PETER HITCHENS: A leading Lucy Letby witness now admits a key piece of evidence is wrong. Her case MUST be re-examined

When a leading witness in a major and famous criminal case says he got a key piece of evidence wrong, you might think the news would appear in fire letters at the top of every TV bulletin.

Yet last week it passed with barely a whisper. You might even have missed it. Here’s what you need to know.

When the powerful Court of Appeal even refused to hear Lucy Letby’s appeal against her multiple murder convictions, it listed the crimes she is alleged to have committed.

One of these is the murder of ‘Baby C’, who died at around midnight on the night of 13 to 14 June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital. It describes the killing method as “nasogastric tube,” injecting air into his stomach. Well, that will now have to be revised.

The prosecution’s key expert witness in the Letby trial, Dr. Dewi Evans, now says this is not how Baby C died. His astonishing turn followed a Radio 4 programme, Lucy Letby: The Killer Questions, part of the File On 4 series, broadcast by the BBC last Tuesday but still available via BBC Sounds. I recommend it.

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. This aroused his suspicion.

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.

So the stomach bubble, which had absolutely nothing to do with Lucy Letby, was not the cause of the baby’s death.

But Dr. Evans now says: ‘His death occurred about midnight the next day (when Mrs Letby was on duty), and due to air in the bloodstream.’ What!? If it was physically impossible for Letby to have killed the baby in the way first alleged, at that moment, can he just say she did it in a different way on another day? And that’s okay? Well, he can. And it is.

In this very strange trial, his switch from one method of murder to another makes no legal difference to the outcome. For the jury was told that they did not need to know how the theoretical murders had been committed, but only to believe that the babies had been murdered. Judge Goss told them that if they decided Ms Letby had deliberately harmed babies in one way, they could also conclude she had deliberately harmed others, even if they were unsure of her methods.

So despite leaks coming from all sides, Letby’s belief is still technically – amazingly – correct. Look at all his problems. The evidence from the first trial, which was crucial in finding out who was where and at what time, was found to be confused. It showed that people were present when they were absent, and absent when they were present. This in itself is not only serious. If such a mistake can be made and nonsense presented as fact in court, it raises questions about the quality of all evidence.

The theoretical assassination attempts on babies F and L with insulin are highly debated, as experts widely believe that the tests used to detect the presence of insulin are grossly inadequate as evidence. These are critical because the insulin cases were the first on which the jury decided to convict, and they were unanimous. It can be said that they opened the way for all other convictions.

A graph that would require Ms Letby to be present at all deaths (and which is heavily featured in all coverage of the trial) has been cut to pieces by leading statisticians.

A supposed confession (“I’m bad. I did this”) now seems likely to have been written as a form of therapy, on the advice of professionals, as a way to cope with extreme stress.

It would be very difficult to argue (although some do) that the file and the ‘confession’ had no bearing on the verdict, compared to the thousands of pages of detailed medical evidence with which the jury grappled.

All falsely accused people know that once suspicion is aroused against you, everything you have ever done and said can be taken as evidence of your guilt.

They also notice that the authorities are not impartially looking for the truth about them, but for things that will condemn them. This is important because there seem to be quite a few false accusations circulating at the moment: from the legions of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft, humiliated, ruined and sometimes imprisoned, to Andrew Malkinson who spent 17 years in prison for a rape. he has absolutely not committed himself. His appeal was rejected and repeated attempts to have his conviction overturned were rejected.

So yes, there can be smoke without fire. The pro-verdict mantra, that Letby was convicted by two juries and dismissed by three Court of Appeal judges, so she must be guilty, means nothing. Juries are wrong. Judges get it wrong.

So there’s no point in assuming that Britain is so fair and just that this will never happen to you.

And if it could happen to you, you should be vigilant to protest – or at least keep an open mind – if it even seems like it’s happening to someone else.

You don’t have to be certain that Lucy Letby is innocent to believe that this case deserves a serious and thorough re-examination by the court.

If you, like me, are a British patriot and believe that even now, on the whole, this country is more just than any other country, then you have a special duty to be vigilant when that reputation is called into question .