Serious questions are continuing to mount over the handling of the Lucy Letby case, as critics argue that the British justice system has allowed a deeply troubling situation to drag on for far too long. For those who believe her conviction is unsafe, the sense of unease has only intensified as fresh scrutiny chips away at key parts of the case presented against her.
In recent months, experts seen as more compelling than some of the witnesses who helped secure her conviction have challenged major elements of the prosecution’s argument. That growing criticism has added to concerns about whether the evidence heard by the jury gave a full and fair picture.
Among the most striking developments is the emergence of questions over a witness who had once appeared confident in the case against Letby, but is said to have given a notably different account elsewhere. At the same time, further attention has focused on Letby’s earlier success in overturning accusations against her through a grievance process, the details of which have now entered wider public view.
That grievance outcome remains a particularly contentious issue. Critics say it is still astonishing that the jury which convicted Letby was never told about it, and that this omission resulted from a deliberate ruling by the trial judge. To some observers, that decision alone appears significant enough to justify an appeal, despite Letby having twice been refused permission to pursue one.
Frustration is also growing among international medical experts who have publicly challenged the prosecution’s conclusions. One of the most prominent is Dr Shoo Lee, the Canadian physician whose sharply detailed report in February 2025 delivered a forceful critique of the medical case used against Letby.
Dr Lee’s impatience is perhaps unsurprising. It has now been 16 months since he and a panel of widely respected specialists published findings stating that there was no medical evidence to support claims that Letby had deliberately injured or murdered babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The group said it worked independently and without payment, not even claiming expenses.
Dr Lee bitingly remarked that, if the hospital had been in his home country, Canada, it would have been closed down.
Now, as The Mail on Sunday reports today, this gently spoken and precise doctor has gone a step further. He says: ‘Anyone who reads the reports and still thinks that Lucy Letby is guilty should have their head examined.’
The slow, dragging, unjust misery inflicted on Lucy Letby has gone on long enough, writes Peter Hitchens…
… if she is innocent, the time taken from her cannot be restored, which for a woman of her age (she is 36) is especially severe
His words appear in a powerful new book on the case, Reasonable Doubt: Examining The Case Of Lucy Letby, by Christopher Morris, which will be published next month.
The book, deeply critical of Letby’s trial and conviction, comes after several radio and TV documentaries, and a long article in the New Yorker magazine, all pointing the same way. The wind has clearly shifted.
The Crown Prosecution Service has turned down police pleas to prosecute Ms Letby on more cases, similar to ones on which she was convicted. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has been examining the affair for 16 months. The Thirlwall Inquiry into the case began in September 2024. It proceeded on the basis that Ms Letby was undoubtedly guilty.
At its start, Lady Justice Thirlwall dismissed doubts about the conviction as ‘noise’. I wonder, would she say that now?
She was supposed to report in November last year. But the process has clearly stalled, and some of the material the inquiry has recently released has been favourable to Ms Letby’s case.
This is all very well, and suggests that a long-overdue examination of this clearly unsafe conviction may at last take place.
But why must this process last so long? Ms Letby was first arrested in July 2018, again in June 2019 and yet again in November 2020, since when she has not breathed free air.
She was in prison on remand for an astounding 23 months before her lengthy first trial – which ended with her conviction in August 2023. I first openly doubted the justice of the conviction in these pages in September 2024.
How long do the CCRC – and then the judges – need to look at this again?
If she is innocent, the time taken from her cannot be restored, which for a woman of her age (she is 36) is especially severe.
Her beloved career is gone for good, her close family permanently wounded.
It is time to act.
Now even Janet and John are under suspicion too?
I am often told that I belong in a museum, and I find that many things I once thought of as normal can now only be found in such places.
The public libraries of my childhood, which contained only books and stern staff wielding date stamps, have certainly vanished from daily life.
And so it is no surprise to find that the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, one of a growing number of open-air attempts to preserve the World of Yesterday (which many prefer to the World of Today), has now opened a library exhibit. So far so good.
But all its books, including the apparently suspect old favourite Janet and John, contain stickers warning that they may contain ‘people or cultures with outdated views’. Then they add: ‘These depictions were wrong then and are wrong now’.
The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley’s library exhibit includes warning stickers on many of the books on display
I asked the museum to explain, and I think it’s worth quoting their reply at length: ‘Given the scale of the collection, it is not practical to review every item individually. We are also aware that some historical publications may include language, attitudes or assumptions that some visitors could find upsetting, inappropriate or outdated. For that reason, the same advisory notice appears throughout the collection rather than being applied selectively to individual books.
‘We have not edited, amended or removed content from the books in our collection. As a museum, our role is to preserve and share the past, and the advisory notice helps provide context for visitors exploring the collection today.
‘The advisory notice also explains why we have chosen to preserve these materials and make them available for learning, discussion and reflection.
‘The wording and approach were developed in consultation with colleagues, the museum’s community advisory panel and heritage-sector professionals.’ I bet they were.
The library seems to be mainly made up of perfectly ordinary books from the mid-20th century, often the sort I read long ago and sometimes still read.
The tragedy is those brought up since the revolution probably would be shocked by much that they found there.
I suppose we should be relieved that the books haven’t yet been thrown
into a fire. Will that moment come?
Or, more likely, will people just stop reading, so the past dissolves into mist?
