Lucy Letby's new legal team are preparing 'seriously flawed' reports which could harm her freedom bid, warns defence expert who sat through neonatal nurse's trial

Daily Mail​

12 hours ago

The defence expert who was not called to give evidence at Lucy Letby 's first trial has criticised reports prepared by her new legal team as 'seriously flawed'.
Dr Mike Hall said 'there was a danger' unsupported claims made by the new international panel of experts could 'rebound' and damage attempts to secure justice for the neonatal nurse.
Dr Hall, who prepared reports for Letby's first trial and sat through ten months of hearings, was not called to the witness box to give evidence.
He claims he has no idea why – but legal commentators say the only explanation is Letby's first barrister, Ben Myers KC, took a tactical decision not to do so because his reports and testimony could have damaged Letby's case.
She was convicted of the murder of seven newborns and the attempted murder of seven more at the Countess of Chester Hospital following two trials, in August 2023 and July 2024.
The former nurse, who is serving a life sentence with no prospect of parole, has since switched barristers but has not waived legal privilege – meaning Mr Myers is unable to publicly explain his decision.
Letby has tried and failed to appeal her convictions twice, and her new barrister, Mark McDonald, has presented reports from the new panel to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body that investigates potential miscarriages of justice, in the hope she can appeal a third time and be freed.
Today Dr Hall told the BBC's Panorama that he 'didn't know' whether Letby was innocent but 'in terms of natural justice, I don't think she should have been found guilty'.
He insisted he agreed with the new panel, who claim no murders were committed and instead the babies collapsed or died due to poor care or natural causes.
'The bottom line is that I agree with them that there is no evidence of inflicted injury in the babies,' he said.
But Dr Hall insisted there were 'serious flaws' in some of their alternative explanations for the baby deaths and that 'there is a real danger' that Mr McDonald's approach would 'rebound.'
'The flaws (in the expert panel report) will be seen and we find ourselves no further down the road in trying to get justice (or) at least a fair trial,' he said.
Dr Hall cited the case of Baby C, a tiny baby boy born weighing 1lbs 12oz, ten weeks early, who Letby was convicted of murdering.
Mr McDonald claims the evidence of Dr Dewi Evans, the main prosecution expert, is unreliable because he has changed his mind about the way Letby killed him.
Dr Evans, however, disagrees. He said the jury heard that the child either died from Letby injecting air into his stomach, down his breathing tube, or into his veins to cause an air embolism – in his evidence in chief and via cross-examination.
Dr Evans said the method of harm 'doesn't matter'.
'Both reflect inflicted injury, deliberate harm,' he said. 'In other words – murder.'
Crucially, the judge Mr Justice Goss directed the jury that they didn't need to be sure of the method of harm to convict her.
Significant circumstantial evidence was also presented in relation to Baby C, including Letby's strange behaviour in front of her parents as they cradled their dying son.
The trial heard that Letby, who was not the boy's designated nurse, had to be told to stop intruding and going into the family room by her shift leader. Baby C's parents also gave evidence that they were shocked when she brought in a cold cot and told them: 'You've said your goodbyes, do you want me to put him in here?' before he had passed away.
In fact, the baby's grandmother, who had been called into the hospital, was so upset she complained to the hospital about her behaviour.
Dr Hall also pointed out that the new experts' theory that Baby A died due to a blood clot linked to a condition inherited from his mother was explored before the jury and rejected.
In the case of Baby I, who the expert panel say was not murdered by Letby but died in part due to a hospital-acquired bug that doctors failed to treat, Dr Hall said the infection was not evident at post-mortem. He also said the bug was 'last found' in the neo-natal unit six weeks before she died.
'So the information I have about this bug doesn't lead me to the conclusion that it was a significant cause in the events leading to the baby's death,' he added.
Dr Hall also said the panel's theory that Baby O's liver injury was caused by birth trauma was also 'unfounded'.
John Gregory, professor of paediatric endocrinology, also questioned the new experts' theory that the two babies Letby was convicted of poisoning with insulin had produced it naturally themselves.
He told Panorama he agreed with the prosecution's expert, Professor Peter Hindmarsh, who told the jury that blood test results from Baby F and Baby L suggested they had been poisoned deliberately.
'I can't think of any plausible explanation for such high insulin levels,' Prof Gregory said. 'It is exceedingly unlikely to have arisen from naturally produced insulin.'
The jury convicted Letby of attempted murder in both cases. Both boys were twins and their brothers were also attacked with an injection of air. Baby E died and Baby M survived after almost 30 minutes of resuscitation.