CPS admits evidence in Lucy Letby's first trial was false | Lucy Letby

Prosecutors admitted that evidence presented in the first trial against Lucy Letby showing which staff entered and left the infant unit where she worked was false.

The nurse was convicted last year of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six more at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England. Letby, the worst child serial killer in British history, is serving 14 life sentences, meaning she will never be released from prison.

In a retrial at Manchester Crown Court last month, the 34-year-old from Hereford was found guilty of the attempted murder of another child, known as Baby K.

During the retrial, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court that data obtained from the door card readers showing which nurses and doctors entered and left the intensive care unit had been “mislabelled”.

The prosecution service told the Telegraph that the discrepancy identified was related to a door in the neonatal intensive care unit and that it had been corrected for the retrial.

A spokesman for Mersey-Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service said: “The Crown Prosecution Service can confirm that accurate data on door lock readings was provided at the retrial.”

Conservative MP David Davis has written to Sarah Hammond, senior prosecutor for Mersey-Cheshire CPS, asking for “urgent clarification” of timing errors made during the first trial and how they relate to the prosecution’s argument.

Davis, who plans to launch a parliamentary debate after the summer recess, said: “The door card data is obviously crucial to finding out which nurse was where at any given time, and that in turn was crucial to the prosecution's evidence in the first trial.”

“It is therefore crucial that the prosecution clarify whether these errors occurred in all the evidence at the first trial.”

In the first trial, the prosecution said that specialist Dr. Ravi Jayaram discovered Letby standing over Baby K at 3:50 a.m. on February 17, 2016. The baby's condition had worsened and his breathing tube had become loose.

Prosecutors said door scan data showed the nurse in charge of the baby left the intensive care unit at 3:47 a.m. But at retrial, the data was changed to show the nurse had returned by that time, meaning Letby was not alone.

At the retrial, the prosecution and defense admitted that it had been a genuine mistake, and the nurse was found guilty of attempted murder of Baby K.

Letby faced a three-week retrial on the single charge of attempted murder, which she denied, after the jury failed to reach a verdict in her original trial last year.

In September, a public inquiry will be opened, led by Judge Kathryn Thirlwall, into how Letby was able to continue working with babies despite concerns from senior doctors who linked her to a series of suspicious incidents.