Good morning. Today an inquest will open into the deaths of five of the babies that Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering, marking yet another legal milestone in a case that has been difficult for journalists to report on – not just because of the trauma involved, but because readers often see speculation online that the media cannot legally discuss.
In England and Wales the laws around contempt of court, and instructions from the courts to preserve the anonymity of victims and their parents, have made the reporting fraught in a way that is not mirrored in the US. Indeed, while the legal process continued, UK users were for a period blocked from accessing a 13,000-word article about the case in The New Yorker magazine – throwing into sharp relief the legal constraints on UK reporting.
