Latest news with #babydeaths
News.com.au
4 days ago
- Health
- News.com.au
New evidence ‘proves' Lucy Letby is not the killer
Lucy Letby's lawyer Mark McDonald said that when he first met his client, he took her at her word when she said she was innocent. Now, the British barrister has claimed he has fresh evidence proving that the convicted neonatal nurse is a victim, not a killer. He believes Letby, the notorious baby murderer who is serving 15 whole-life orders for killing seven babies, has suffered 'the biggest miscarriage of justice in the criminal justice history of the United Kingdom,' he told 60 Minutes on Sunday night. 'The evidence that went before the jury, has been demolished now by the fresh evidence. And we need to get back to the criminal Court of Appeal,' he claimed. Letby, 35, who also tried to kill seven other infants – including one baby twice – at Countess of Chester Hospital, Cheshire, in 2015 and 2016, is destined to die in jail. Concerns about the nurse were initially sparked in 2015, following a surge in deaths at the National Health Service hospital that was three times the yearly average. In 2017, police began their investigation, and Dr Dewi Evans, a retired pediatrician, began investigating all the baby deaths and collapses in the neonatal ward, and led police to suspect foul play. Seven deaths and nine unexplained collapses were referred for further investigation. 'These were babies who were under control. In other words, they were not requiring huge amounts of oxygen. They were not requiring breathing support. They were quite stable, and suddenly from being quite stable, they suddenly would collapse,' Dr Evans explained. Police had a suspect they were closing in on, Letby, the then 28-year-old who had worked at the hospital since 2012. In 2018, police arrested the nurse and questioned her regarding the suspicious deaths and collapses that occurred while she was on duty. Although she denied any wrongdoing, a search of her home revealed incriminating evidence, including hundreds of hospital case notes – some relating to the children who had died – along with handwritten notes, one of which Letby had written in capital letters: 'I AM EVIL I DID THIS'. It was found that the nurse also repeatedly looked up the families of her victims on social media. Following the longest criminal trial in British history and a retrial on one count of attempted murder, Letby was sentenced to 15 life sentences for her crimes last year, and her bid to appeal was rejected. Dr Evans was the key prosecution witness, and his medical evidence was vital to the Crown's case against Letby. Having ruled out all other explanations, he concluded Letby was harming some babies by injecting air into their bloodstream and others by forcing milk and air into their stomachs. Two babies were poisoned using insulin. But Mr McDonald, Letby's lawyer, has since claimed the case had 'no direct evidence against' his client. He said the medical evidence was disproved by a team of international experts he put together to examine the babies' cases. Professor Neena Modi, a leading British neonatologist on the panel, said they found no evidence of murder. 'What jumped out at us, absolutely jumped out at us were these very, very plausible alternative explanations that did not involve wrongdoing of any kind,' she said. 'In each and every one of these cases, there was a very, very plausible alternative explanation.' She claimed the babies died from natural causes or a lack of proper care and called for the case to be reviewed. Mr McDonald also stated that other experts dismissed the insulin cases after it was found that the tests which helped convict Letby were proven to yield false results. He claims to have fresh evidence, and he is confident it will exonerate his client. 'We have new hope here, and she sees it, but she also sees it as her last chance, her last chance from her point of view to get the truth out there. All Lucy Letby wants is a fair hearing,' he said. But Dr Evans is sure that the truth has already been heard and there's 'no new evidence', just 'a new opinion'. 'And the opinion has not been tested in court,' he added. He said he was absolutely certain of Letby's guilt and believes 'She's the worst female serial killer in English history'.
BBC News
16-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Calls for £95m maternity safety funding to remain ringfenced
There are growing calls for millions of pounds of maternity care funding, announced after the Shropshire baby deaths scandal, to remain - including the Reverend Charlotte Cheshire, whose son was left severely disabled - have written to the health secretary about how individual health boards in England could now decide where to spend their money.A maternity care review in 2022 found more than 200 babies and nine mothers treated by NHS Shropshire Telford and Wrekin could have survived with better care. A Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) accepted too many women were still not getting the care they deserved, but the government was "determined" to change that. A spokesperson said the same level of funding was still being provided, but as part of broader allocations, to give more flexibility to local healthcare review following the scandal in Shropshire also found a further 94 children, like Rev Cheshire's son, Adam, suffered life changing was left severely disabled following an infection he developed after his birth at the Royal Shrewsbury interim report in 2021 led to maternity care spending nationally being increased by £95m with the aim of improving safety - but it has since emerged this cash will no longer be ringfenced. "For me that's both tragic and catastrophic," Rev Cheshire 47-year-old vicar from Newport, Shropshire, said the money had been specifically ringfenced because it was one of the worst maternity scandals in NHS Adam now being 14, he still plays with toys meant for toddlers and lives in residential care with 24-hour has a brain injury, is autistic, has hearing and sight impairments as well as profound learning providing better maternity care, the DHSC spokesperson said: "This starts with listening to women and families to learn lessons, to improve care and ensure mistakes are not repeated."They said they were training more midwives to support women throughout their pregnancy and after giving birth. Care minister Stephen Kinnock said local Integrated Care Boards (ICB) were best placed to decide how best to manage care in their said his department was not micro-managing ICBs, but they would be held accountable through targets being ICB receives nearly £900,000 of the £95m allocated at NHS Shropshire Telford and Wrekin said they were committed to making improvements to maternity services."As an Integrated Care Board, we have not made any changes to the level of service development funding allocated to our local maternity care in 2025/26," a spokesperson said. Ten-year plan Rev Cheshire told the BBC she remained worried, and her experiences meant she had lost trust in the Birth Trauma Association said it had concerns chief executive Kim Thomas, said: "We know that Wes Streeting cares about maternity because he says it keeps him awake at night."She said she was hoping details contained in a forthcoming 10-year plan, due to be published in June, may provide more DHSC spokesperson said progress had been made on a number of the recommendations from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Birth Trauma – including achieving a 5.8% increase in the number of announced this week a rollout of a national training programme to reduce the number of brain injuries incurred during childbirth, but acknowledged more needed to be done. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
