A former minister has said he is more than 90 per cent certain that baby killer Lucy Letby is innocent.
Sir David Davis said he has spent months examining the evidence and has called for a new trial of the former neonatal nurse.
Letby, 34, was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
She is serving a life sentence after a request to appeal the conviction was rejected by the court.
But Davis believes the convictions are unsafe and said he would be willing to visit Letby in prison to discuss the case with her.
Lucy Letby, 34, was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
Sir David Davis (pictured) said he spent months examining the evidence and called for a retrial of Letby
Letby when she was arrested in 2018. The former neonatal nurse is serving a life sentence after a request to appeal her conviction was rejected by the court
Speaking on GB News, Mr Davis said: “I spent three months going through the evidence.
“I think it’s very likely – you can’t be sure – but most likely, about 90 percent, not guilty.”
He added: ‘The most likely reason is one of two things: either poor management of the hospital – the Royal College discovered that, or a superbug – that an investigation found, or both together. That’s much more likely.
‘I don’t want to declare her innocent. I want a new process, do it right.’
John O’Quigley, professor of statistics at University College London’s department of statistical sciences, has also cast doubt on Letby’s guilt.
Dr. O’Quigley said the only conclusion that a diagram showing Letby was on duty when those seven babies died was that she was on duty.
One of the prosecution’s key witnesses, Dr. Dewi Evans, also made an about-face on how “Baby C” died.
The baby died at around midnight on the night of June 13-14, 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The method of killing is described as ‘air through a nasogastric tube’, injecting air into his stomach.
But Dr. Evans now says this is not how the baby died following a Radio 4 programme, Lucy Letby: The Killer Questions.
Mr Davis believes the convictions are unsafe and said he would be willing to visit Letby in prison to discuss the case with her.
Image of the corridor within the Neonatal Unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital (showing the entrances to nurseries 2,3 and 4)
Photo released by Cheshire Constabulary/CPS of a handwritten note shown in court during Lucy Letby’s trial. It was found by police at Mrs Letby’s home in Westbourne Road, Chester
Photo released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of a note found in Lucy Letby’s home, which was shown during her trial at Manchester Crown Court
In it, several highly qualified experts cast doubt on this and much of the evidence accepted by the jury in Ms Letby’s first trial.
During that trial, Dr. Evans said an X-ray of Baby C showed an unusual amount of air in the boy’s stomach, which could have been caused by deliberately pumping air into his feeding tube.
But the Radio 4 program points out that Letby was not actually in hospital on June 12 when the X-ray was taken. She hadn’t even met Baby C at that point.
Dr. Evans now says: ‘His death occurred about midnight the next day (while Mrs Letby was on duty), and due to air in the bloodstream.’
The victims’ families have dismissed continued speculation about Letby’s innocence, saying it adds to their pain and grief.
In September, at the start of a public inquiry into the deaths, presiding judge Lady Justice Thirlwall claimed that doubts about Letby’s guilt came ‘entirely from people who were not present at the trial’.
Letby worked as a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital in January 2012 after completing her training there
The inquest heard last week how Letby told a colleague she couldn’t wait for her first death on her first day at work as a nurse.
She made the comment when she started working in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in January 2012 after graduating with a degree in pediatric nursing from the city’s university.
Nurse ZC, who started at the hospital at the same time as the convicted killer, said she was ‘surprised’ by the comment.
But she assumed Letby was simply “trying to have a conversation with someone she didn’t know” and she didn’t think it was “alarming” or spoken with “sinister intent.”
“She made a comment, something along the lines of, ‘I can’t wait for my first death to get it out of the way,’” said nurse ZC. ‘It surprised me because even though I was a trained nurse, this wasn’t something I actively wanted to happen.
“It was said in passing, it was part of a normal conversation and then she moved on.”
Nurse ZC, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also recounted an incident in early 2012 – just weeks after Letby started her job and more than three years before she killed her first victim – when a girl unexpectedly collapsed during a night shift while Letby was on employ.
“Lucy presented herself very animated and she told me everything that had happened to the baby and that she was involved in resuscitation efforts,” added nurse ZC.
“Again, it was something that surprised me. I didn’t feel like I would have been as confident as Lucy in that situation.
“During the whole conversation she was animated, quite excited to tell me about it. She didn’t seem upset or think it had traumatized her in any way.”
The investigation later revealed that Letby had been identified as one of the “creme de la creme” of students by a nursing supervisor, who said she had never seen any evidence of wrongdoing by the convicted killer.
Dr. Stephen Brearey, a senior consultant, was reluctant to raise concerns because he was ‘influenced’ by the insistence of Letby’s line manager, Eirian Powell, that she could have done nothing wrong, the inquiry has heard.
The investigation revealed Powell told police: “I wanted her on the unit, I really did. When students come through the system, you can almost hand-pick the crème de la crème, and she was one of them.”
Ms Powell met Dr Brearey after the unexpected deaths of three babies in June 2015, and it was noted that Letby had been a ‘common’ in all three.
But Ms Powell told the inquiry there was ‘no evidence of any wrongdoing’.
Following the death of another child in October 2015, Ms Powell compiled a table of babies who had died during that period and all nursing staff on duty during those shifts.
Revisions to the table followed, including an additional column with doctors’ names and also a new table with Letby’s name highlighted in red, the inquiry heard.
Rachel Langdale, counsel to the inquiry, asked Ms Powell: ‘Was there a time when you did that and you thought, ‘Actually the police should be doing this, not me’?’
Ms Powell replied: ‘In retrospect, I did.’
She added: “Nothing changed in terms of the evidence. Nobody saw anything.
“When we were busy, she worked overtime, so she was there more often.”
Ms Langdale said: ‘When did you start to worry about her name coming up again, if at all?’
Ms Powell said: ‘The question was always asked of me. Nothing changed when Dr. Brearey said he had concerns, but he didn’t want to define them, and nothing changed when asked, “Did anyone see anything?” or “There was no evidence there.”