Lucy Letby changes legal team and plans fresh appeal

Lucy Letby has replaced her legal team and is planning a fresh appeal, her new barrister Mark McDonald has told the BBC’s File on 4.

Letby, a former neonatal nurse, is one of the UK’s most notorious modern serial killers.

She was convicted in two separate trials of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others who were under her care at the Countess of Cheshire Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.

At the end of her first trial, Letby was sentenced to multiple whole-life terms, meaning she will spend the rest of her life in prison.

Two separate applications from Letby to appeal against her convictions have been denied.

But Mr McDonald said he plans to take her case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), to apply for it to be sent back to the Court of Appeal.

“I knew almost from the start, following this trial, that there is a strong case that she is innocent,” he said.

“The fact is juries get it wrong. And yes, so do the Court of Appeal, history teaches us that.”

An inquiry into the Countess of Chester Hospital, as well as into the NHS’s handling of the case, is due to begin on 10 September.

Last week, a group of experts, including neonatologists and statisticians, sent a private letter to the government asking that they either postpone or change the terms of the inquiry.

In the letter, they said they had concerns about the way statistics and the science around newborn babies were presented to the jury at Letby’s first trial.

“While we acknowledge the gravity of the convictions against Ms Letby, our focus is on the broader implications for patient safety, healthcare management, and the potential for miscarriages of justice in complex medical cases,” the letter said.

It added that “our goal is not to relitigate the Letby case, but to ensure that the [inquiry] is positioned to conduct the most thorough and beneficial investigation possible for the future of neonatal care in the UK”.

Mark McDonald also represents Benjamin Geen, a nurse who was jailed for life in 2006 for murdering two of his patients and poisoning 15 others.

Geen’s application to appeal against his convictions was denied by the Court of Appeal in 2009.

The CCRC then denied two applications in 2013 and 2015 to send Geen’s case back to the Court of Appeal.