Cheshire PoliceFormer health secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt has called for an “urgent re-examination” of the Lucy Letby case after “serious and credible” questions were raised by experts.
The Conservative MP pleaded for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, to “speed up their normally painfully slow process”.
The CCRC is considering evidence presented by Letby’s legal team from an international panel of medics claiming poor medical care and natural causes were the real reasons for the deaths of the babies she was found guilty of murdering.
Hunt said he and parliamentary colleagues such as Sir David Davis “now believe the time has come for these concerns to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
Former nurse Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Hunt said he had noted the findings of the international panel of paediatric specialists and neonatologists, and had also read a “wide range of expert concerns about the conduct of the criminal case”.
He said: “Taken together – and it pains me to say it – this analysis raises serious and credible questions about the evidence presented in court, the robustness of expert testimony and the interpretation of statistical data.”
Giving evidence in January at the Thirlwall Inquiry into Letby’s crimes, Hunt said: “I want to put on the record my apologies to the families for anything that did not happen that potentially could have prevented such an appalling crime.”
PA MediaWriting in the Daily Mail newspaper on Wednesday, Hunt said he was not arguing that Letby is innocent, adding that “the pain endured by the families affected must also be at the forefront of our minds”, but they deserved the truth.
“And recently, some have begun to cast doubt on what actually happened,” Hunt said.
“Were those tragic deaths caused by an evil woman or were they the result of medical error?”
He said justice “must be done and seen to be done”, adding that re-examination of the evidence was not a denial of the families’ pain but would “ensure that all of us can have confidence that the truth has been reached through a rigorous and fair process”.
“And if medical error was the cause, we can then make sure no more babies die from the same mistakes,” he added.
Cheshire ConstabularyLawyers for the families of Letby’s victims have dismissed the medical panel’s conclusions as “full of analytical holes” and “a rehash” of the defence case heard at trial.
The mother of one baby boy who Letby attempted to murder said the families “already have the truth” and they believed in the British justice system and that the jury made the right decision.
Cheshire Constabulary is continuing a review of deaths and collapses of babies at the neonatal units of the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women’s Hospital during Letby’s time as a nurse from 2012 to 2016.
A separate inquiry by the force into corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter at the Countess is ongoing.
Lady Justice Thirlwall is due to publish the findings from her public inquiry in early 2026.
