Criminal Cases Review Commission

I have been amazed by the report produced by Lady Justice Thirlwall on the Letby case, and I've also been appalled by the reactions of some parts of the media and some parts of the political world to it, as if you could actually continue to insist That there was no doubt at all that Lucy Letby was a mad witch who patrolled the wards of the Countess of Chester Hospital killing babies for no discernible reason and in no way connected with anything she'd ever done before and in ways which nobody has ever been able to establish that she did it and which nobody ever saw.

So an enormous, what is it, 18 million pound inquiry predicated on this, how should I say, questionable assumption continued to trundle on like a steamroller, crushing like hedgehogs any suggestion by anybody that this might not be a good idea and ignoring pleas from Ms. Letbe's increasing army of defenders to hold hard and at one stage to wait at least Until the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is examining the case, came up with its answer.

You shouldn't do any of those things.

He said, no, no, I have to proceed with my remit.

It says there was a complete failure to protect babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, but it doesn't question Letby's guilt.

Still pending is a decision by the Criminal Cases Review Commission into whether Lucy Letby's case should be looked at again.

There's obviously a lot of interest in this in New Zealand based on the sheer number of people who've accessed our previous conversations online.

The New Zealand connection here is that Letby was convicted of attempting to murder two of the babies by poisoning them with insulin.

Good morning, Jim.

Good to talk to you again.

So these two experts have written to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, Lucy Letby's last hope, saying while it's legitimate for the defence to advance multiple arguments, some of the other arguments now being put forward we cannot support as scientifically credible and so on.

I'm not sure of the extent to which this may harm her case, but is this an unusual kind of intercession?

And there's also an... interesting story unfolding at the same time, there's now a significant and organised challenge to the medical evidence that helped convict Lucy Lethby.

So back to Lucy, her legal team has asked Britain's Criminal Cases Review Commission to investigate whether her conviction should be sent back to the Court of Appeal.

Now, its role is to decide whether there's new evidence or argument creating a real possibility that convictions would not be upheld if they were referred back to the Court of Appeal.

Now, apparently they've got a group of international medical experts assembled by her new defence team and they're arguing that some of the babies died or deteriorated because they were, A, extremely premature or seriously unwell or received inadequate medical care rather than being deliberately harmed.

He resisted that though, and said that greater consideration, uh, needs to be, um, gone into.

And, and I think just as a kind of closing remark, it, it, just the timing of this seems deliberate, uh, a sort of deliberate attempt to destabilize the outcome of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the CCRC, into the decision on whether or not this is going to be overturned.

So I think there's plenty more to talk about it, but I don't know if you've got any thoughts on-

Uh, just very quickly.

Now, in a joint statement, Chambers, Kelly and Harvey, along with the hospital's former HR director, Sue Hodgkinson, said they were carefully reviewing the Thirlwall report and its recommendations, but given there are a number of investigations underway, it would be inappropriate for them to offer any further comment at this time.

Of course, the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission has also not yet been completed either, with Letby's new legal team seeking a review of her convictions.

Lisa.

I'm really interested in what's going on in Bristol.

They'd used it and interpreted it incorrectly and And these specialists all said that they had suspicions about the safety of Letbe's conviction and said they blamed that hospital mistakes, medical mistakes were to blame for this.

And the case was reviewed to what's called the Criminal Cases Review Commission here.

It's essentially the body that... looks into potential miscarriages of justice and decides whether or not a retrial should be necessary, even if the appeal process has been followed through.

And a reference has been made to them.