‘There was no murder’: British nurse Lucy Letby wrongly convicted, says Canadian doctor

Canadian doctors are leading a group of international medical experts who believe that Britain’s most prolific child killer of modern times may have been wrongly convicted. 

Lucy Letby, the former neonatal nurse, was found guilty in two trials, in 2023 and 2024, of murdering seven premature infants and attempting to murder seven others. The deaths all happened between 2015 and 2016 at the Countess of Chester hospital in northwestern England, where she worked. 

The prosecution argued that Letby had deliberately injected the vulnerable infants — some just days old — with air, poisoned them with insulin or overfed them with milk. 

Letby, then in her early 30s, was sentenced to 15 whole life terms, meaning she will never be paroled. Appeals against her conviction have been dismissed. 

British newspaper headlines described her as “Britain’s worst child serial killer” and “a cold, calculating killer.” The case was closed.

But Dr. Shoo Lee, the retired head of the neonatology department at the University of Toronto, believes Letby may have been wrongly convicted, and presented those findings at a news conference in London on Tuesday.

Lee, who is president of the Canadian Neonatal Foundation, put together a panel to examine the medical evidence presented in the case, after wider doubts were raised about the prosecution.

“As a panel, we came to the conclusion that there was no murder,” he told CBC News in an interview shortly after the news conference.

‘I don’t usually do medical cases’

Lee was first approached about the case by Letby’s defence team in October 2023, while he was on his family farm near Edmonton.

“I got this email from some lawyers in the U.K. asking if I would look at a case,” Lee said. “I was busy with harvesting, so I just ignored it.”

The prosecution in the Letby case had argued that the nurse had injected air into the baby’s veins, and leaned heavily on medical evidence after hospital staff reported skin discoloration on some of the babies who had died. 

They argued their case using a 1989 research paper on air embolism that Lee had co-authored.

“I don’t usually do medical legal cases,” he said. “I don’t enjoy them, so I don’t do them.” 

But in this particular case, “because they used my paper to convict her, I was curious as to what they said and what they did.”

What he found, Lee says, was wrong. “What they said and interpreted to use to convict her wasn’t what I said in the paper.” 

The prosecution highlighted various skin discolorations found in the dead babies. Lee told the news conference he had recently updated his paper and found no cases of skin discoloration linked to air embolism by the venous system, adding: “So let’s do away with that theory.”

He tried to submit his evidence at Letby’s appeal court hearing in April 2024, but it was disallowed.

“The judge said that the defence had the opportunity to call me during the original trial, and they didn’t,” he explained.

Why he wasn’t called only Letby’s legal team knows.

Panel came to unanimous conclusion

Lee put together a 14-person team — what he called “an international expert panel of the top people in the world in neonatology” — to scrutinize the evidence. 

The panel consisted of six Canadians, while the others were from the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany and Sweden. 

Working for free, Lee said they aimed to “give an opinion about whether or not, in fact, the evidence that was used to convict [Letby] was correct. And what were the causes of death or injury.”

Their conclusion was unanimous. 

“These babies died either of natural causes or poor medical care. That was what happened,” Lee told CBC News. 

Sitting alongside a British MP, Letby’s lawyer and a former head of the British Royal College of Pediatrics at the London news conference, Lee went through the findings. (None of the babies involved can be identified under British law.) 

For example: Baby 1, he said, died of a clot in blood, not air. Baby 4 was sepsis and pneumonia, not murder. Baby 9 suffered from poor care and death was preventable. 

“If this happened at a hospital in Canada, we would close it down,” Lee told CBC News. 

Jurors also heard non-medical evidence

The Letby case has fuelled a slew of conspiracy and alternative theories, not least on social media. 

But Lee is not concerned about putting his name to the panel’s findings. 

“I already have a good reputation,” he said. “Everybody knows my work, and I am confident of my own work. On top of that, there are 14 experts — 13 others along with me — who are saying the same thing.”

Jurors at Letby’s two trials were given more than just medical evidence to consider.

During the first 10-month-long trial, the prosecution drew on accounts from doctors and nurses. The jury also had access to tens of thousands of pages of medical notes, text and social media messages with colleagues and hospital swipe card data. 

The prosecution also presented handwritten notes found at Letby’s home. They included phrases such as “I killed them” and “I am evil,” but also words like “despair,” “hate my life” and “Why me?” 

The notes were presented like a confession — something Letby has never done. Post-conviction, some criminology experts have claimed the notes were meaningless and possibly written as part of therapy.

Critics of the prosecution maintain no apparent motive or psychological background matching that of a serial killer was ever presented. But the prosecution said Letby was on shift when the deaths occurred, even when she moved from overnight to day work.  

Police are currently examining the care of some 4,000 other babies admitted to hospitals where Letby worked as a neonatal nurse.

A public inquiry is also underway, examining the deaths at the Countess of Chester hospital near Manchester, including hearing the experiences of the bereaved families. 

‘What is she doing in jail?’

The mother of a baby Letby was convicted of attempting to murder told British media, “We’ve had the truth. We believe in the British justice system. We believe the jury made the right decision.” 

But Dr. Lee is confident of his panel’s findings. 

“I know Canadians have a sense of fair play, and Canadians have a sense of right and wrong,” he said. “If there was no murder, there cannot be a murderer. So what is she doing in jail?”

He said “this case needs to be reviewed and they need to have a retrial.”

Letby’s only remaining chance of avoiding a life behind bars now lies with the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission. It has the power to investigate cases where people believe they have been wrongly convicted or sentenced and send it back to court as a potential miscarriage of justice.

Letby’s lawyer is urging the commission to review the case, based on Lee’s findings.

The commission confirmed this week that it has received an application from her lawyers, which will be assessed.