All language subtitles for Lucy Letby Murder or Mistake S01E02

Lucy Lappby is Britain's worst child serial killer.

She poisoned some with insulin.

When you actually said, where's the evidence, it just wasn't there.

I said, I believe you're innocent.

I'm astonished with what her current barrister is doing.

I think it's been absolutely disgraceful.

The lead prosecution expert appears to have changed his mind.

Changed his mind? On a murder case?

They are wrong. They haven't got the evidence.

some of these families are speaking publicly we want to say shame on you all

yeah so so the answer your question is yes to the interview and we've

slot it in i'm not being uh evasive it's just i know that that sky and itv and usual things they

all want interviews and i've just basically said let's grab me after the press conference we'll do

it if you want to write something for tomorrow it's about darry evans but listen keep that to

yourself okay remarkably dr evans has now changed his mind on the cause of death of baby c

dr evans has also said that he has a new report despite numerous requests the prosecution have

yet to give this report to the defense we say that all the convictions are unsafe

can i hand over to richard taylor who's going to deal with those reports can you come up here

it was okay um with regard to the report on uh baby o the baby was on very high pressure settings

so high the baby's liver was pushed right down into the pelvis so when the doctor performed the

aspiration of the aspiration of the abdomen the needle perforated the liver

and this led to bleeding free blood going into the abdomen the baby went into shock

and they were unable to resuscitate the baby partly because they didn't realize what they'd done

what was the name of the doctor i don't think it's right that we name names at this stage i think the

doctor knows who they are you don't i know i i have to say from a personal point of view that

if this had happened to me i'd be unable to sleep at night knowing that what i had done

had led to the death of the baby and now there is a nurse in jail convicted of murder

having looked at the evidence how strongly the evidence against who she met me is compared to your

to the death of the baby and now there is a nurse in jail it's nonsense complete nonsense the baby died

from shock from a liver perforation

we're now getting word that one of the key prosecution witnesses in the let me case has

changed his mind it's just unbelievable because of this change in opinion by one of the prosecution

experts is there enough evidence to actually overturn her conviction that prosecution expert changed

his opinion on how something happened but didn't change his opinion on whether she was killed or not

absolutely correct

evans is going to get his comeuppance evans will go down as one of the worst individuals that have

the court has ever asked to give evidence ever

i've had to put up with an awful lot of social media abuse

you know that should not happen and it certainly shouldn't happen to somebody who's

played a part in convicting one of england's worst female serial killers

these people seem to be making things up and i think that's because this case

did not involve the metropolitan elite you know the barristers were from liverpool

the court case was in manchester you know the expert witnesses were from west wales

and the channel islands i think they can't cope with that i think they've been blindsided

i mean what do these clever people think led to the death of these babies they're blind to evidence

they're blind to objectivity and she will be in the news for decades to come

and it will sell newspapers and it will create headlines and uh it ever was this and that's the way it is

so let's just ignore all of that

the idea that i changed my mind was absolutely astonishing i amended my opinion in relation to one case baby c

i wrote to chesu police and what amended my report was the evidence i heard from the nurses and doctors

looking after him as a result of this it was clear that he was a well stable baby whatever the x-ray of

36 hours earlier had shown could not have caused his death what caused his death was something that had

occurred just before midnight the following day this baby died from air into the bloodstreams and this

occurred in lucy letby's presence

i did not choose my view after the trial i amended my report when giving evidence in the trial

it wasn't until he was on the witness stand despite it not appearing in any of his reports he suddenly

said i think the baby also could have had air injected into a vein he just made it up as he went along

the case in point in fact the greatest example of the case in point is babysitting

i just don't think it is important the jury were reminded by the lead prosecutor in his closing

speech that lucy letby wasn't on duty on june the 12th dr evans was supported in court by at least seven

medical experts but actually there's only one prosecution expert giving media interviews isn't

there i'm sure the others have seen in the way that dr evans has been treated online and the way his

opinions have been ridiculed and have looked at that and thought i don't want to speak publicly for that

reason

now let's find out for mark exactly how this could impact what is going to happen next mark very good

morning to you morning morning i think i made two announcements yesterday the first is that we're

going back to the criminal cases review commission on new evidence from two neonatologists and you're

absolutely right mike i'm the families are just absolutely devastated that he's discussing their

babies though in this public way ben myers who was lucy letby's original barrister has never given a

media interview there are many things wrong with this case but mark mcdonald's strategy is obviously you

know very different so i've spoken to other lawyers who say that that's not a strategy that they would

adopt i'm not aware that mark mcdonald has won lots of miscarriage of justice cases by adopting this public

media strategy i don't apologize for speaking out about this but don't mistake that for a lack of

compassion for the parents that have lost their children i'm doing what i'm doing to make sure

the general public know that there is a major problem in this case i'm not doing it because

i want to be on telly it's not about me it's never about me it's about a woman who's serving life in prison

there are a lot of very nasty comments online from people that just think it's a tv drama and forget

that it actually affects real people and affects their lives i mean it's bad enough for us but at

least we've still got him the parents that have lost their children if it triggers such a visceral

reaction in me i can't even begin to imagine how they must feel

the police when i told them about the box said that it was something that had been

brought up quite a lot in the children that they'd been investigated

and it was definitely a repeated pattern

the police told us that we were one of 17 others being investigated at that time

and that the main trigger for the investigation was children who had been resuscitated and where

doctors didn't really understand what was wrong the police told us that um they there wasn't enough

evidence to take it to court at the time but they would leave it there in case anything else came up

in the future that's why i think you can't get rid of the box because that's a strong evidence in itself

obviously we've we've put it away haven't we but i don't think i can get rid of the box just don't

think it can chuck the box out

the more people go digging looking for new evidence the stronger the case for the prosecution

and looking at the way lucy let be behaved she seemed to be animated by the fact that the baby has died

she'd say guess what's happened a baby's died last night

she wanted to be there wanting to organize everything even intruding on the parents grief

that is most weird behavior

we are dealing with an individual who is sociopathic

we all look back at our lives

and things that we do and things that we say well why on earth did i say something like that

but then put it under a spotlight in a criminal trial

with someone saying that's just bad behavior abnormal behavior maybe in hindsight it was

but

we can't bear to it

i need this at some stage

that and that

most of the babies who died died from an injection of air into the bloodstream

it's something that's very easy to do

right um this is a standard setup in any children's ward or neonatal unit

i'm using red wine

simply to make it easier to see

nobody's looking

just connect it flush it through

you can see how the the fluids gone in the pink stuff

and then there's a bubble of air and that'll end up in the baby circulation within seconds

take it out

syringe is gone

no evidence

so it's that simple to do

there was also this peculiar discoloration described by a number of doctors and nurses

when these babies collapsed and i found a number of published papers where air embolus was cause of

death and where this peculiar discoloration was found

air embolism was diagnosed by dowie evans on the basis of exclusion that he couldn't think of

anything else that could have caused these sudden collapses he said it's not that it's not that it's

not that it's not that therefore it must be air embolism i can't think of anything else it is

it's an interesting diagnosis to make because it's very hard to prove and it's also very hard to disprove

you

while we're talking i am being filmed talking to you

no yes yes i am serious yes they're in my kitchen hello when i started and picked this up

four or five months ago in that period of time boom the whole thing has changed oh there he is

hello i've currently got hi very well 15 experts instructed to look at this case and i've got

reports coming in on a weekly basis from all over the world sorry have you got me from harvard from

tokyo from sweden from canada and the united kingdom we could do it anytime you want i am

expecting two more reports in the coming weeks for the insulin cases all right let's do it that way

baby f and baby l were the insulin cases they were crucial to the convictions

some people called them the smoking gun cases because there was hard evidence that these babies

had been poisoned lucy let be was accused of putting insulin into their drips that were either feeding

or giving them nutrients

the test results were discovered many months after the police started investigating the efficacy of

these blood tests wasn't disputed in court in fact lucy let me herself admitted when she was

cross-examined that someone on the ward must have poisoned them with insulin

but she just said categorically it wasn't me

so we're here to talk about baby l and f this is from the prosecution's perspective absolutely crucial

um that if this test is correct that exogenous insulin has been given then that's it from their

point of view game over was it given so we came across reference to some reports by dr walk the

biochemist from guildford who administers the quality control testing for all of the labs

dr walk in court provided two pairs of results of quality control one pair for baby f and one for baby l

and her second report a test that was done just a few weeks after baby l's test shows that the

insulin result came out as 962 right the target result for that insulin level was 108

so it was around 800 higher so what is this study so the jury was repeatedly told by the prosecution

there is no other way that this result could indicate anything else except exogenous insulin

here we have a quality control test that is showing the same result that the two baby tests baby f and baby l showed

a fictitiously high insulin level the reliability that was attributed to this test is invalid

so this is not an opinion it's a fact

when dr walk was questioned in court she presented the first of those tests that was done and then the

subject was changed are you saying the jury were not told this that's correct so i think that's a

significant piece of information that completely undermines i well as far as i can see it the process

it's not i mean i'm not a lawyer but you know what it shows is that what the jury were told was not

correct these results cannot be safely relied upon thank you

i've now got four reports

and they're very compelling

what each of the cases exposed

was serious and systemic failings of the unit

there were people that were coming forward raising issues about this neonatal unit

probably one of the loudest voices of those was lucy let me

there's been an announcement that people are getting very excited about

that people are getting very excited about this

mark mcdonald now has just managed to get the best experts in the world together they've looked at

every case in detail and they're going to say what their conclusions are

i think it's in here are you here for the lucy let me press conference

yes thank you very much today is a bit of a game changer uh in the whole of the case really

i haven't taken over in september it's kind of all led up to this moment

one two three four one two three four one two three four dr shu lee is seen as one of the most senior

pediatricians in canada and he's going to chair the press conference he got involved in this trial

inadvertently in that one of his papers from 1989 he felt been misused by the prosecution so surely

when he discovered this was absolutely horrified i don't usually do medical legal cases i don't like

them but in this case because what the prosecution expert witnesses had said with respect to the skin

discoloration that was associated with embolism wasn't what i wrote about and that that was wrong

mark said look you're known as the godfather of neonatology in canada can you get me some other

international experts who'd be prepared to look at this pro bono and the anticipation is that they're

going to talk about every single case

before i start i'd like to share the similarities and condolences of members of the international expert

panel with families of the affected infants we understand their stress and their anguish

and our work is not meant to cause more distress rather it is meant to give them comfort and assurance

in knowing the truth about what really happened now the members of the international expert panel he

started the conference listing the names of all the experts and all their credentials the fact that

they've given their time pro bono and have produced thousands of papers so it's undoubted that these

were extremely high caliber experts now the next baby is baby 4 which is another case of air embolism

the notion that these babies can be diagnosed with air embolism because they collapsed and had these skin

discolorations has no evidence in fact this baby was born after prolonged premature rupture of membranes

there is a standard treatment guideline in this country and in other countries that if there is

prolonged premature rupture of membranes the mother should be given antibiotics right away so that the

baby can be protected from any infection in this case that was not done this was not a stable baby as

alleged by the prosecution witness so this baby died of systemic sepsis pneumonia we did not find any

evidence of air embolism it's not that unusual for experts to draw different conclusions based on the

same evidence that often happens but to draw such diametrically opposed views based on the same

evidence is really quite staggering so baby nine the doctors failed to respond to routine surveillance

warnings that this baby was colonized with this bacteria they did not recognize the diagnosis

this was likely a preventable death

now baby 11 there's actually no proof that the tube was even dislodged it was probably in the right

place it's just that the consultant didn't know what he was doing

the journalists and some quite experienced journalists in the room couldn't quite

believe what they were hearing in summary ladies and gentlemen we did not find any murders

in all cases death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care

people were just speechless if you are looking for the truth you don't need to go any further

i'll be happy to take any questions dr hammond i'd like to ask dr lee did any of the international

experts look at this and go gosh this could easily happen in my country or did they say god what an

appalling system the nhs has this is the tip of the iceberg thousands of babies must be dying avoidably from

substandard care i would say that if this was a hospital in canada it would be shut down right it

wouldn't be happening can i say thank you to the panel thank you to everybody for coming those

who don't have reports there should be some more left behind here so if you're a poor parent listening

to this and the experts are not only saying your baby wasn't murdered what they are saying is with

better care your baby would be alive you can't imagine anything more devastating for the parents

listening to these this is just the tip of the iceberg i mean this is big but there are more reports

after this an independent expert panel concluded that lucy letby may be innocent and the victim

of a horrendous miscarriage of justice lucy letby's new lawyer mark mcdonald said the report

demolished the case against her i'm now at the point where i think i think this needs to be reviewed

it needs to be gone over we need to see it all again the tide has turned

i don't think dowie evans will ever admit he's made a mistake i think he's stuck in that mindset

i did i i didn't watch the press conference i've reviewed all of the reports in detail the

reports i've seen are some of the weakest reports i've ever seen they're you they're hopeless

these people were recruited by dr lee um so they were selected and if they had been recruited

even subconsciously if dr lee had said they are misusing my evidence then i think that would

immediately prejudice their thinking process and on top of that of course you know they're americans

they're canadians they don't know how the system works here

americans unfairly or not have a reputation for functioning as hired guns and i've experienced

this a couple of times where the other side will seek an opinion from across the atlantic

and because they can't get an honest opinion from the uk no the gang of lee you know i mean it's i don't

want to be rude about it about people uh most of the time they've just got their facts wrong

you know i could not believe what i read they've got their facts wrong i'll be happy to take any

questions thank you very much indeed that's an astonishing uh set of revelations this is the first

time you've seen this press conference no i haven't watched it before it's the first time you're watching

yeah um thank you very much doctor lee uh can you tell me uh how many publications have you authored

uh in terms of peer-reviewed publications in journals i've authored over 400. how many um

peer-reviewed publications according to pubme is dr dhowie at the ground the star expert witness

i got lost the answer is zero um so here is the problem you and your panel have written together

thousands of peer-reviewed papers on neolitology the crown star witness dr dowry evans has written zero

what does that tell you about the scientific knowledge of cheshire police of the ground prosecution

service the judge of the trial and the judges of the appeal court that they do not understand the

difference between scientists who have published multiple papers on this subject

and someone who has published nothing

so first of all the panel that we have is as i said this is the top launch

in your design this is the panel

the beauty of your design

the

First of all, the first question would be, if our panel found so many problems with the medical care provided by this team at this hospital, how is it that Dr. Evidence found none?

Because in none of the 17 cases did he even identify one problem with the medical care provided at the hospital.

The second question I would ask is this, he seemed to be rather selective in his use of information.

So if he wasn't selective, if all the information was used, in fact, you would come to a very different conclusion than what he came to.

The next question I would ask is, even when there's obvious cause of death, why did he go around looking for malfeasance?

So if you can answer those three questions, I think you have the answer to your question.

Sir.

Yeah, I mean, he's wrong on all three counts.

I mean, first of all, he says, I have not made a single criticism of the management of the babies.

This is factually wrong.

I made it very clear that there was a delay in giving antibiotics in the case of baby D.

As for being selective, once again, he's completely wrong, utterly incorrect.

I stressed to Cheshire Police that I wanted to see and did see a case note of all the babies who died.

I reviewed all of them.

So again, he is factually wrong.

And then he says, why am I looking at malfeasance and ignoring everything else?

Well, since then, we've found, suspected, that there are additional babies murdered by Lucy Letby.

So Dr. Lee is wrong on all three of the observations he's made about me.

Well, I think it's very worrying, actually.

I mean, it's very worrying that people are getting the facts wrong.

You know?

And I think Lee had been subconsciously programmed, you know, by the pro-letary crowd.

There we are.

I'm glad you showed me that clip, because it just shows that Lee is not up to speed with his facts.

Yeah, he got his facts wrong.

Never going to do facts wrong.

Initially, I thought, well, you know, maybe there's something in this.

So, I went away, spent a few days going back over my trial notes.

For example, the case of Baby O.

At the first press conference, they accused a doctor of inserting a needle and causing the liver injury that killed Baby O.

The baby died from shock, from a liver perforation.

At the second press conference, the expert panel appeared to contradict this version of events.

Baby 15 died from a subcapsular liver hematoma caused by traumatic delivery.

This time, a botched delivery was responsible for the liver injury.

There was no mention of a botched delivery at the trial.

Well, the delivery went well.

The issue of whether Baby O had been injured by a needle was discussed at length before the jury.

The pathologist being questioned was definitive.

There was no perforation injury.

The insertion of the needle by Dr. Breary was a last-ditch attempt to try and save this baby's life.

Experts in court supported the view that that was deemed appropriate.

A lot of the evidence that they presented at the press conference was not new, in my opinion.

Regurgitation of evidence that had already been presented at the trial and been dismissed.

I don't think I've seen anything to show that she's been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Not yet.

As someone who covered the trial, something that has come into my possession is an email from Dr. Xu Li.

An email that he sent out to recruit people onto the panel.

Something that caught my eye, at the end of this, he says, we might be her last hope.

My immediate reaction was it called into question, how balanced really is this request?

If you're saying we are her last hope, you're in her corner.

I feel desperately sad for the families of the babies involved.

They know that their babies were harmed and killed by Lucy Letby.

The public perception now is that maybe she didn't do it.

It must be incredibly difficult for them to stomach.

Today, Richard Baker Casey, who represents some of the families, said,

Lucy Letby's lawyers will have a serious uphill battle to try and convince them that the convictions are unsafe.

The families would say, for all the bells and whistles that might be attached to a press conference,

there is nothing remarkable or new about the evidence being presented.

Whatever side of the debate people are on, people should remember that the dead and harmed are not public property to be dissected on television or on the internet.

People will jump on the fact that there will be nuanced differences between the different experts.

One of them said, we think liver damage happened during the birth.

The other one said, we think liver damage happened sticking a needle in.

So there's a difference in those interpretations, but both of them found no evidence of deliberate harm.

It's not unusual to have those differences, and I don't think that negates the validity of the reports.

What was so powerful about Shu Li's statement was he was also clear that there was very, very poor medical care.

The unit simply was not up to the task of coping with such a complex workload.

Instead, we decided to blame it all on the nurse for being a murderer.

Two babies a day die, probably avoidably, in the NHS, because we don't have the staff and the expertise and the facilities to save them.

And that's the lesson that needs to come out of this.

We don't want more witch hunts for murderers.

We want properly staffed NHS units with a proper safety culture, so more babies each year are saved and more mothers are saved.

Today I'm going to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to hand in over a thousand pages of detailed reports

into why it is that Lucy Letby did not commit any of these crimes.

Mr MacDonald, do you know from what the family said at the end of the Thurwell inquiry a couple of weeks ago?

Not what the family said, what the lawyers said.

Let's get it right.

They represent the family.

Yeah, but you've got to get it right, Liz.

OK.

What you're trying to get at is, do I have empathy for what's going on with the families?

No, no, what I'm asking you is what...

Well, let me answer that question.

Do I have empathy?

Of course I have empathy.

These families have been through hell and bad.

I have said if they want to look at these reports, then they can look at them.

Because what I'm after is the truth.

Those families say that there's a due legal process that's followed and that you could, you know, put this application in, which you've done.

But why did you need to hand deliver it?

They say you're just full of publicity.

Well, you know, because you ran the blog continuously and your podcast all the way through the trial.

When it comes to media, you've been out there at the front of the media list.

I know that.

And you have a...

My job, though.

And you had one narrative and you captured that narrative really well and you did it excellently.

Because I put together a counter-narrative, a narrative that I say is actually the truth.

I feel very confident that the CCRC will now refer this to the Court of Appeal.

I feel very confident the Court of Appeal will say that her convictions are unsafe.

I feel very confident the Court of Appeal will say that her convictions are unsafe.

I spoke to Lucy only last night.

And now I hear something very different in her voice.

I hear hope.

Two of my four grandchildren were born at the same time that Lucy Letby was waging carnage in Chester Hospital.

The children murdered by her should now be at school, enjoying holidays, enjoying life.

That will never happen.

Clearly, Lucy Letby should confess.

But I don't think she will.

I think she's blanked off all of her crimes in order to be able to live with herself.

Our son is always going to know and she'll probably always be in and out of the news and he'll always be reminded of it.

And I don't know when he's older how that's going to make him feel or what effect that has on him.

I worry for his future, yeah.

When he gets older, I will.

But then it is one of, I guess, the biggest cases in the world and people do have a right to know what had happened.

There's always going to be two sides to it, isn't there?

Personally, I think she's 100% guilty.

I veer from being guilty to not guilty, depending on how I feel that day.

Because I definitely feel something went on at the hospital.

But then I also find it so hard to believe that somebody could actually do something like that.

But obviously we'll never know the whole truth.

But then we'll never know the truth.