A former top nurse at the trust where Lucy Letby carried out her crimes has said she believes the former neonatal nurse is innocent.
Karen Rees, who was head of nursing at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust between 2015 and 2018, told the Sunday Times over the weekend about why she backs Letby.
“I know that they say psychopaths are clever. But if she was acting she deserves an Oscar because she was so convincing”
Karen Rees
Letby, 35, has been convicted of murdering seven babies, and attempting to murder seven more, between June 2015 and June 2016 at the neonatal unit of Countess of Chester Hospital where she worked.
When sentencing, judge Mr Justice Goss described Letby as “cruel” and “calculated”, and said she had a “deep malevolence bordering on sadism”, observing the lack of remorse the former nurse showed during the trial.
As well as this, evidence heard at the Thirlwall Inquiry – which is investigating the circumstances around the murders – suggested that Letby was “cold” and lacking in the expected attributes of a nurse.
In a new interview, Ms Rees told the Sunday Times that she strongly disagreed with the characterisation of Letby presented at the inquiry, and during the court case.
“People say she’s not emotional. Trust me, she is emotional,” Ms Rees said.
“I know that they say psychopaths are clever. But if she was acting she deserves an Oscar because she was so convincing.
“She was really hurt when she was told about the consultants’ allegations because she thought they were friends, not just colleagues, and she could not understand why they were doing this to her.”
Ms Rees claimed that Letby was frequently crying and “distressed” in weekly wellbeing meetings she was having with her after the initial accusations were levelled by consultants in 2016.
The former head of nursing described Letby as a “quiet” and “normal” then-28-year old, who went “catatonic” when under stress.
Countess of Chester Hospital, where Lucy Letby worked
She spoke of her personal distress at watching Letby deal with the accusations against her, which were found to be true by a jury in 2023. Multiple requests by Letby to appeal have been denied by the courts.
Ms Rees, in October 2024, told the Thirlwall Inquiry that she initially felt that consultants who raised the alarm about Letby were doing so because of a “personal issue”.
However, she did not declare to the inquiry that she believed Letby was innocent.
In her interview with the Sunday Times this weekend, Ms Rees said she felt that the consultants were not in a position to judge Letby at the time.
“The one person that knows her nursing team is the manager or the unit manager — not a consultant that visits a couple of times a week,” Ms Rees said.
“They know the strengths and weaknesses. I trusted Lucy’s ward manager when she looked me in the eye and said ‘[Letby’s] fantastic and she’s right by the book, she does everything right’.”
This ward manager, Eirian Powell, denied giving Letby favourable treatment during her own evidence to the Thirlwall Inquiry in October 2024.
Ms Rees made a public statement in August 2013, when she said Letby was “convincing”, “calculated” and that she had deceived her.
Asked about this statement by the Sunday Times, Ms Rees said she made it on the advice of her lawyers, and that she regretted doing so.
The Sunday Times reported that Ms Rees had always believed Letby was innocent, to the point that she never even asked Letby if she had done it because she was so sure.
The interview comes as Letby’s legal team has applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission for the case to be reviewed as a potential miscarriage of justice.
Read more about the Letby case
