Lucy Letby: Doctors blamed nurse to cover unit's failings, jury told

Senior doctors have "lined up" to "do their bit to damage" nurse Lucy Letby in order to cover failings on a neonatal unit, her barrister has said.

Ben Myers KC, told Manchester Crown Court that the Countess of Chester Hospital "failed" in 2015 and 2016 and "blame for absolutely everything" had been "heaped" on Ms Letby.

The 33-year-old has been charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at the hospital.

She has denied all charges.

Addressing the jury of eight women and four men at the start of his closing speech, Mr Myers said what was "really at work is best described as the presumption of guilt".

"That is what is being used," he said.

"The prosecution case is fuelled by it and riddled by it.

"No matter what Lucy Letby says, or doesn't say, it is slotted into an ever-flexible, ever-changing theory of guilt.

"Everything is treated as evidence of guilt."

He said he wanted to put forward "something different... something called the presumption of innocence".

"Being fair and working on the basis that someone is innocent until proven guilty is how our law works," he said.

He told jurors that since Ms Letby's trial began in October 2022, a succession of "very senior consultants" had sought to "do down" the nurse in their evidence.

He said the truth was that the unit on which she worked was "understaffed and overstretched" between June 2015 and June 2016, when the attacks were claimed to have taken place.

The defence barrister said there were two possibilities for what happened.

The first was that the baby deaths and collapses happened as a result of medical conditions and "suboptimal care" on the unit, he said.

The other possibility, he said, was that a "dedicated" nurse "decided to start killing babies" on the unit for "reasons that are beyond comprehension and are unidentified".

He said that theory made "no sense on the basis of what we see".

Mr Myers told the jury there had been a "marked increase" in the number of babies on the unit during the period in question, "too many" of which had had "additional requirements".

He said doctors on the unit had been "slow to reveal mistakes" in the care of children and quoted the prosecution's chief medical expert, Dr Dewi Evans, who previously told the trial that "one tends not to spread news about the mistakes we make".

Mr Myers reminded jurors Dr Evans had replied "yes, absolutely", when he was asked whether doctors were slow to acknowledge mistakes.

He said the witness had said that "like it's a good thing", adding: "One hopes that isn't right and people in these positions are better than that.

"But in a way, haven't we seen that in this trial."

He also questioned the independence of Dr Evans' expert testimony, which had formed the "bedrock" of the prosecution case.

He said Dr Evans was "a full member of the prosecution team from the very start" and was "not neutral" or independent "in any way".

He went on to produce an email sent by the medic to the National Crime Agency in May 2017, in Dr Evans wrote that if "the Chester police had no-one in mind, I'd be interested to help" as it sounded "like my kind of case".

He said the message showed Dr Evans had been "touting" for work and as he "underpins the whole of the medical evidence in this case....he most definitely undermines it".

He went on to ask the jury to "understand" that the "stakes" in the trial were "very high".

"Very senior consultants have lined up to do their bit, to do down Ms Letby, some blatantly, some more understated," he said.

"We don't say 'doctors bad'.

"We say for those senior consultants who presided at that unit... Lucy Letby getting the blame matters."

He said said "one way or another", the unit had "failed" and the case against Ms Letby was a "prime opportunity" to "hide" poor outcomes.

He added that after the Countess of Chester's neonatal unit was downgraded to a "level one unit" after June 2016, two more consultants were added, which was "indicative" of prior staffing pressures.

Mr Myers told the jury that at "the heart of this case" was who they believed "the person" Lucy Letby was.

He said she had "never been in any type of trouble" and was "quite a serious character", who approached work with dedication and commitment.

Mr Myers said Ms Letby was an "exemplary nurse", as had been attested by witnesses in this case, and had cared for hundreds of babies in her time on the unit.

The barrister noted that the prosecution had made much of her increased presence on the unit during the time of the alleged offences.

He cited agreed evidence from one of Ms Letby's nursing colleagues who had said she recalled there had been "massive staffing issues, where people were coming in and doing extra shifts".

"It was mainly Lucy [being a band 5 nurse]," she said.

"Lucy was young, living in halls, saving to buy a house, single, willing to do extra work shifts."

He said those comments made the allegations "all the more unlikely".

Mr Myers then turned to Ms Letby's Facebook searches, which have been previously discussed in the case.

He said of the 2,318 she made, "only 31" relate to parents' names on the indictment.

He said the nurse was "somebody who looks up people very readily", but it was also notable that she had not searched the internet for "air embolus", "forcing in air" or any "fascination with what's alleged here".

He went on to state that of the 257 nursing handover sheets recovered from Ms Letby's home address, only 21, or "less than 10%", related to babies on the indictment.

He added that if the prosecution's assertion that Ms Letby was keeping the sheets as a souvenir or memento from the attacks was correct, the documents did not "do what they should do" to show that.

The trial continues.

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