UK Police Defend Inquiry into Baby Killer Lucy Letby
LONDON (Reuters) - British police on Thursday hit out at "ill-informed" criticism of the investigation and prosecution of nurse Lucy Letby whose conviction for murdering seven babies in her care has provoked global scrutiny.
Letby was jailed in 2023 for the remainder of her life after being found guilty of murdering the newborns and attempting to murder eight more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England.
Letby, 35, Britain's worst serial child killer of modern times, has maintained her innocence throughout but has been refused permission to appeal against her convictions.
On Thursday, her lawyer Mark McDonald handed over two reports by leading international medical specialists to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which considers possible miscarriages of justice, that he said undermined the case against her.
In response, Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, the officer in charge, said the police investigation, which had taken into account the views of multiple medical experts, had been like "no other in scope, complexity and magnitude".
"The investigation into the actions of Lucy Letby, the trial process and medical experts continues to face scrutiny and criticism, much of it ill-informed and based on a very partial knowledge of the facts and totality of evidence presented at court and at the Court of Appeal," Hughes said in a statement.
"This case has been rigorously and fairly tested through two juries and subsequently scrutinised by two sets of appeal court judges."
McDonald has said the new evidence he is handing to the CCRC showed Letby's convictions were no longer safe, with one group of neonatal experts concluding no babies had been murdered.
The CCRC has said it is assessing Letby's application but has not given a timeframe for any decision.
Police are still investigating Letby and hospital managers, while the head of a public inquiry into the deaths has also rejected calls for her investigation to be paused.
Hughes said the police would not get drawn into the "widespread commentary" online and in the media, out of respect for the families of the children.
(Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Ed Osmond)
