MP Sir David Davis, left, and Dr. Shoo Lee attend a press conference to present new evidence regarding the safety of the convictions of former nurse Lucy Letby, on Feb. 4, in London, England.Leon Neal/Getty Images
In the basement of his farmhouse near Edmonton, retired neonatologist Shoo Lee pored over 35,000 pages of medical records and witness statements used as evidence in the case of British nurse Lucy Letby, who was convicted of murdering seven newborns and trying to kill seven others.
The Canadian doctor led a little-known 14-person panel of international medical experts to examine the causes of death or injury of the babies over the course of a year at Countess of Chester Hospital where Ms. Letby worked. Dr. Lee, who testified at one of Ms. Letby’s failed appeals, volunteered to convene the panel after he grew concerned that she was convicted in 2023 on flawed medical evidence.
“I said to myself, ‘who’s going to stand up for her if I did not?’ I didn’t see anyone,” said Dr. Lee, the former pediatrician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, in an interview with The Globe and Mail this week. “I felt an obligation to do the right thing.”
He had two stipulations with Ms. Letby’s legal team before the work began. First, under no circumstance would the existence of the panel or identities of its members be revealed until the work was complete. And, second, the panel’s findings would be published regardless of whether they were favourable to Ms. Letby.
After six months of quiet work, Dr. Lee revealed on Tuesday to assembled media at a London news conference the panel’s definitive findings: “Ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders.” The panel concluded that the babies died or were harmed because of “natural causes or errors in medical care.”
None of the panelists, who volunteered their time without pay, talked directly with Ms. Letby or reviewed non-medical evidence.
The case had already gripped Britain and the world during a 10-month trial, with reports subsequently casting doubt on the evidence that led to her conviction, and has once again been thrust into the international spotlight. The new evidence could provide the convicted serial killer another chance at appeal.
Ms. Letby’s legal team has filed an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), an independent body that investigates potential miscarriages of justice. The commission has the power to refer a case back to the Court of Appeal if they determine there is a “real possibility” that a conviction could be overturned, usually on the basis of new and compelling information.
It was found during Ms. Letby’s trial that she deliberately harmed newborns by injecting intravenous lines with air, force feeding them milk or poisoning them with insulin between June, 2015, and June, 2016.
Ms. Letby, 35, was sentenced in August, 2023, to life in prison with no chance of release. At the time, Justice James Goss said she acted with a “deep malevolence bordering on sadism.” Ms. Letby has lost two bids to appeal her conviction. Defence lawyer Mark McDonald said on Tuesday that there is now “overwhelming evidence” that she was wrongly convicted.
A physician turned farmer, Dr. Lee was first contacted by Ms. Letby’s legal counsel in October, 2023. He thought the e-mail was spam and, because he was busy with harvest, ignored it for a few weeks. But he later replied after learning that one of his academic papers on air embolisms formed part of the prosecution’s case in the trial. He said his paper was misinterpreted.
Dr. Lee began winding down his medical career in 2021. Among his roles were head of the division of neonatology at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children and head of the department of newborn and developmental pediatrics at the city’s Sunnybrook Hospital. He was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2019.
Dr. Lee asked Ms. Letby’s legal team for access to the evidence in its entirety after offering his testimony – his first involvement in medical legal work. “I didn’t know whether she was guilty or innocent at that point,” he said. “It just didn’t sit right that you can actually convict someone using that kind of evidence.”
He proposed to Ms. Letby’s lawyers that he would convene a panel, which they agreed to. Dr. Lee said it was difficult to get doctors in Britain on board because “nobody wanted to touch it.” The panel did include, however, British doctor Neena Modi, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, in additional to experts from Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany and Sweden.
Each baby’s case was examined by two panel members who then independently submitted their reports to Dr. Lee. The conclusions were accepted as final if the panelists were in agreement. If they weren’t, another expert was asked to review and a consensus was found.
Alternate explanations for each of Ms. Letby’s convictions were provided in the summaries of the cases. A final report has yet to be published.
In the case of one baby, Ms. Letby was accused of killing by injecting air into their intravenous line, the panel concluded that the child died instead of systemic sepsis, pneumonia and widespread blood clotting.
Overall, the panel determined that the hospital was riddled with problems, including unsafe delays in diagnosis and treatment of acutely ill patients, poor supervision of junior doctors and a lack of teamwork.
Dr. Lee said he did not want to cause more distress to families who lost their loved ones – only find the truth. He said on Tuesday that he had not heard from any of the affected families but had received one e-mail that called him a criminal. The mother of one of the victims told the BBC that families “already have the truth.”
He said it could be months, and even years, before there is a decision from the CCRC. In the meantime, Dr. Lee, who called the work arduous but imperative, said: “I’m going back to my farm, back to my life.”
With reports from the Associated Press