Seven pediatric medical doctors and toxicology specialists stated on Thursday that jurors had been misled by prosecutors who cited unreliable insulin exams in the course of the trial of Lucy Letby, a nurse convicted of murdering seven babies at a British hospital.
The medical doctors made their assertions in a brand new report that Ms. Letby’s lawyer submitted to Britain’s Prison Instances Evaluate Fee, which is answerable for investigating potential miscarriages of justice, within the hopes of being allowed to pursue a full enchantment of her 15 life sentences.
Ms. Letby, who labored as a nurse in a neonatal unit at a hospital in northern England, was discovered responsible in 2023 of intentionally harming — and in seven circumstances, murdering — infants by injecting them with air, overfeeding them with milk, infusing air into their gastrointestinal tracts or poisoning them with insulin.
Within the new report, the specialists, who embody a forensic toxicologist, a professor of forensic science and an endocrinologist who has written a number of peer-reviewed papers on medical test errors, attacked the validity of the proof of insulin poisoning utilized by the prosecution at trial.
“Our inescapable conclusion is that this proof considerably undermines the validity of the assertions made concerning the insulin and C-peptide testing offered in Court docket,” they wrote in a abstract of the report offered to reporters by her authorized crew.
Ms. Letby has all the time maintained her innocence. Since her two trials, serious questions have been raised about her guilt, together with in a 13,000-word New Yorker article final Might. However efforts by her attorneys to reopen the case with a full enchantment have been repeatedly denied.
The brand new report focuses on two infants — referred to as infants F and L — whose blood sugar ranges dropped to low ranges, however who later recovered. Ms. Letby was convicted of making an attempt to homicide the 2 infants by including insulin to their meals, inflicting a situation referred to as hypoglycemia.
Assessments urged that the infants had excessive ranges of insulin however solely a negligible quantity of C-peptide, a substance detected when insulin is produced by the physique. The prosecution argued the insulin should subsequently have been administered externally.
Within the new report, the specialists current what they describe as “convincing new proof from a number of sources” exhibiting severe issues with the check outcomes used to reveal that Ms. Letby poisoned two of the infants with insulin.
They stated the check, referred to as “the Roche immunoassay,” was identified to end in “falsely excessive insulin outcomes.” Additionally they argued that there have been different methods for infants to obtain insulin, together with via the placenta whereas they’re of their mom’s womb.
The specialists stated that when proof was offered to jurors concerning the ranges of insulin discovered within the small infants, the prosecution referred to the improper information.
“Research in adults and older youngsters had been quoted which aren’t related, and the restricted acceptable info was not referred to,” they wrote.
They stated the testing “didn’t meet acceptable forensic requirements” and that the outcomes of the Roche check, specifically, mustn’t have been relied on with out being confirmed by extra exact laboratory exams.
The Royal Liverpool Hospital laboratory the place the exams had been carried out explicitly warns in its on-line steerage that they’re “not suitable” for investigating low blood sugar created by an insulin injection. “If exogenous insulin administration is suspected as the reason for hypoglycemia, please inform the laboratory in order that the pattern will be referred externally for evaluation,” it says. However each infants recovered, so their samples had been by no means referred anyplace else.
The specialists stated that prosecutors and the police had not thought-about different ways in which the infants grew to become hypoglycemic moreover foul play.
“There are different medical explanations which clarify the hypoglycemia in each infants, equivalent to line failure, sepsis and perinatal stress-induced hyperinsulinism,” they wrote. “These different potentialities weren’t thought-about.”
Questions concerning the accusations of insulin poisoning have been raised publicly by medical doctors within the months for the reason that trial. Thursday’s 86-page report is an effort by Mark McDonald, Ms. Letby’s lawyer, to current these inquiries to the fee in a proper manner.
“The conclusions of the report on Infants F and L clearly reveal that the case should return to the Court docket of Enchantment as a matter of urgency,” Mr. McDonald stated in a press release.
He added: “Lucy Letby is presently serving 15 complete life phrases in jail, when overwhelming impartial knowledgeable proof signifies that no infants had been murdered.”
In a statement to a public inquiry final month, attorneys representing among the households of infants who died or had been harmed on the Countess of Chester Hospital stated: “The households haven’t any doubts about Letby’s guilt.”
Mr. McDonald additionally submitted to the Prison Instances Evaluate Fee a full 698-page examination of Ms. Letby’s case by a separate panel of specialists, led by the famend Canadian neonatologist Dr. Shoo Lee, who previewed their findings in February. That report concluded that “there was no medical proof to assist malfeasance inflicting loss of life or harm in any of the 17 circumstances within the trial.”
