I watched arrogant Lucy Letby as she simmered in the dock & saw chilling evidence that proves she IS an evil baby killer

The Sun

10-07-2025

Journalist Nigel Bunyan also reveals why he believes any future appeal is likely to fall short
VOID OF HUMANITY I watched arrogant Lucy Letby as she simmered in the dock & saw chilling evidence that proves she IS an evil baby killer
IN the eyes of the law she's a cold-blooded serial killer who murdered seven babies and tried to kill seven others at the hospital where she worked during a year-long reign of terror.
But doubts over Lucy Letby's guilt have been slowly gaining traction, with her supporters - who include prominent politicians - expressing growing fears she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
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Doubts over killer nurse Lucy Letby's guilt have been gaining traction
Credit: PA
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Nigel Farage has said there are serious questions over Lucy Letby's case
Credit: Simon Jones
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Notes were found in Letby's room in which she called herself 'evil'
Credit: PA
The killer nurse, 35, is serving 15 whole-life orders in prison for the murder of seven babies between 2015 and 2016 at Countess of Chester hospital.
She was also found guilty in 2023 of trying to kill seven others, but has always maintained her innocence.
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Last week Reform leader Nigel Farage said there were 'serious questions' about the case which have left him with a 'horrible feeling' Letby might have been a 'very convenient scapegoat' and should be retried.
Meanwhile Conservative MP David Davis is convinced her conviction is a 'clear miscarriage of justice'.
But earlier this month it emerged Letby could be facing more charges over the deaths of babies at hospitals she worked in.
Nigel Bunyan has been a journalist for more than four decades and covered the trials of GP Harold Shipman, the child killers of James Bulger, and the Rochdale grooming gang.
He attended Lucy Letby's main trial and the retrial that followed.
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As her case attracts more scrutiny than ever before, here Nigel details why he believes "beyond doubt" that she IS guilty, and that justice prevailed...
IN the make-believe, boxset world of Netflix, Disney+ and the like, Lucy Letby just HAS to be innocent!
A prominent Tory MP has said so. So too has Letby's shiny new defence barrister and a group of international experts who've rallied, unbidden, to her cause, without having been anywhere near either trial.
Lucy Letby's legal team launch fresh bid against convictions for murdering babies – as new evidence is revealed
The only catch is that in the real world – the one not liberally sprinkled with fairy dust theories of perceived innocence – Letby is the real deal.
She actually IS a nailed-on serial killer of tiny, defenceless babies.
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After attending her trial - and the retrial that followed it - I have no doubt whatsoever of her guilt.
She is serving a whole life term for seven murders and seven attempted murders after being found guilty not just by one jury – but by TWO.
Sadly, serial killers don't come with an identifying mark on their foreheads. And they don't always confess.
But I watched every moment of her evidence at Manchester Crown Court, looking for some spark of authenticity, of humanity; something to make me doubt the prosecution case.
I looked in vain. All I could see was a defendant standing behind a blank, unyielding wall of denials.
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Letby denied her involvement in the death of seven babies
Credit: The Mega Agency
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Nigel reported on high profile cases including killer GP Harold Shipman
Credit: Alamy
She was a woman shielding herself with simmering resentment, sullen in the dock and equally so when giving evidence.
Dr Harold Shipman had something of the same aura – arrogant to the end, content to simply deny all charges.
Dr Harold Shipman had something of the same aura – arrogant to the end, content to simply deny all charges
Nigel Bunyan
By the time Letby was called to give evidence we'd already seen the now-infamous Post-it notes she scribbled in the bedroom of her house around the corner from the Countess of Chester hospital where she committed her crimes.
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'I am evil. I did this,' she'd written. 'I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them (and) I am a horrible person.'
Her supporters looked to other lines that could be interpreted as indicators of innocence. 'I haven't done anything wrong,' for example. And, 'Why me?'
For all that the evidence against Letby was largely – and inevitably - circumstantial, taken as a whole it was totally convincing on all but a few of the charges.
It's one thing to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in her case that happened far too many times.
Her colleagues who saw her as a friend didn't want to 'think the unthinkable' - that she was the enemy within - but eventually they had no option.
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It wasn't just the statistical oddities about her presence; it was an innate feeling of unease among those who had once trusted her without question.
Far too many babies were collapsing on the unit for there to be any other explanation than sabotage by a member of staff. And there were no other suspects.
Chilling evidence
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Lucy worked on a neonatal unit at the hospital in Chester
Credit: CPS
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Cops found notes where she called herself evil and claimed 'I killed them all'
Credit: PA
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Letby is accused of creating an air embolism in some of the babies which can cause death
Credit: Getty
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A stock photo of an X-ray showing a venous air embolism (not the image of the victim shown in court during the trial)
Credit: Kenneth Kizer/researchgate.net
For me, the case finally fell into place as I spent long nights compiling a 17,000-word timeline.
Suddenly, for all the woolliness of the case as it unfolded in court, I could see how Letby had moved so deftly in the shadows, aided by her colleagues' understandable reluctance to believe ill of her.
Many of them counted her as a friend, and when she broke down in apparent distress over the infants dying on her watch, they instinctively reached out in support.
Letby's cynical manipulation is typified by the very first of her killings: one day volunteering to take group selfies during a colleague's hen-do in York, the next injecting Baby A with air 90 minutes after coming back on duty in Chester.
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Before the jury reached their verdict I knew what it should be.
Suddenly, for all the woolliness of the case as it unfolded in court, I could see how Letby had moved so deftly in the shadows, aided by her colleagues' understandable reluctance to believe ill of her
Nigel Bunyan
And the court of social media who protest her innocence may have taken a different view if they had seen all the evidence, as I have.
During the trial a chilling image was shown to the jury: the X-ray of one of the dead babies, showing a white line of what could only be air running parallel to his spine.
And the only explanation for that air was for it to have been forced into the infant's system. Which is how Lucy Letby achieved something that the reviewing paediatrician Sandie Bohin had never previously seen in neonates – she made some of them scream.
Had the prosecution found the courage to release that image some doubters may be silenced.
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But the CPS refused, saying it formed part of an individual's medical records.
Medical expertise
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Mark McDonald has taken up representing Letby and has got medical experts on her side
Credit: PA
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There has been a huge wave of public support for Letby claiming she is innocent
Credit: CHRIS NEILL
Much has been made of the international panel of medical experts drawn together by Letby's new barrister, Mark McDonald.
But it is hugely significant that Ben Myers, the lawyer who led her defence in both trials, made the very deliberate decision NOT to call ANY of the medical experts he had briefed on the case.
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In fact, the only defence witness aside from Letby was Lorenzo Mansutti, a plumber, who spoke briefly about drainage problems at the Countess.
Myers' reasoning was clearly tactical, perhaps made because he doubted the ability of those potential witnesses to counter the allegations that Letby harmed babies mostly with injections of air or insulin.
Lucy Letby achieved something that the reviewing paediatrician Sandie Bohin had never previously seen in neonates – she made some of them scream
Nigel Bunyan
Any future appeal is likely to fall short unless McDonald can come up with a satisfactory answer to Myers' decision.
Ultimately the jury was swayed by the assertion of Nick Johnson KC, the lead prosecutor, that Letby had been caught out by 'a constellation of coincidences' that had no other plausible explanation.
For all the protests to the contrary, I don't believe for one second that Letby was set up as a scapegoat.
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She was simply found out by colleagues who finally realised she was the killer in their midst.
Almost two years on, we now have the prospect of Letby facing a third trial.
On top of that three members of the leadership team at the Countess were arrested last week on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter and may yet face trial themselves.
And then there is the Thirlwall Inquiry into the killer's activities and the conduct of NHS personnel at the time. It's due to report next year.
So all in all, overwhelmingly bad news for those wearing yellow butterfly emblems in support of their fake heroine.
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Genuine miscarriages of justice do occur. Of course they do. But they're extremely rare.
I abhor the white noise repeatedly being drummed up in her name - often by people who should know better
Nigel Bunyan
Years ago, for example, I wrote about Stefan Kiszko, who was exonerated over a murder he couldn't possibly have committed.
But Letby? I just don't see it.
More than that, I abhor the white noise repeatedly being drummed up in her name - often by people who should know better - while Letby herself remains silent; brooding in HMP Prison Bronzefield, Surrey.
For me, as for the families, hers is a name that speaks only of sickening cruelty and betrayal.
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As one of the mums said recently: 'You don't want to see her face, you don't want to hear her name, you don't want to hear people shouting that she's innocent.
"She's not innocent, she was found guilty in a court of law."