QUOTE OF THE DAY: "He earlier stated: “There was no hard evidence against Letby, nobody saw her do anything untoward. The doctor’s gut feeling was based on a coincidence – she was on shift for a number of deaths, and this is important, although far from all of them, far from all of them. “It was built on a poor understanding of probabilities, which could translate later into an influential but spectacularly flawed piece of evidence.” Sir David said Letby’s case “horrified the nation” and that it “seemed clear a nurse had turned into a serial killer”. He continued: “Now I initially accepted the tabloid characterisation of Letby as an evil monster, but then I was approached by many experts, leading statisticians, neonatal specialists, forensic scientists, legal experts and those who had served at Chester Hospital who were afraid to come forward.” These experts convinced Sir David that “false analyses and diagnoses” had been used to “persuade a lay jury” to find Letby guilty.
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PASSAGE TWO OFTHE DAY: "He (Sir David) compared Letby to other famous miscarriages of justice including the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Stockwell Six. He added: “These people were all exonerated, after those who doubted their guilt, who initially met the same fierce public pushback now facing those who questioned Letby’s guilt.”
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STORY: "Lucy Letby retrial needed as no ‘hard evidence’ implicates serial killer nurse, senior Tory claims," by Reporter Claudia Sauvage, published by The Independent, on January 8, 2025. (Claudia Savage is an Ireland reporter for PA based in Belfast, reporting on general news and politics. She joined PA in 2023 after completing her NCTJ at News Associates in Manchester.):
SUB-HEADING: "Sir David Davis said there was no ‘hard evidence’ implicating Letby and the case against her was ‘built on a poor understanding of probabilities’".
GIST: Conservative former minister Sir David Davis has called for a retrial for child serial killer Lucy Letby and said he believes it will “clear” the former nurse.
He told MPs: “If, as I believe it will, a retrial clears Lucy Letby she shall be released in her 30s, not in her 50s.”
Letby, 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.
Lawyers for Letby last month said they would make a fresh bid to challenge her convictions on the grounds that the lead prosecution medical expert at her trial was “not reliable”.
During an adjournment debate in the Commons, Sir David told MPs: “There is case in justice, in my view, for a retrial. But there is a problem. One of the problems we face is that much of the evidence was available at the time.
“What I have described is an expert analysis of the case notes, which were there at the time, but it was simply not presented to the jury.
“This means the Court of Appeal can dismiss it, basically saying the defence should have presented it at the initial trial.
“It is in essence saying, ‘if your defence team weren’t good enough to present this evidence, hard luck you stay banged up for life’. Now that may be judicially convenient, but it’s not justice.”
He earlier stated: “There was no hard evidence against Letby, nobody saw her do anything untoward. The doctor’s gut feeling was based on a coincidence – she was on shift for a number of deaths, and this is important, although far from all of them, far from all of them.
“It was built on a poor understanding of probabilities, which could translate later into an influential but spectacularly flawed piece of evidence.”
Sir David said Letby’s case “horrified the nation” and that it “seemed clear a nurse had turned into a serial killer”.
He continued: “Now I initially accepted the tabloid characterisation of Letby as an evil monster, but then I was approached by many experts, leading statisticians, neonatal specialists, forensic scientists, legal experts and those who had served at Chester Hospital who were afraid to come forward.”
These experts convinced Sir David that “false analyses and diagnoses” had been used to “persuade a lay jury” to find Letby guilty.
He compared Letby to other famous miscarriages of justice including the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Stockwell Six.
He added: “These people were all exonerated, after those who doubted their guilt, who initially met the same fierce public pushback now facing those who questioned Letby’s guilt.”
MPs heard a range of factors relating to the death of babies in Letby’s case that was not presented to the jury at her trial, including an outbreak of the antibiotic resistant pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria in Chester Hospital and “suboptimal” care of two of the infants.
Sir David also asserted that an expert witness, Dr Dewi Evans, had changed his mind over the mechanism of death involving three of Letby’s murder victims, something Dr Evans has denied.
Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones said it is “an important principle of the rule of law that the Government does not interfere with judicial decisions”.
She added: “It is not appropriate for me or the Government to comment on judicial processes nor the reliability of convictions or evidence.”
Ms Davies-Jones later told the Commons that Letby could apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission if she believed she had been wrongly convicted."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
