Letby: what next?
Will new medical evidence lead to a further appeal?
Is Lucy Letby the worst serial killer of modern times? Or has she fallen victim to the greatest single miscarriage of justice we have seen in many years?
After new medical evidence was outlined at a news conference on Tuesday called by her defence counsel Mark McDonald, the Daily Mail was keeping its options open:
If you have two hours to spare, watch the press conference and decide for yourself:
If you don’t, you can read my column in today’s Law Society Gazette.
I think that is the nearest I have seen you write - to stunned silence. O God!
Interesting article, Joshua. Your GIGO point is a good one, but it does beg the question what judges think their role is. This is a very experienced puisne judge who, before being promoted, sat as a senior circuit judge and Recorder of Sheffield. So, he is incredibly experienced, and should not need to rely on counsel to know that 'custody for life' would be the wrong words to say (technically for both adults and children!).
The Letby issue is interesting in that obviously the emotion around it all is high. It seems extraordinary that a senior barrister should decide that he should conduct litigation in the media and not in the courts (via the CCRC). The CCRC does not have a particularly good reputation of late, of course, so that may be one reason, but I do find it quite distasteful that a barrister should be adopting American tactics of making partisan press statements.
My understanding, and I accept this could be wrong, is that at the time it was noted that even those experts who were casting doubt on the prosecution evidence, could not say that she did not do it. No defence barrister in a case as emotional as that one, is going to put an expert witness on the stand to hear, in cross-examination that it is possible that their client did kill the children.
The Law Commission's report should have been implemented (as should many other reports!), but it's less than clear to me that it would have made any difference. The experts would have passed that hurdle.