attempted murder of a baby girl which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.
Following the press conference, the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Two juries and three appeal court judges have reviewed a multitude of different strands of evidence against Lucy Letby.
“She has been convicted on 15 separate counts following two separate jury trials.
“In May, the Court of Appeal dismissed Letby’s leave to appeal on all grounds – rejecting her argument that expert prosecution evidence was flawed.”
Sean Caulfield, partner and criminal defence lawyer at Hodge Jones & Allen, said: “It is vanishingly rare for a lead expert witness in a criminal case to ‘change his mind’ on key evidence.
“It is also rare for there to be a bid to reopen an appeal after it has already been refused by the Court of Appeal. I have never seen these two things happen in unison during my 20-year-plus career. It is quite an astonishing turn of events.
“The combination of both of these events makes this situation almost unheard of. If the evidence from this lead expert, Dr Evans, was central to the conviction, then the fact he may now have changed his mind on what he said may be enough to reopen this appeal.
“The key question here is how central this expert witness was to the case and that is ultimately what the Court of Appeal will be considering.
“The chances of success will rest on the relevance of Dr Evans’s evidence and whether the Court of Appeal agree the conviction may now be unsafe.”
Dr Evans has been contacted for comment.
