Former health secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt has called for an “urgent re-examination” of the Lucy Letby case, just months after stating that her crimes happened on his watch.
The Conservative MP claimed that there were “serious and credible questions” about the evidence that convicted the former neonatal nurse.
“Justice must be done and seen to be done”
Jeremy Hunt
Letby is currently serving multiple life sentences for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others while working as a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit between 2015 and 2016.
After several unsuccessful appeal attempts, her legal team has asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to review her case and send it back to the Court of Appeal for reconsideration.
The CCRC is currently considering evidence presented by Letby’s legal team, including a report by a panel of 14 international paediatric and neonatal experts that claimed there was “no medical evidence to support malfeasance” in any of the cases heard at Letby’s trial.
Sir Jeremy last year told the Thirlwall Inquiry – which has been examining the events at the Countess of Chester Hospital – that the murders “happened on my watch” and apologised directly to families of the victims.
Writing in the Daily Mail newspaper on Wednesday, the former health secretary said he was “not arguing that Letby is innocent”, as it was not his place, but that he believed the affected families “deserve the truth”.
He said: “Recently some [people] have begun to cast doubt on what actually happened.
“Were those tragic deaths caused by an evil woman or were they the result of medical error?
“As someone who has campaigned for more than a decade to reduce avoidable death, that matters to me.”
Sir Jeremy said the report by the panel of international experts “raises serious and credible questions about the evidence presented in court, the robustness of expert testimony and the interpretation of statistical data”.
He added that this was why he and other parliamentary colleagues believed “the time has come for these concerns to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
It follows calls by Conservative MP Sir David Davis for a retrial of Letby and, more recently, he urged Cheshire police to open a formal perjury investigation into the testimony of a consultant whose evidence helped convict Letby.
Despite the former neonatal nurse’s case being reviewed by the CCRC, Sir Jeremy warned that the body was “hopelessly dysfunctional”.
He cited several examples of individuals who were found to have been wrongfully convicted, but delays by the body had left individuals waiting years until they were acquitted.
Sir Jeremy said: “Justice must be done and seen to be done. And that means the CCRC has to speed up their normally painfully slow process.
“None of this should diminish the compassion we owe the families who have already suffered so much.
“Re-examination of the evidence is not a denial of their pain. But it will ensure that all of us can have confidence that the truth has been reached through a rigorous and fair process.
“And if medical error was the cause, we can then make sure no more babies die from the same mistakes.”
Nursing Times approached the CCRC for a response to Sir Jeremy’s article, but it declined to comment.
Criticism of the Letby case has ramped up in recent months.
Nurses were among 400 healthcare workers who last month called for a review of her convictions, in an open letter sent to health unions.
Meanwhile, a former top nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital declared in February that she believed Letby was innocent.
Last week, a different former nurse from the hospital told Nursing Times that problems at the hospital’s neonatal unit began before Letby’s time, creating a perfect storm for care failings.
Cheshire Constabulary continues to review deaths and collapses of babies at the neonatal units of the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women’s Hospital between 2012 and 2016, when Letby worked as a nurse or student nurse.
A separate investigation into corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter by the Countess of Chester Hospital is ongoing.
