Ex Cabinet minister: I'm '90-odd per cent certain' Letby is innocent

A former Cabinet minister has said he is more than 90 per cent sure that baby killer Lucy Letby is innocent. 

Sir David Davis said he spent months examining the evidence, and has called for the former neonatal nurse to be retried. 

Letby, 34, was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. 

She is serving a whole life term after an application to appeal the conviction was rejected by the courts. 

But Mr Davis believes the convictions are unsafe and said he would be willing to visit Letby in jail to discuss the case with her. 

Speaking on GB News, Mr Davis said: 'I have spent three months going through the evidence. 

'I think most likely - you can't be certain - but most likely, like 90 odd percent, not guilty.' 

He added: 'The most likely reason is one of two things, either poor management of the hospital - the Royal College found that, or a superbug - an investigation found that, or both together. That is much more likely. 

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'I don't want to declare her innocent. I want a retrial - do it properly.' 

John O'Quigley, a professor of statistics in the department of statistical science at University College London, has also raised doubts over Letby's guilt.

Dr O'Quigley said the only conclusion that a diagram that showed Letby was on duty when those seven babies died was that she was on duty.

One of the main prosecution witnesses, Dr Dewi Evans, also performed an about-turn about how 'Baby C' died. 

The baby died in the Countess of Chester Hospital around midnight on the night of June 13-14, 2016. It describes the method of killing as 'air via nasogastric tube', the injection of air into his stomach.

But Dr Evans now says this is not how the baby died following a Radio 4 programme, Lucy Letby: The Killer Questions.  

In it, several highly qualified experts cast doubt on this and much of the evidence accepted by the jury in Ms Letby's first trial.

During that trial, Dr Evans said an X-ray of Baby C showed an unusual amount of air in the boy's stomach, which could have been caused by the deliberate pumping of air into his feeding tube.

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But the Radio 4 programme points out that Letby was not actually in the hospital on June 12 when the X-ray was taken. She had not even met Baby C at that point.

Dr Evans now says: 'His demise occurred the following day around midnight (when Ms Letby was on duty) , and due to air in the bloodstream.' 

The victims' families have slammed the ongoing speculation about Letby's innocence, saying it is contributing to their pain and grief. 

In September, at the beginning of a public inquiry into the deaths, chairman Lady Justice Thirlwall claimed doubts about Letby's guilt have come 'entirely from people who were not at the trial'. 

The inquiry heard last week how Letby had told a colleague that she couldn't wait for her first death' on her first day of work as a nurse.

She made the comment when she started working at the neo-natal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital after graduating with a degree in children's nursing from the city's university, in January 2012.

Nurse ZC, who started at the hospital on the same time as the convicted killer, said she was 'taken aback' by the remark.

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But she assumed Letby was simply 'trying to make conversation with someone she didn't know' and she didn't think was 'alarming' or that it had been spoken with 'sinister intent.'

'She made a comment, something along the lines of, 'I can't wait for my first death to get it out of the way,' Nurse ZC said. 'It took me aback because, even though I was a trained nurse it's not something I actively wanted to happen. 

'It was said off hand, it was part of a normal conversation and then she moved on.'

Nurse ZC, who can't be named for legal reasons, also recounted an episode in early 2012 – just weeks after Letby started work and more than three years before she murdered her first victim – when a baby girl collapsed unexpectedly during a nightshift while Letby was on duty.

'Lucy presented quite animated and she told me everything that had happened with the baby and that she was involved in resuscitation attempts,' Nurse ZC added.

'Again, it was something that took me by surprise. I didn't feel I would have been as confident in that situation as Lucy.

'Throughout the whole conversation she was animated, kind of excited to tell me about it. She didn't seem upset or that it had traumatised her in any way.'

The inquiry later heard that Letby was identified among the 'creme de la creme' of students by a nursing boss, who told that she never saw any evidence of wrongdoing by the convicted killer.

Dr Stephen Brearey, a senior consultant, was 'dithering' about reporting concerns because he was 'influenced' by the insistence of Letby's line manager, Eirian Powell, that she could not have done anything wrong, the inquiry has heard. 

The inquiry heard that Powell told police: 'I wanted her on the unit, I really did. When students come through the system you are almost able to hand-pick the creme de la creme, and she was one of those.'

Ms Powell met Dr Brearey following the unexpected deaths of three babies in June 2015, and it was noted that Letby had been a 'commonality' in an all three.

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But Ms Powell told the inquiry there was 'no evidence of any wrongdoing'.

Following the death of another infant in October 2015, Ms Powell drew up a table of the babies who had died in that period and all the nursing staff on duty during those shifts.

Revisions of the table followed, including an additional column with the names of doctors and also a fresh table with Letby's name highlighted in red, the inquiry heard.

Rachel Langdale, counsel to the inquiry, asked Ms Powell: 'Was there a time when you were doing that, you thought, "Actually the police should be doing this, not me"?'

Ms Powell replied: 'In hindsight, yes I did.'

She added: 'Nothing changed as far as the evidence was concerned. Nobody saw anything.

'When we got busy she did the overtime, so she was there more often.'

Ms Langdale said: 'When did you start to worry that her name kept coming up, if you did start to worry about that?'

Ms Powell said: 'The question was always asked of me. Nothing changed from Dr Brearey saying he had concerns but he wouldn't define them, and nothing changed from each time, "Had anyone seen anything?" or "There was no evidence there."'