


It increasingly looks as if Lucy Letby’s conviction was unsafe
The case of a nurse jailed for killing babies exposes deep problems with British justice
IS LUCY LETBY guilty? The question has persisted since August 2023, when a jury found the nurse had murdered seven babies and tried to kill six others at the Countess of Chester hospital in north-west England. In the eyes of the state, for a long time any doubt over the conviction amounted to nothing more than a false conspiracy theory. Ms Letby has had two appeals rejected; in July 2024, in a retrial preceded by nine months of reporting restrictions, a second jury found her guilty of another count of attempted murder. An ongoing public inquiry is predicated on her guilt. Its chair, Lady Justice Thirlwall, dismissed the speculation about the case as “noise”.
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