Neonatal Nurse Lucy Letby: U.K. The Guardian's Lucy Mangan wades into ITV's "Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, nothing that the documentary sets itself the formidable task of forcing passion and sentiment aside and unpacking the science and statistics around the most contended pieces of evidence so that, perhaps, facts – buried, missed, distorted or otherwise – can be examined by a newly informed mass audience.

PASSAGE OF THE  DAY: "The makers do not dwell on why Letby’s team put forward such a minimal defence, though I’m sure further and broader analyses will come in time, probably encompassing such factors as the trust we place in ministering angels and the fury we feel when it appears to have been betrayed, as well as the general public’s relative ignorance of science and how to compute data.  But, by the end of this considered, brilliantly cogent hour you cannot help but feel that at the very least Letby’s conviction is unsafe."

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STORY: "Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? review – one of the most meticulous documentaries in years," by  Lucy Mangan, published by The Guardian, one August 3, 2025.  (Lucy Mangan is the Guardian TV critic and author of Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives.)

SUB-HEADING: "The science and statistics around Letby’s case are brilliantly unpacked by this considered programme. By its end, you are filled with questions,"

GIST: "When three times more babies than expected die on a neonatal ward and one nurse is on duty during those deaths, it’s got to be pretty much an open-and-shut case, hasn’t it? 

Especially when breathing tubes have been clearly deliberately dislodged by someone from their tiny bodies and blood tests show spikes in insulin that can only be explained by the stuff being injected. 

And if you find someone who has written notes to herself about her guilt, then the way forward is clear. Lock the perpetrator up. Throw away the key.

Such was the initial and still persisting narrative in the case of Lucy Letby, the neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester hospital in Cheshire who became, in tabloid parlance, “Britain’s worst child serial killer”, when she was convicted in 2023 of seven murders and seven attempted murders of the infants in her care.

Since then, there has been growing disquiet about the quality of the evidence against her and the reliability of her conviction.

 Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt sets itself the formidable task of forcing passion and sentiment aside and unpacking the science and statistics around the most contended pieces of evidence so that, perhaps, facts – buried, missed, distorted or otherwise – can be examined by a newly informed mass audience.

In its marshalling and explanation of complicated medical and mathematical issues, it succeeds brilliantly, covering more ground more meticulously in an hour than any documentary I’ve seen in recent years, and perhaps ever. 

It also – and this is possibly an even greater and more precious rarity – trusts its audience emotionally. 

It acknowledges but does not linger on the terrible suffering of the bereaved parents.

 If you cannot see that we all appreciate that it was and remains fathomless, the makers’ message seems to be that the fault lies with you and we will carry on with our stated objective meantime.

 It’s a confidence that I wish all documentaries could show.

Via a proliferating army of world experts on an array of issues brought up by the case, the alternative narrative is carefully put together. 

First there are questions asked and answered. 

Why was there a spike in mortality rates around the time Letby arrived? 

It is argued that she arrived at a time when the hospital was suddenly required to take in much sicker babies than it had before, babies it was hardly equipped to cope with. 

How do we explain that Letby was on duty every time a baby died or collapsed? 

The claim is made that she wasn’t – that the infamous shift chart that the prosecution used did not explain how its data was compiled and in fact showed only the fatalities and deteriorations during which she was present.

 If you compile a chart showing the proportion of all those that occurred on the ward during her period of employment, the correlation – and damnation – disappears.

What, then, of the dislodged tubes?

 As a witness for the prosecution, paediatric doctor Ravi Jayaram asserted that infants that age could not dislodge them themselves. 

This is simply not true, say experts including Dr Richard Taylor, a specialist in neonatal care with 30 years’ experience. “We’ve all seen it.” 

We hear that, on the stand, Dr Jayaram also stated that he saw Letby standing by doing nothing and raising no alarm as one baby’s oxygen levels dropped dangerously. 

However, we’re told that an email he wrote, which has been discovered since, suggests that he was present precisely because she had called him.

On we are taken, step by step, through alternative explanations for the insulin results, the Post-it notes on which Letby apparently confessed her guilt, and the rest of the circumstantial evidence amassed by the prosecution. 

Just one witness was called in Letby’s defence at trial – a hospital plumber, to testify to sewage issues and therefore possible hygiene problems on the ward. 

We also hear that the prosecution’s main witness, Dr Dewi Evans, has since changed his mind on how one of the babies Letby was convicted of killing died. 

And we are invited to consider how all of this should be weighted against Letby’s apparent lack of motive and, more implicitly, the extreme rarity of young, female serial killers of children.

The makers do not dwell on why Letby’s team put forward such a minimal defence, though I’m sure further and broader analyses will come in time, probably encompassing such factors as the trust we place in ministering angels and the fury we feel when it appears to have been betrayed, as well as the general public’s relative ignorance of science and how to compute data. 

But, by the end of this considered, brilliantly cogent hour you cannot help but feel that at the very least Letby’s conviction is unsafe.

 The final scenes are of her (new) lawyer Mark McDonald delivering an application to have her case re-examined to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. 

But this can only be granted if new evidence has come to light – and, technically, everything he has submitted was available to her original defence at the time. The question of what constitutes justice continues.""

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/aug/03/lucy-letby-beyond-reasonable-doubt-review-documentary-itv1-itvx

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;

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Justin Wolfe: Virginia. Major (Welcome) Development: (Hired killer case): Incentivized police witness; Enough too make one weep incentivized! HL); Justin Wolfe spent the past 24 years in prison, 13 of them on death row for a crime he always said he didn't do, and now, three judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit say his prosecution was biased, vengeful and tainted with misconduct,Bonnie Hobbs reports for Center View, in a story headed, 'Pathway to Freedom for Justin Wolfe? After decades of ‘vindictive prosecution,’ court orders new hearing," noting that: "The 1995 Supreme Court decision in Schlup v. Delo made it possible for convicted prisoners to have their cases reheard if they later allege an adequate claim of real innocence. Wolfe had been convicted of hiring Owen Barber to kill Centreville’s Danny Petrole in 2001 (see background sidebar). From the start, Barber – who indeed killed Petrole – was threatened with the death penalty by police and prosecutors in Prince William County, where the murder occurred, if he didn’t say Wolfe hired him. And at Wolfe’s 2002 trial, Barber testified accordingly. Then during a 2010 hearing in federal court in Norfolk, Barber recanted that testimony under oath. Yet, again coerced prior to Wolfe’s 2016 retrial, Barber agreed to plead the Fifth. Then in 2023, he wrote a statement saying Wolfe had nothing to do with Petrole’s murder. Now, the Fourth Circuit has ruled that Barber’s latest declaration “constitutes new evidence because it rendered Barber available” to Wolfe as a witness who could testify to Wolfe’s innocence, “when Barber had previously been unavailable, pursuant to his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege."

PASSAGE OF THE  DAY: "According to Barber’s affidavit, wrote Thacker, “The officers who initially interviewed Barber [after his arrest] threatened him with the death penalty if he didn’t cooperate in [Wolfe’s] prosecution. Per Barber, ‘On the flight back to Virginia from California, the officers accompanying Barber told [him] they already knew [Wolfe] had hired [Barber] to kill Petrole and that one of [them] would tell the story and the other would end up with capital murder.’  “[Then] in jail, Det. Sam Newsome and Det. Brenda Walburn repeatedly told [Barber] they and the prosecutors had linked [his] gun to the killing and would pursue capital murder against either [Wolfe] or [him]. According to Barber, they were entirely focused on [Wolfe] as a suspect. And Barber’s attorney warned him, if he didn’t implicate [Wolfe], prosecutors would [make sure Barber received] the death penalty.” Barber said he testified against Wolfe because the officers had had ‘made it clear it was either do this or die,’” wrote Thacker. “Accordingly, he ‘made up a story with lies woven in [about] a murder for hire [because it was what] the prosecutors wanted to hear.’” In his affidavit, Barber said he was now telling the truth because Wolfe “did not deserve to die for something he did not do.”

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STORY: "Pathway to Freedom for Justin Wolfe? After decades of ‘vindictive prosecution,’ court orders new hearing,"  by  Reporter Bonnie Hobbs, published by Center View, on July 16, 2025. (With more than 25 years experience in journalism, she has  written and edited newspapers in California, North Carolina and Virginia. In California, and worked for a weekly paper in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is from originally.

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SUB-HEADING: “Twenty-four years ago, the Commonwealth decided [Wolfe] was a guilty man. From that moment, [it’s] done everything in its power to ensure [he] dies in prison.” 

— U.S. Circuit Court Judge Stephanie Thacker

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GIST: "Chantilly High grad Justin Wolfe has spent the past 24 years in prison – 13 of them on death row – for a crime he always said he didn’t do. Now, three judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit say his prosecution was biased, vengeful and tainted with misconduct.

Toward that end, they’ve vacated a lower court’s denial of Wolfe’s most recent legal challenge to his imprisonment and ordered he receive a new hearing based on his claims of innocence. The July 7 decision came from Judges Robert King, Stephanie Thacker and Nicole Berner, with Thacker writing the opinion.

“The facts of this case span decades and deal with conduct by the Commonwealth of Virginia that we and lower courts have recognized as ‘abhorrent to the judicial process,’” wrote Thacker. “Twenty-four years ago, the Commonwealth decided [Wolfe] was a guilty man. From that moment, [it’s] done everything in its power to ensure [he] dies in prison, eschewing the Constitution, ethical strictures and [Wolfe’s] own repeated and consistent assertions of actual innocence.”

In May, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied Wolfe’s petition for a “writ of habeas corpus” challenging the validity of his conviction and stating that his detention was unlawful. It declared he hadn’t provided “new, reliable evidence” in support of his Schlup claim of actual innocence. But, wrote Thacker, “We conclude otherwise.”

The 1995 Supreme Court decision in Schlup v. Delo made it possible for convicted prisoners to have their cases reheard if they later allege an adequate claim of real innocence. Wolfe had been convicted of hiring Owen Barber to kill Centreville’s Danny Petrole in 2001 (see background sidebar).  

From the start, Barber – who indeed killed Petrole – was threatened with the death penalty by police and prosecutors in Prince William County, where the murder occurred, if he didn’t say Wolfe hired him. And at Wolfe’s 2002 trial, Barber testified accordingly.

Then during a 2010 hearing in federal court in Norfolk, Barber recanted that testimony under oath. Yet, again coerced prior to Wolfe’s 2016 retrial, Barber agreed to plead the Fifth. Then in 2023, he wrote a statement saying Wolfe had nothing to do with Petrole’s murder.

Now, the Fourth Circuit has ruled that Barber’s latest declaration “constitutes new evidence because it rendered Barber available” to Wolfe as a witness who could testify to Wolfe’s innocence, “when Barber had previously been unavailable, pursuant to his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege.

“And Barber's declaration is reliable evidence because it was consistent with Barber’s prior credible testimony [exonerating Wolfe]. Therefore, as detailed below, we vacate the district court’s judgment and remand for adjudication of [Wolfe’s] substantive claims.”

Presenting the background of Wolfe’s case, Thacker said a January 2002 jury convicted him of murder for hire, dealing drugs and using a firearm. Wolfe was sentenced to death, plus 33 years in prison. That July, he requested a stay of execution and, that November, he filed a habeas petition. He then obtained an affidavit from Barber repudiating his trial testimony and exonerating Wolfe from the murder-for-hire scheme.

Wolfe also secured affidavits from two of Barber’s former roommates. Centreville’s Jason Coleman stated he’d “told prosecutors Barber had confessed to [him] that [he’d] acted alone in Petrole’s murder,” wrote Thacker. And a former cellmate, Carl Huff, stated that Barber “had admitted [to him] that [Wolfe] was in no way involved in Petrole’s shooting and that Barber had testified falsely at [Wolfe’s] trial.”

According to Barber’s affidavit, wrote Thacker, “The officers who initially interviewed Barber [after his arrest] threatened him with the death penalty if he didn’t cooperate in [Wolfe’s] prosecution. Per Barber, ‘On the flight back to Virginia from California, the officers accompanying Barber told [him] they already knew [Wolfe] had hired [Barber] to kill Petrole and that one of [them] would tell the story and the other would end up with capital murder.’ 

“[Then] in jail, Det. Sam Newsome and Det. Brenda Walburn repeatedly told [Barber] they and the prosecutors had linked [his] gun to the killing and would pursue capital murder against either [Wolfe] or [him]. According to Barber, they were entirely focused on [Wolfe] as a suspect. And Barber’s attorney warned him, if he didn’t implicate [Wolfe], prosecutors would [make sure Barber received] the death penalty.”

Barber said he testified against Wolfe because the officers had had ‘made it clear it was either do this or die,’” wrote Thacker. “Accordingly, he ‘made up a story with lies woven in [about] a murder for hire [because it was what] the prosecutors wanted to hear.’” In his affidavit, Barber said he was now telling the truth because Wolfe “did not deserve to die for something he did not do.”

Based on these affidavits, in December 2005, Wolfe made a Schlup claim of innocence. And he contended that the commonwealth also colluded with another witness, J.R. Matin, to present false evidence to the jury. 

Thacker explained that Martin was a close friend of Barber and “provided him with a car to use on the night of [Petrole’s] murder. At [Wolfe’s] trial, Martin corroborated Barber's testimony that Barber and [Wolfe] had private conversations before and after the murder. Martin also said it was ‘obvious’ that [Barber] killed Petrole at [Wolfe’s] instruction.”

But, wrote Thacker, “The commonwealth had coordinated Martin’s testimony in a joint meeting with Barber, Martin and the prosecutors, without disclosing that meeting to [Wolfe’s] trial counsel. Further, [his] counsel was unable to effectively impeach Martin’s testimony [at trial] because the [commonwealth] withheld an off-the-record agreement not to prosecute Martin [for his involvement in Petrole's murder] if he cooperated with the commonwealth.”

Still, in February 2008, the district court dismissed Wolfe’s petition. He appealed that decision, and the Fourth Circuit Court vacated that court’s judgment for failing to consider Wolfe’s claim of innocence. It also instructed the district court to determine whether Wolfe was entitled to an evidentiary hearing and other evidentiary discovery.

That led to the commonwealth producing “a plethora of previously undisclosed material evidence,” wrote Thacker. “It included the fact that Barber possessed [his own] potential motives for murdering Petrole, plus evidence which could have allowed Wolfe to present possible alternate motives for Petrole’s murder [by others. For example], reports and witness statements relating to a parallel drug investigation indicating conflict in Petrole’s drug business, evidence that Petrole was rumored to be a government informant, and the statements of three witnesses that they saw a second car at the crime scene shortly after [the shooting].” 

“This listing represents only a snapshot of the commonwealth's decades long misconduct in its prosecution of [Wolfe],” continued Thacker. “The court subsequently held an evidentiary hearing, wherein Barber credibly recanted his trial testimony and indicated that [Wolfe] wasn’t involved in Petrole’s murder. On Sept. 7, 2012, the court then ordered the commonwealth to retry him within 120 days or release him unconditionally.”

However, wrote Thacker, “Incredibly, just four days later, on Sept. 11, Det. Newsome and [Prince William] prosecutors Richard Conway and Paul Ebert

visited Barber in prison,” and again threatened him with the death penalty if he changed his original testimony in a new trial and said Wolfe was innocent. “Ebert directly threatened Barber, ‘We would bring the charge against you, capital murder.’” Accordingly, Barber’s attorney advised him to plead the Fifth, thus rendering him useless to Wolfe’s defense.

Conway and Ebert then recused themselves from the case, and Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh prosecuted Wolfe in Prince William as relentlessly as his predecessors. He levied additional charges against Wolfe, including felony murder and engaging in a continuous criminal enterprise. And once again, Wolfe faced the death penalty – all the while proclaiming his innocence. 

However, justice moved slowly. With a slew of pre-trial motions, several changes in defense attorneys and a failed attempt at a Supreme Court hearing, the case dragged on for years with no end in sight – until, on March 19, 2016, Wolfe wrote a letter seemingly “confessing” to the murder for hire. 

His attorneys made a plea deal with the prosecution, taking the death penalty off the table. Wolfe then pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. And that July 20, he was sentenced to 41 years in prison. But his friends and relatives always maintained that, after all his legal setbacks, he only wrote that letter so he’d someday be released from prison.

Then on April 12, 2023, Barber signed a new declaration stating Wolfe had nothing to do with Petrole’s murder. He said he knew his statement wouldn’t benefit him in any way, but that Wolfe had “served a lot of time for a crime he did not commit” and if he’d been able to freely testify in Wolfe’s favor at his retrial, he would have.

Wolfe again legally asserted a claim of innocence, but the district court rejected it, considering Barber unreliable and saying his statement didn’t contain new information about Petrole’s murder. However, Thacker disagreed, explaining that it “converted Barber from a [previously] unavailable witness” who’d invoked the Fifth Amendment, into one who was now willing to declare Wolfe innocent.

“[Barber] is an imprisoned man who has struggled for decades between telling the truth and preserving his own life,” wrote Thacker. “We cannot condone the commonwealth’s conduct in creating this dichotomy. We must take [its] coercive acts, which were abhorrent to the judicial process, into account when considering Barber’s reliability.”

Thacker further noted the commonwealth’s “vindictive prosecution” during Wolfe’s re-trial, with six new charges, plus capital murder, and Newsome, Conway, and Ebert’s threats to Barber that effectively silenced him from testifying to Wolfe’s innocence. If all these things had been brought to light, said Thacker, “No reasonable juror would have found [Wolfe] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

“For the foregoing reasons, we hold that Appellant (Wolfe) has alleged a meritorious Schlup claim for actual innocence. Therefore, we vacate the district court’s judgment and remand for adjudication of Appellant’s substantive claims.” This decision now paves the way for either Wolfe’s retrial or his release from prison.

“We’re profoundly grateful for this important ruling in Justin’s case, which recognizes what we’ve known all along – Justin is innocent,” said Wolfe’s mother, Terri Steinberg. “We’re hopeful and cautiously optimistic that Justin is one step closer to finally coming home to us.”

Meanwhile, in a Facebook post, family friend Bob Lessemun placed the blame for Wolfe’s long incarceration squarely on those who colluded against him. “Shame on those prosecutors for their deal making and their suppressing the evidence,” he said. “It’s time for the truth to be told.::

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.centre-view.com/news/2025/jul/16/pathway-to-freedom-for-justin-wolfe/

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

———————————————————————————————

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;

—————————————————————————————————

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;

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