Sensemaker Daily
Public hearings at the Thirlwall Inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester Hospital (COCH) where Lucy Letby killed seven babies and attempted to murder seven others get underway today.
So what? No major public inquiry in the UK has begun with more people wondering if it was asking the right questions. A growing body of opinion has started to argue that the proper line of inquiry is not how a serial killer got away with murder in a hospital but whether or not Lucy Letby is guilty.
Just checking. A recently released letter signed by 24 concerned experts – mostly doctors and statisticians – criticised the conduct of the Letby trial but insisted its aim wasn’t to relitigate the case. It asked instead
- for the start of the Thirlwall Inquiry to be delayed “to allow for further investigation”; and
- for the inquiry’s terms of reference to be changed so it could look at why babies died at the COCH “without the presumption of criminal intent”.
Despite the authors’ protestations, it sounded suspiciously like a demand to re-examine a case which has already been exhaustively litigated.
- Lucy Letby’s trial lasted 10 months, one of the longest ever to take place in England.
- After the conclusion of her trial, Letby applied to a single judge for leave to appeal. She was turned down.
- In April this year she renewed her application in front of a full Court of Appeal with a three-person panel of notably senior judges. After a hearing which lasted three days (few Court of Appeal cases last so long) Letby was again turned down.
- Last week, she changed her legal team. Her defence at her original trial was criticised for not calling any expert witnesses to rebut the evidence put forward by the six that the prosecution called.
- But the fact that she stuck with the same team through the two stages of her appeal will be read as evidence that she was happy with the way her case was handled, and the courts will set a very high bar if Letby now tries to argue the opposite.
Case more or less closed. The comprehensive nature of the Court of Appeal’s ruling means Letby has run out of legal road. The Supreme Court is not an option; her only hope rests with the Criminal Cases Review Commission. That, too, is unlikely to rush to get involved after such a definitive appeal court judgement. The assumption is that it would take dramatic new evidence to emerge to provoke a change of heart at the CCRC.
Lessons. After a relatively fast and multi-layered consideration of the case by the appeals process the judicial system will be interested in the lessons it might learn to maintain confidence in high-profile cases like Letby’s in the future. The trial had some features which left it open to disquiet.
- Letby was convicted on circumstantial evidence which, more than hard, direct evidence, left room for conspiracy theories to take root. They did.
- Campaigners were able to point to a troubling history of miscarriages of justice involving mothers and nurses.
- News organisations invested heavily in the story in ways that have tended to polarise coverage. The Daily Mail built a small podcast empire around coverage of the Letby trial and other newspapers have taken positions which seem driven in part by competitive and commercial instincts.
For now, the opening of the Thirlwall Inquiry is likely to be the high-water mark of concern about the verdict in Letby’s case. It’s safe to predict the inquiry’s remit won’t change, absent startling new information.
What’s more… The troubling testimony it’s bound to hear will probably shift public concern towards parents who’ve lost children and away from whether Letby has been fairly treated.
Further listening – Lucy Letby: the Expert Witness
