Lucy Letby Former senior coroner's officer believes conviction is 'wholly unsafe'

A senior coroner's officer who first reviewed the deaths of babies at the Countess of Chester hospital for Cheshire police in 2017 now believes Lucy Letby has suffered a miscarriage of justice.

- David Conn

Stephanie Davies, who was given three hours to carry out her review, was told it was key to detectives deciding to commence an investigation into the former neonatal nurse.

In her first interview, with the Guardian and Channel 4 News, Davies said she had become increasingly alarmed since December, when she learned that the hospital doctors had not reported a key medical procedure on one of the babies to the coroner at the time. She has since found the explanations of new medical experts, who have publicly contested the prosecution arguments, compelling.

Last month, Davies wrote to Cheshire's senior coroner explaining her involvement.

"I am now extremely concerned that the convictions of Ms Letby are wholly unsafe," she wrote.

Letby, who was a nurse in the hospital's neonatal unit, was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more, and sentenced to a whole life in prison for each offence. Last year the court of appeal twice refused her permission to appeal. Letby's lawyer, Mark McDonald, has applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, arguing that the convictions are unsafe and should be referred to the court of appeal.

A panel of international experts led by the world renowned neonatologist Dr Shoo Lee, who were instructed by McDonald, have argued that Letby has been wrongly convicted, that there were no murders, and the babies died from natural causes and instances of poor care in the hospital. Lawyers representing the babies' families have been adamant that the convictions are safe and rejected the new experts' opinions.

Two specialist consultant neonatologists, Dr Neil Aiton and Dr Svilena Dimitrova, produced a report for McDonald on a triplet who died at the hospital, anonymised as Baby O.