Campaign to free Lucy Letby escalates as ‘key witness attacked in street’ | UK | News

A medical witness giving evidence for Lucy Letby’s prosecution claims he was attacked by a member of the public with “pro-Letby views” as the campaign for her release turned hostile.

Letby, 34, is serving a 15-year prison sentence for the murder of seven newborn babies and the attempted murder of seven more children while she worked as a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

However, in recent weeks questions have been raised as to whether this might have been a miscarriage of justice, and various campaigns have called for a retrial.

The medical witness who was allegedly attacked last week reported the incident to police, the Sunday Times reported.

Cheshire Police confirmed they were investigating, while another medical witness said they were considering passing on several messages received via social media to the authorities.

In August last year, a jury at Manchester Crown Court found Letby guilty of the murder of seven young children and the attempted murder of six others. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for these offences.

But the jury was unable to reach a verdict in the attempted murder case of Baby K, who was born at just 25 weeks’ gestation on February 17, 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

On July 6, Letby was found guilty of this offence after a four-week retrial.

Her parents, Susan and John Letby, who have not yet commented publicly on the case, privately described her imprisonment as “the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history”.

According to sources, the two are actively hoping for the conviction to be overturned.

Health Minister Wes Streeting described calls for Letby’s release as “crass and insensitive” and said the public should continue to view her as a murderer.

Appearing on LBC, Streeting said: “It is crass and insensitive to conduct a public election campaign in this way. Because we can debate it, you and I, the audience can debate it, we can read the newspapers.”

“We are not the Criminal Case Review Board. We have an independent judiciary in this country, and I think we have a fair and successful independent judiciary in this country.”

The parents of babies E and F, as they are known for legal reasons, said their family was “deeply shocked by the ongoing speculation surrounding what is being described as a miscarriage of justice.”

“Certain pieces of evidence being discussed in the media are completely out of context and misrepresented,” they added. “Misinformation is being spread about what happened in court. Having attended the trial ourselves, we know exactly what was said.”

The mother found out she was expecting twins in 2015 after several unsuccessful IVF attempts. Letby had murdered Baby E by causing internal bleeding and giving him a lethal injection of air. Baby F, on the other hand, was poisoned with insulin but survived.

This came amid reports that Letby had changed her legal team in a bid to overturn the verdicts. Mark McDonald, a lawyer specialising in appeals and miscarriages of justice, told the BBC he was now representing Letby.

The lawyer said he intends to take her case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) and seek a referral back to the Court of Appeal.