We spoke to the MP Sir David Davis, who is a prominent member of the campaign to have Lucy Letby’s conviction reconsidered.
Sir David Davis: Well, firstly, I hope it’s persuasive. I mean, these are some of the most, more than a dozen, of the most expert, most authoritative experts in the world on a whole range of things from neonatal studies through to forensics. And they’ve come to pretty much a unanimous set of conclusions as to what actually happened to the children at the Countess of Chester Hospital and in essence, have said there were no murders. There were a lot of deaths from natural causes, sometimes exacerbated or accelerated by suboptimal care.
Ciaran Jenkins: But for this case to go back to the Court of Appeal, the Criminal Cases Review Commission need to have new evidence, don’t they? Was that new evidence today?
Sir David Davis: Well, yeah, this was new in the sense it was a proper interpretation of the case notes of all of these children. Something which, frankly, the jury has not seen before. This is plainly an injustice. It’s very clear from what these experts say. I mean, I’m not a medical expert. What these experts say, that there was no murder, that there was a dramatic increase in the number of deaths, but there were other causes for that. Not Lucy Letby.
Ciaran Jenkins: I suppose our viewers may well be wondering the perfectly obvious question, why wasn’t this sort of evidence presented by Lucy Letby’s defence team, during her trials?
Sir David Davis: I don’t know the answer to that. I mean, I can speculate. It may be that they felt that they knocked down all of the evidence that had been presented by Dewi Evans, that’s the expert witness and others during the course of the case. If you had a criminal case, let’s say, a murder or whatever, in the past, and suddenly you got evidence that made it plain to you that the the conclusion of the trial was wrong, then you want to do something about it. And that’s where we are today.
Ciaran Jenkins: There have been two trials and the Court of Appeal, three judges unanimously rejected an appeal.
Sir David Davis: The appeal court, actually the law commission at the moment is considering the rules governing the appeal court. Why? Because, take your point about new evidence. Let’s imagine this evidence was available to her lawyers way back during the first trial, but they chose not to use it. She gets sent to prison for a whole life sentence because her lawyers have made a mistake. That may be judicially convenient. It’s not any definition of justice I’ve come across. And I don’t suppose your viewers would take that either.
Ciaran Jenkins: Have you spoken to any of the victims’ families about your campaign?
Sir David Davis: No. I mean, I feel a huge sympathy for them. I mean, how could you feel anything else? You know, those of us who have children know how terrible it might be to lose any of our children. But if I were in their position, I’d want to know the truth. I want to know that what happened to my baby wouldn’t happen to another baby. I’m afraid the process we’ve been through here has not got to that until today. When you’ve heard about the suboptimal care and the problems with a number of the children, which might have been we only know, might have been, we can’t say for sure, might have been resolved with better care.
Ciaran Jenkins: And if, as some of these experts have suggested today, there were no murders, it will raise some really quite fundamental questions, won’t it, for the British justice system and for the NHS?
Sir David Davis: It will. It will. It’ll raise questions about expert witnesses, questions which actually were addressed about 15 years ago in 2011 and were not properly resolved then. They were put into guidance, but they weren’t necessarily followed. Questions about how the appeal process works, that’s actually being reviewed right now as we sit here. And you’re quite right. Questions about how the National Health Service, as it were heals itself, fixes the problems that lead to these tragedies and prevents them happening in the future. All of those questions will arise out of this, actually almost irrespective of the Letby outcome, but certainly if Letby is eventually found innocent.