Trial of Lucy Letby

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Davis]

No, I am afraid I will not—I am short of time.

Again, that section of the report was never shown to the jury. Those consultants then persuaded management to call the police in April 2017. There was no hard evidence against Letby. Nobody saw her do anything untoward. The doctors’ “gut feeling” was based on a coincidence: she was on shift for a number of the deaths, but—and this is important—far from all of them. The case was built on a poor understanding of probabilities that was to translate later into an influential but spectacularly flawed piece of evidence.

Around that time, the hospital was struggling with another problem—and possibly a more sensible explanation for this sudden increase in deaths. Leaked reports show that the hospital, and specifically the neonatal unit, battled a Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection for months. That antibiotic-resistant bug posed a serious risk to the babies. The child mortality rate for Pseudomonas aeruginosa ranges from 14.5% to 50%, and stands at over 55% for infants of extremely low birth weight, such as those in this case. It is hard to see how we can eliminate that as the cause of death or collapse for at least some of those babies. Again, the jury never knew about that contamination.

From the start of the case, Cheshire police picked up on the doctors’ statistical arguments supposedly pointing to Letby. In April 2018, an officer on the investigation approached a leading statistician, Professor Jane Hutton, and asked her to put a figure on the likelihood of a nurse being on duty “during all the deaths/collapses” in the unit. Of course, that is a false proposition, as Letby was not on duty for anything like all the deaths—as we will see later—but that was glossed over at the trial. Notwithstanding that, Professor Hutton informed the police that any proper statistical inquiry should not concentrate on one staff member from the outset. Instead, it would require full, proper research into all possible explanations for any increase in babies collapsing, including their medical conditions and prematurity, as well as the broader performance of the unit. One would think that would be common sense.

Cheshire police then signed a consultancy agreement with Professor Hutton, but in 2021, after Letby had been charged, the police wrote an email to Professor Hutton, stating:

“We have had a further meeting this afternoon where we have informed the prosecutors that we were looking at the validity of statistical evidence again in the case… The prosecutor…has instructed us not to pursue this avenue any further at present.”

This appears to be in direct contravention of part 3.3 of the code for Crown prosecutors, which states:

“Prosecutors cannot direct the police or other investigators.”

Again, the jury was never informed of Professor Hutton’s explicit advice to the police that their statistical approach was flawed. This matters enormously, because the most powerfully influential piece of evidence in the case was the prosecution King’s counsel showing a table with Letby listed as the only nurse on duty for all of the alleged murders and inflicted injuries. Professor Hutton, who has reviewed the case extensively, believes that deeply flawed statistical evidence was used, and has said that the statistical errors are “similar to those…in the Sally Clark case but worse.” Sally Clark was convicted and then acquitted of the murder of her two sons based on flawed statistical evidence.

In May 2017, Dewi Evans, a retired doctor who runs a business that provides highly paid medical “expert evidence” in court cases, approached the National Crime Agency to volunteer his services. Evans’s opinion that Letby injected air either into the babies’ veins, causing air embolism, or down the nasogastric tube into the stomach, stopping the babies’ breathing, was one of the foundations—indeed, probably the major foundation—of the prosecution case. This supposed evidence is hugely controversial. Three months into the murder trial, Letby’s defence team applied for evidence from Dewi Evans to be excluded due to an adverse judgment from a judge in a previous case, who said that a report by Dr Evans was “worthless” and

“makes no effort to provide a balanced opinion”.

In an extraordinary and—as far as I can see—unprecedented intervention, that very judge, Lord Justice Jackson, actually wrote to the trial judge with his judgment on Dr Evans attached, clearly indicating how unsuitable Evans was as an expert witness.

Evans’s assertion of murder by air embolism was entirely based on a research paper from 1989, and its relevance in these cases has been robustly challenged by the actual author of that paper. Evans changed his opinion on several key issues during the trial, and is now accused by Letby’s lawyer of changing his opinion again since the end of the appeal process. Evans disputes this, but if Members are interested, I suggest that they compare his evidence recorded in the trial transcript of 1 November 2022 with his signed statement to Channel 5 on 3 August 2024 and decide for themselves. It is also the case that Evans has submitted a new report to the police. What is extraordinary, however, is that the Crown Prosecution Service has refused to provide a copy of that report to Letby’s current defence counsel.

Questions have also been raised about the second expert witness for the prosecution, Dr Sandie Bohin. Eight families are currently filing formal complaints against her over their children’s care, which are being considered by the General Medical Council.

That brings us to the actual cases and causes of the deaths. Two expert neonatologists—consultant working neonatologists—are working through the cases to establish the actual causes of the babies’ deterioration and deaths. They are doing so thoroughly, so this is taking time. So far, they have completed two detailed case reviews for babies O and C. There are five more that will be completed in the near future.

In the case of Baby O, the prosecution claimed the baby was attacked with blunt trauma to the liver and had air injected into the nasogastric tube. The case notes tell a different story, showing how the doctors used excessive ventilation pressure during resuscitation, which overinflated the baby’s lungs and prevented blood from flowing back to the lungs. This caused the baby to desaturate his blood oxygen level repeatedly. The medical team responded by increasing the pressures even more, initiating a downward spiral in the baby’s condition. The overinflation of the baby’s lungs forced the diaphragm downwards, pushing the liver into the baby’s abdominal cavity.

The consultant in charge took a decision to insert a needle into the abdomen to release what they thought was gas pressure in the abdomen. However, this was wrongly inserted into the right side of the baby’s abdomen. As a result of this error, the needle penetrated the liver, causing serious internal bleeding. This was undoubtedly a significant contributory factor in the baby’s death, if not the outright cause. The report states that the

“deterioration was predictable, and his death was avoidable and resulted from suboptimal care.”

The author of that sub-optimal care, the doctor who inserted the needle into the liver, was one of the principal accusers of Lucy Letby at the trial. This directly contradicts the prosecution’s portrayal of events. The trauma to the liver was caused by a serious error by one of the consultants who led the accusations against Letby. The experts also stated that there was no air in the gut in excess of what would be expected for a baby in these circumstances. None of this was made clear to the jury. The prosecution’s evidence was again predicated on Dewi Evans’s diagnosis, which in this specific case alone changed multiple times.

In the case of Baby C, the prosecution claimed this was a healthy baby killed by air being injected into his stomach. The case notes for Baby C demonstrate that this baby was actually profoundly unwell before birth. The baby suffered from severe foetal growth restriction. This meant the baby had to be delivered by caesarean section at an extraordinarily low birth weight, even for that gestation, of 800 grams or about 1.75 lb. Within an hour of birth, he developed respiratory distress. To treat the respiratory problems, they tried to deliver surfactant, a mixture that helps babies’ lungs to expand better—open up—down an endotracheal tube.

The case notes, however, show that the doctor pushed the tube too far in, pushing it into one lung, meaning that the other lung was left collapsed. In the days after the baby’s birth, he showed several signs of abdominal obstruction, including the vomiting of bile, and he never opened his bowels since birth, which the doctor in charge did not recognise or diagnose. The report concludes by stating that this baby died of natural causes compounded by sub-optimal medical care. This again directly contradicts the prosecution’s narrative of deliberate harm. Dewi Evans’s diagnosis claimed the baby had air injected into the stomach, so he could no longer breathe. This was predicated on an X-ray showing an unusual amount of air on the stomach. It has become clear that Letby was not even at the hospital when the X-ray was taken, nor had she been at any point till then since Baby C’s birth two days earlier. While the baby died from natural causes, there is evidence of sub-optimal care, including

“the administration of surfactant and the lack of recognition and appropriate management of signs of abdominal obstruction”.

Again, the doctor responsible for these errors was another one of those who made accusations against Lucy Letby and, again, none of this was made clear to the jury.

There is a great deal of evidence demonstrating that there are much more likely alternative causes of these tragic deaths than those put up by the prosecuting team. The most likely is that the hospital’s neonatal unit was not up to caring for these fragile children, in terms of either resource or skill, and this shortcoming might have been compounded by other factors such as the Pseudomonas infection.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is a family connection with my constituency of Hereford and South Herefordshire. What he says is deeply troubling and distressing on so many different levels, and I would like to ask whether his conclusion is that there is some case in justice to consider this an unsafe verdict.

[David Davis]

There is a case in justice for a retrial in my view, but there is a problem—I would say it is a technical problem. One of the problems we face is that much of the evidence was available at the time. What I have described is an expert analysis of the case notes that were there at the time, but it was simply not presented to the jury. That means that the Court of Appeal can dismiss it, basically saying that the defence should have presented it at the initial trial. It is in essence saying, “If your defence team weren’t good enough to present this evidence, hard luck, you stay banged up for life.” That may be judicially convenient, but it is not justice. This has been a historic problem in Britain, delaying the resolution of a number of miscarriage of justice cases.

Secondly, the so-called expert evidence in this case largely amounted to putting together theories suiting the prosecution case, from the bogus statistical arguments through to the wrong diagnoses I have just detailed. Again, this problem is not new. In 2011 the Law Commission made a number of recommendations precisely on the handling of expert evidence. There is even a section in it entitled, “Inferring murder from unexplained infant deaths.” Those recommendations have not made it into law nearly 15 years later, and it is past time that was put right. Perhaps most worrying of all in this case is that it is just the latest example, more than a decade after the Mid Staffs scandal, of the national health service’s inability to analyse its own failings. This matters because until we learn these lessons, there will continue to be unnecessary deaths in hospitals up and down the country.

My central argument today, which comes back to what my right hon. Friend asked me, is about what to do about a trial which, in my view, is a clear miscarriage of justice by a judicial system that could not manage admittedly difficult statistical and medical scientific evidence. The only body available to correct this today is the Criminal Cases Review Commission. In my view, it should look at all the new diagnoses when they come out, and if necessary consult the leading neonatal and statistical authorities in the land—the most expert people, who are much more equipped to give proper assessment than the experts who were employed by the police at the time. As a result, in my view it should order a retrial, and it should do it quickly.

This is significant because the CCRC has recently been criticised—Members may have read about it in the Andrew Malkinson case, where there was effectively a 17-year delay in releasing him from prison. DNA evidence proving him innocent of the rape he was convicted of was known four years after his conviction, yet it took a further 13 years to correct it. That cannot happen again. We cannot repeat that. If, as I believe it will, a retrial clears Lucy Letby, she should be released in her thirties, not in her fifties.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I do indeed believe that the balance is right, but the hon. Gentleman does not have to take my word for it. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire & rescue services was specifically tasked with looking at the balance of legislation and protest. After some examination, it decided that the balance had swung too far in favour of protest and too much away from the rights of others to go about their daily lives.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows that I have real concerns about the noisy protest legislation. How often does he expect it to be applied and how many past protests have been subject to something like that kind of police discretion?

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously, it is hard for me to predict how often these things will be used. I will come on to talk about the noise provision more specifically, but it is worth pointing out that it is not common for conditions to be placed on protest generally. The National Police Chiefs’ Council tells us that in the three months to April ’21, there were 2,500 protests, and conditions were put on them no more than a dozen times. The Metropolitan police has confirmed that in 2019—hon. Members have to remember that in London, a protest takes place pretty much every day, and sometimes several in one day—it put conditions on only 15 times and, in 2020, only six times. Admittedly, 2020 saw a suppressed number of protests because of the pandemic, but this is nevertheless rare, and the police take care in placing such conditions.

--- Later in debate ---

I understand that hon. Members are concerned about this issue. There have been all sorts of wild claims about the Government stopping singing in the street and that sort of rubbish, but I ask hon. Members to think of situations where they might seek protection of their own rights from the police, in circumstances where noise is being used as a weapon. Because of developments in amplification over the past 10 or 15 years, amplifiers are smaller, easier to move around, and much louder than they were, and we have seen occasions where they have been used offensively to stop other people going about their business.

[Jesse Norman]

I think it would help me, and it might help others in the Chamber, if the Minister would consider putting in place a review, perhaps a year or two years into the use of this power, if the House chooses to grant it.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am happy to commit to reviewing the offence. I would love to put a time limit on it but, as I said when I outlined the number of times conditions would be met, this measure may be used on only a very small number of occasions. We will have to consider the range of situations in which it is used, and obviously review it as we do with all public order legislation. We take very seriously the fact that protest is a fundamental building block of any liberal democracy, and now more than ever that is writ large. This is an important freedom for us in this country, and I am sure that lots of Members from all side of the House have been on protests of all kinds over the years. We must ensure that legislation moves with the times and reflects changes in technology, and that we give the police the powers they need, albeit in rare and often exceptional circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

I want to speak in particular about the issue of noisy protest, but I should begin by saying that, as the Minister outlined very well, there is a great deal of good in the Bill, covering many different areas.

There are facts on which I think everyone in the House would agree from the off. No one can doubt that in recent years the capacity for effective protest has been dramatically enhanced by technology, and enhanced a second time through the use of social media. No one can doubt, I think, that there are irresponsible and aggressive individuals and organisations who seek to inflict the maximum interruption and difficulty on the lives of others in the causes that they promote. And no one can doubt that the public have a right to go about their business without undue impediment. I do not think that any Member would contest those points.

I thank the Minister for engaging with me on this issue and for his clarifications this evening, both on the number of protests that this measure would be likely to affect and on the possibility of a review over a suitable but, I hope, not too long period, but—in my view at least—the measure should not be on the statute book. No serious case has been made that noise is a genuine problem. The Minister has conceded, and one understands why, that the measure is not likely to be used except in the tiniest minority of cases. We therefore have to ask whether the justification for it is adequate and proportionate. The offence is still vague and poorly defined, which is never a good thing in law. The police, as has been conceded, already have significant legal powers in relation to protests, and I regret to say that, worse, in some quarters they are the subject of a degree of public mistrust, which may be increased by our adding to their discretionary powers. Furthermore, I suspect that the measure will be extremely difficult for the courts to handle and adjudicate, even it proves to be compliant with article 11 of the Human Rights Act. All those are conservative—with a small and a large “c”—concerns that people might have about the operation of the rule of law in this country.

When people in Kyiv are dying for their beliefs and for the rights of freedom of speech and of association, the timing is unfortunate. I understand the motivations, and I understand that this has been lightly and sparingly applied, but an increase in discretion to qualify rights of protest that have been fundamental to our society and democratic traditions for hundreds of years is, I think, highly regrettable.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Let me begin by speaking about Lords amendments 73 to 89, which broadly cover the provisions in part 3, on public order. Part 3 does not technically extend to Scotland, but we are still very keen to lend our voice of complete opposition. As I mentioned on Second Reading, we support amendments that seek to mitigate the worst elements of part 3 because they will have an impact on everyone in these islands. We all have the right to speak up and hold power to account, including anyone travelling from Scotland to protest here, at the seat of power. While decisions are made on behalf of the people of Scotland by this place—and we hope that that may not be the case for much longer—the people of Scotland must retain the right to protest outside it.

In the past, I have made the journey from Scotland to this place to protest against many things, including the Iraq war, and I genuinely look forward every week to seeing who will be outside and what they will be bringing to the demonstration, whether I agree with what they are demonstrating about or not. Who can forget the wonderful WASPI women and the numerous noisy protests they held in the streets around Parliament? Rosie Dickson from WASPI Glasgow has told me how concerned she is that Scottish women born in the 1950s who have been unfairly denied their pensions by a Westminster Government now face

“having their human right to protest against it removed”.

They are being unfairly denied their right to their pensions, and now unfairly denied their right to object to that.

We support Lords amendments 73, 80 to 82 and 87, which I will speak to. I have concerns about Lords amendment 88, although on balance it is probably better than what was there before. Lords amendment 73 would remove subsections (2) and (3) from clause 55, which, unamended, would allow the police to impose conditions on a protest if they had a reasonable belief that the noise generated by the participants in the protest may result in

“serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity of the procession”,

or may have a significant and

“relevant impact on persons in the vicinity”.

The attention these noise restrictions have received from the wider public and the media is telling. Everybody knows that protests are noisy—that is how people get their point across. The louder they shout, the more we listen. Every day we are witnessing people protesting against the atrocities in Ukraine. Why on earth would we usher in legislation to curtail that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

Of course I will meet the hon. Lady who I know has been a strong advocate for the work of the Prison Fellowship and the Sycamore Tree project. As I understand it, funding for public sector prisons amounts to £917,000 over three years. I am sorry about the data problem, but I am sure we can help with that. The Government are clear, however, that our £30 million pot is money raised from offenders to support the victims of crime. It cannot go to prisons or prisoners; it is for activities outside the prisons to make sure that people do not reoffend.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

15. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of joint working between probation trusts and police forces to reduce reoffending.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

I think we are all agreed that to tackle reoffending to protect the public, it is critical for the national probation service and community rehabilitation companies to work very closely with our local police forces.

[Jesse Norman]

Operation Castlemain is a police-led initiative to tackle street drinking in Hereford. Local probation officers and other agencies join police on the streets in areas where street drinkers are known to congregate. The result is a better environment for the public, closer working relations between the police and probation service and a higher profile for probation with people at risk of offending. Will the Minister join me in praising this excellent example of joint working?

[Mike Penning]

I will praise the work going on in my hon. Friend’s constituency and work that is going on around the country. Joint working and joint partnerships are important. I would also like to pay tribute to street pastors who do a fantastic job in constituencies, including my own.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The number of prisoners absconding from open prisons and while on temporary licence is a fraction of what it was a decade ago. I keep going back to that point. It is all well and good for Labour Members to rail against things when they are in opposition, but they now purport to be a potential party of government and yet they have nothing positive to say on how they would manage the system differently. I have tightened the regime and introduced tougher penalties for those who abscond. If the Opposition think that we should close down open prisons altogether, they should say so.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

T5. Hereford county court is a highly effective and important local institution. However, there is a break clause in the lease for the court premises for this next year. If the court has to move, has the Secretary of State considered co-locating it with other public services in Hereford? Can he reassure local people that, whatever happens to the premises, Hereford will continue to have a county court?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I can tell my hon. Friend that Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is aware of the break clause in the lease for Hereford county court’s premises for next year. The Courts and Tribunals Service continues to keep the use of its estate under review to ensure that it meets operational needs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

The last time I looked, Spain’s interest rates were about 4% higher than ours. If we had those interest rates, it would cost the country £40 billion a year to borrow the amount of money necessary, which would certainly put paid to all the employment programmes that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

10. What plans he has to protect and enhance the powers of the magistracy.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

The Government will shortly publish plans on improving the criminal justice system, including by reinforcing the important role of magistrates.

[Jesse Norman]

The magistracy is one of the great glories of the English legal system, and Hereford magistrates court is a case in point. Will the Minister give some reassurance that there are no plans to change the services at Hereford magistrates court or to close it?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the value of magistrates. They are lay people who give of their time, and the community justice that they dispense is an important feature of our criminal justice system. That is too little acknowledged. As the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) said, we continually review the estate to ensure that it is well utilised, but we have no current plans to close Hereford magistrates court.