Key witness Lucy Letby changed her mind about testifying at trial | Great Britain | News

A medical expert in Lucy Letby’s trial said he has changed his mind about how one of the babies was killed. This comes amid growing questions about the reliability of the evidence used to convict Letby of the murder of seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015.

Prosecutors said during their trial that one of the toddlers, known as Baby C, was murdered after air was pumped into his stomach.

During the trial, Dr. Dewi Evans testified that he believed the air bubble caused the boy’s stomach to swell after being pumped in, which “split his diaphragm” and crushed his lungs, making breathing impossible.

His suspicion of death was based on an X-ray that showed the baby had an unusual amount of air in its stomach.

This may have been caused by air being pumped into his feeding tube, he suggested.

Now an investigation by BBC File on 4 – broadcast on Tuesday – has revealed that Letby was not working at the hospital at the time of the X-ray.

Dr. Evans told The Telegraph he no longer believed air pumped into the stomach was the cause of death. Although he still believes Letby murdered the baby, his opinion of how she did it has changed.

He said: “The gastric bladder was not responsible for his death. However, (she) probably destabilized him. His death occurred the following day, around midnight, and was due to air in the bloodstream.”

“Letby was there. I changed my mind after listening to the testimony of local nurses and doctors. Baby C was always the most difficult from a clinical perspective. So I understand the confusion.”

Letby insists she is innocent and the case represents a major miscarriage of justice, and she hopes the Criminal Cases Review Commission will consider her case.

Nicholas Johnson KC, the prosecutor at Letby’s trial, said that Baby C was murdered “by introducing air into his stomach via the feeding tube rather than into his bloodstream”.

In an interview for File on 4, Dr. Evans said that “the biggest concern was that the x-ray showed a huge, big bubble in the stomach and way more gas than I would expect.”

However, it then emerged that the X-ray had been taken on June 12, 2015, when Letby was not working and had been out of hospital for two days.

Then Baby C collapsed and died two days later while Letby was working the night shift. The prosecution suspected he was killed by another injection of air into his stomach.

Ben Myers KC, defending Letby, pointed out that she was not on duty at the time of the X-ray.

In summing up, Judge Mr Justice Goss did not remind the jury that Letby had not been present that day.

However, he said radiologists’ evidence showed the baby’s stomach was “full of gases”, which could have been due to deliberate administration of air.

Mark McDonald, their new lawyer, said of the new blood circulation theory: “It is remarkable that we have come up with this new hypothesis out of nowhere. This had never happened before, it just came out of nowhere.

“There is no evidence that anyone saw this, no evidence from a diagnostic point of view and no evidence as to which line the air was supposed to have flowed through.

“We now have expert evidence to say that this baby was actually very unwell due to an intestinal obstruction and that he needed specialist medical attention, which he did not receive, and probably surgery to save his life, but that did not happen. “

File on Four also asked five senior doctors to review Baby C’s medical records provided during the trial, and all agreed the child should have been placed on a higher ward.

Prof Colin Morely, a retired professor of neonatology at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC he believed Baby C died of natural causes.

Since the Letby trial, several scientists, statisticians and clinicians have come forward to raise concerns about some of the evidence presented to the jury.

James Phillips, a former government scientific adviser to Boris Johnson, said: “The crucial evidence supporting one of the murder convictions against Lucy Letby is deeply flawed as she appears to have never met the baby at the time of the abduction.”

“She had never had a shift before. This obviously raises the serious question of whether the underlying belief is secure.

“Serious doubts have arisen as to whether there ever was a crime.”

The CPS has been contacted for comment.