Lucy Letby has been refused permission to appeal against a conviction for attempting to murder a baby girl, as judges ruled she was able to have a fair trial.
The former nurse, who is serving 14 whole-life prison terms, had sought to overturn the conviction on the basis that she had been subjected to “unadulterated vitriol” in the media before the trial.
But senior judges dismissed her legal challenge after a two-hour hearing at the court of appeal in London on Thursday.
Letby, now 34, gave no reaction to the judges’ ruling, listening via video link from HMP Bronzefield, a women’s prison in Surrey.
Her new barrister, Mark McDonald, is preparing to ask for a wide-ranging review of the convictions by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Letby was originally convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital in north-west England.
She was found guilty after a retrial in June of attempting to murder a seventh infant, known as Baby K.
Letby, who has consistently maintained her innocence, had been refused permission to appeal against last year’s convictions and on Thursday launched a bid to appeal against her conviction for trying to kill Baby K.
Benjamin Myers KC, for Letby, told the three judges that it was “unprecedented” for such “highly prejudicial and emotive” comments to have been made about a defendant before a criminal trial.
He said police detectives had described the nurse as “evil, cruel and devoid of emotion”, while a senior prosecutor had labelled her “devious, cold-blooded, calculated [and] manipulative” after her first trial last year.
Myers said the trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, had been wrong to allow the retrial to go ahead given the “overwhelming and irremediable” public comment that followed her original convictions.
He said the media had been “saturated with unadulterated vitriol” towards the former nurse before the retrial, citing 62 examples of hostile coverage, including a debate on ITV’s Loose Women titled: “Was Lucy Letby born evil?”
Myers said it had been “unprecedented” for a police force, in this case Cheshire constabulary, to launch into “blistering attacks” on a defendant at a time when a retrial was under consideration.
However, Lord Justice Davis, sitting with Lord Justice Baker and Mrs Justice McGowan, said they would refuse permission for Letby to challenge the conviction.
In a ruling briefly interrupted by a fire alarm inside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Davis said: “We conclude that the judge was right to find that Letby would be able to have a fair trial.”
The judges concluded that “almost all” of the media coverage complained about had been published or broadcast in the week after the convictions and therefore the “fade factor” – the reduced effect of this material over time – had been significant.
They said it was “fanciful” that police and prosecutors should not be able to comment in emotive terms about a defendant immediately after convictions. The prospect of a retrial “did not materially affect the position”, the judges decided.
Davis said their ruling related only to Letby’s contention that her retrial should not have been allowed to go ahead and that it was not a judgment on the wide-ranging critique of her convictions.
“This application related to a narrow legal issue,” he said. “Nothing we have said can contribute to any debate about the wider case against Lucy Letby.”
Nick Johnson KC, the prosecutor, had said Myers’ characterisation of the media coverage was not “reasonable or accurate”.
He told the judges that most of the disapproving public comment had been directed towards hospital management for allowing Letby to remain on the neonatal unit despite concerns raised by senior doctors.
Johnson also said the vast majority of the media material cited by Letby appeared in the immediate aftermath of the convictions in August 2023, 10 months before the retrial, so would have “faded” from the memory of any jurors.
He cited the example of a “very, very pro-Lucy Letby” article by the New Yorker, published in the weeks before the retrial, which he said had been given “significant traction” when it was mentioned in parliament by Sir David Davis.
Johnson said: “If ever this court wants evidence that publicity had no effect on this jury, this is it. Because this was very pro-Letby, anti-prosecution material circulating with significant traction on the internet in the weeks and days before the trial.”
He added: “In that context, one remembers the old epithet that today’s front page is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers.”
