In the next few months, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) will make one of the highest-profile decisions in its 29-year history: whether to send the conviction of Lucy Letby for the murder of seven babies, and attempted murder of seven others, back to the court of appeal. Given the level of interest in this case, the volume of medical expert criticism of the prosecution’s case, and the forthcoming report from a public inquiry, the CCRC’s role in weighing new evidence from Letby’s lawyers is arguably the biggest challenge that it has faced.
A year ago, when the application was made, it did not look as though the organisation was up to it. Its reputation was badly damaged by failings in the cases of Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape that he did not commit, and Peter Sullivan, who was wrongly imprisoned for 38 years for murder. Both men had made previous applications to the CCRC before the ones that led to their convictions being overturned (another man, Paul Quinn, was convicted last month of the rape for which Mr Malkinson was wrongly found guilty).
