The « most ferocious serial killer of children from the United Kingdom » is perhaps innocent: the case of Lucy Letby, from the beginning

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It is considered the most ferocious serial killer of Great Britain children. Lucy Letby35 -year -old nurse, was condemned in 2023 to life imprisonment for killing seven babies (including twins) and for the attempted murder of eight another Between June 2015 and June 2016, while working in the neonatal unit of the Courtex of Chester Hospital, northern England. You have always claimed to be innocent, but so far she has been denied permission to appeal against the sentences. Now on the story more and more doubts emerge And the suspicion that Letby was the victim of a witch hunt.

The nurse, as the AP agency reconstructs, was condemned for having deliberately hurt infants in various waysfor example, by injecting air into the blood and administering air or milk in the stomach through the nasogastic pipes. It was also accused of having poisoned two by entering insulin in their phlegal or manipulating the respiratory pipes they were attacked.

Letby ended up under accusation After a series of suspicious deaths in the neonatal unit And After the doctors of the department noticed that she was always present When the children suddenly worsened. One of the doctors, Stephen Brearey, primary of the neonatology department of the Countess of Chester Hospital, told the BBC that he repeatedly tried to give the alarm on Letby, but that the hospital managers did not investigate the accusations but rather tried to silence the doctors who complained of her.

In 2015 the hospital started recording a significant increase in the number of infants who died or who suffered sudden worsening without any apparent reason. Some have undergone « serious catastrophic collapses », but survived thanks to medical care. According to the Prosecutor, Letby was in service in all cases and public ministries described it as a « constant malicious presence ». They said the nurse hurt children without leaving traces And that he convinced his colleagues that the collapses and dead were normal. The police started an investigation into the death of children in the hospital in May 2017 and Letby was formally accused in November 2020.

As proof of him was brought A ticket found by the police at his home After his first arrest in 2018. « Not thanks to living, » the nurse had written on a post-it. «I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to take care of them. I am a horrible and evil person ». And again, in capital letters: « I am evil to have done it ». The jury approved for 22 days before reaching the sentence.

For years Letby has been described as a monster, a cruel person who killed innocent babies without apparent reason. But the story could be very different. Last year the investigative journalist Rachel Aviv, in a long investigation on New Yorkerbegan to raise doubts about the official version.

«The accusations against her acquired credibility on the basis of a single graphic designer shared by the police, who had wide diffusion in the media. On the vertical axis there were twenty -four « suspicious events », which included the death of the seven babies and other seventeen cases of children who suffered a sudden worsening. On the horizontal axis there were the names of thirty -eight nurse who had worked in the unit during that period, with the X next to each suspicious event that were on duty. Letby was the only nurse with an uninterrupted line of X under its name. It was the « common denominator », the « constant malicious presence when things took a bad turn, » said one of the public ministries, Nick Johnson, to the jury in his opening declaration, « wrote Rachel Aviv on New Yorker.

However, the graph did not take into account other factors that could influence the mortality rate of the unit. «The public conversation developed quickly without there being a lot of curiosity about an incongruous aspect of history: Letby seemed to be a psychologically healthy and happy person. He had many close friends. His fellow nurses spoke very well of his care and his dedication. A detective of the Cheshire police, who conducted the investigations, said: « It is a completely unpublished situation, as there seems to be nothing to say » about why Letby would have killed children. « We did not find anything abnormal in his past »»Note Aviv still.

The journalist of New Yorker It also says that Letby, in addition to being much loved by colleagues, He was one of the most qualified nurse in the neonatal unit and who worked a lotbecause he was young, single and was putting aside the money to buy a house. On the contrary In the hospital and in the department in which Letby worked there were numerous problems. «The staff was overwhelmed with work. Seven experienced pediatricians, called consultants, went around the unit, but only one was a neonatologist, a specialist in the treatment of newborns. An investigation for a newborn dead in 2014, a year before the deaths for which Letby was accused, discovered that the doctors had inserted a respiratory tube in the child’s esophagus rather than in the trachea, ignoring several signs that the tube had been positioned badly. « I find surprising that these signals have not been noticed « said the coroner, according to the Daily Express. The child’s mother told the newspaper that « the lack of staff meant that blood tests and radiographs were not evaluated for seven hours and that there was only one doctor on duty who was divided between the neonatal department and the pediatric ward » « says Rachel Aviv.

In recent years, after the sentence of Letby, the complaints on the Problems of the British health systemwho is loved and revered by the British but – Due to decades of systematic health cuts – it always works worse (as shown also the terrible experience of our corresponding Luigi Ippolito). In 2015 the infant mortality rate in England and Wales increased for the first time in a century e A public investigation discovered deficiencies in the number of doctors and nurses in two thirds of the country’s neonatal units. But, as Aviv writes: « The National Health Service has a totemic status in the British psyche ». A politician called him « the closer thing to a religion that the British have ». It is easier to think that a nurse is evil than condemn a beloved and reverberated institution.

In another sheet recovered in Letby’s diaries, notes similar to those of the post-it have been found. “I killed them. I don’t know if I killed them. Maybe I did it. Maybe it’s my fault «  It was written. Words that make the death of babies appear far from intentional. Burkhard Schafer, a professor by right at the University of Edinburgh who studies the use of science in the processes, told the New Yorker That the data on the « inexplicable » deaths of newborns in his department and those on the presence of Letby were chosen in a way that made it appear suspicious (in some cases wrong by the turn in which it was present).

The commission of inquiry commissioned to investigate the matter came to the conclusion that the tests against Letby are not founded. «Now there seems to be a real possibility that there are alternative explanations for these deaths and these inexplicable collapse, that is bad management and clinical care and natural causes« Said Kate Blackwell, a lawyer for senior managers of the Counterie of Chester Hospital. Blackwell asked that the investigation be suspended until the involvement of Letby is clarified. « If there is evidence that indicates that there are alternative explanations, then it would be wrong that the investigation is ignored because they are uncomfortable, » he added.

On Wednesday the lawyer lawyer, Mark McDonald, delivered an 86 pages report drawn up by important medical specialists to the English Commission for the revision of criminal cases (CCRC), which questioned the key conclusions of the process on two of the children, known as Children « Baby F » and « L ». Letby was condemned on the basis of the affirmation that those two children were poisoned with insulin and all the other cases were interpreted in light of this intake. But there are many doubts about the poisoning and the criteria with which the deaths have been defined as suspicious (The children were all in the neonatal intensive unit because they were at risk and needed medical care).

As the AP tells, the group of experts examined the clinical folders of 17 children to whom Letby is accused of having hurt. And not only did he find no proof of crime, but but concluded that the death of each of the newborns was caused by natural causes or inadequate medical care. « In summary, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murder, » said one of the experts, Dr. Shoo Lee, a retired Canadian neonatologist, during a press conference in London. The experts instead found that The hospital did not have enough personal and that health workers were not adequately qualified In the resuscitation and insertion of respiratory pipes, which did not know some basic procedures, they evaded the disorders and slowly acted in the treatment of severely sick children. « I would say that if this was a hospital in Canada, it would be closed, » said Lee.

The worst serial killer of children in the history of Great Britain It could only be the product of judicial errors. Bad justice that adds to the illness.