LONDON (AP) — A lawyer for convicted British killer nurse Lucy Letby said Monday that he plans to ask an appeals court to re-examine her convictions after the prosecution’s leading expert changed his opinion on how three babies died.
Dr. Dewi Evans’s testimony is no longer credible after her reversed his opinion that Letby had injected air down a nasal gastric tube that killed three infants, attorney Mark McDonald said.
“I have fresh evidence that casts doubt on the conviction,” McDonald said. “The defense will argue that Dr. Evans is not a reliable expert, and given that he was the lead expert for the prosecution, we say that all the convictions are not safe.”
Letby, 34, is serving multiple life sentences with no chance of release after being convicted of murdering seven babies and trying to murder seven others while working as a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwestern England between June 2015 and June 2016.
Prosecutors said Letby’s methods left little trace and included injecting air into their bloodstreams, administering air or milk into their stomachs via nasogastric tubes, poisoning them with insulin and interfering with breathing tubes. Prosecutors said she was a “constant malevolent presence” and was alone on duty in the neonatal unit when the children collapsed or died.
Letby, who testified at two trials that she never harmed a child, has stood by her claims of innocence.
McDonald said he has 15 medical experts reviewing trial evidence.
An inquiry currently underway to examine failures by the hospital to recognize why babies were dying and why they took so long to stop Letby opened in September against a backdrop of experts and others who have questioned evidence used against Letby.
A group of scientists, doctors and legal experts that independently reviewed scientific evidence from Letby’s trial warned Britain’s ministers of health and justice that legal systems were “particularly vulnerable to errors” when dealing with technical matters, “especially in cases involving statistical anomalies in health care settings.”
Evans has changed his mind on the cause of death of the infants identified in court as Baby C, Baby I and Baby P, McDonald said. Additionally, two neonatologists working with the defense said there were medical reasons Baby C and Baby O became ill and could not be resuscitated.
The Crown Prosecution Service defended the verdicts.
“Two juries and three appeal court judges have reviewed a multitude of different strands of evidence against Lucy Letby,” a CPS spokesperson said in a statement. “In May, the Court of Appeal dismissed Letby’s leave to appeal on all grounds — rejecting her argument that expert prosecution evidence was flawed.”
McDonald said he will file a request this week asking the Court of Appeal to review her appeal bid. The court has twice rejected Letby’s application for appeal.
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