Why Letby lost

Appeal judges explain why they refused nurse permission to appeal

Lucy Letby was found guilty yesterday of trying to kill a premature baby girl. The former nurse was convicted of attempted murder following a retrial. This was one of six such charges on which the jury at her previous trial could not agree.

Last August, she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. She was given a whole life order on each count, which means she can expect to die in prison. That will not change as a result of the sentence she receives for this offence.

We have known for just over a month that Letby was refused permission in May to appeal against her earlier convictions. To limit the information that was available to the jury during her retrial, we had not been allowed to report why.

Lucy Letby

Within hours of her conviction, the Court of Appeal lifted some of the reporting restrictions relating to her appeal. We now know about the grounds put forward by her lawyers and we can report a last-minute intervention by a member of the public that could have derailed the jury’s deliberations.