Key experts in Lucy Letby's appeal team quit as killer nurse bids to overturn conviction - hours before inquiry set to be published
The experts said the team's arguments have “unresolvable problems” just hours before the Thirlwall Inquiry results are set to be released.
Lucy Letby’s appeal has been rocked after two experts quit her defence team - as public inquiry findings into how she was able to repeatedly kill and harm babies is due to be published today.
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Engineering expert Helen Shannon and bioengineering professor Geoff Chase withdrew from the team on Monday, saying some of its arguments have “unresolvable problems” amid concerns over the “scientific credibility” of some of its evidence.
The former nurse, who maintains her innocence, is serving 15 whole-life terms for the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of seven others while working on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, is considering evidence presented on her behalf by an international panel of medics.
The group argued the babies died or collapsed as a result of poor medical care and natural causes.
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In a letter to the CCRC, the two experts raised concerns about legal arguments put forward by Letby’s team, adding that it was “placing the long-term interests of Ms Letby at serious, unnecessary and unacceptable risk”.
The pair continued to back their report on Letby’s convictions for attempting to murder two babies with insulin, maintaining it was “very unlikely” they had been poisoned.
The letter added: “Whilst it is entirely legitimate for the defence to advance multiple arguments, some of the other arguments now being put forward we cannot support as scientifically credible and which have, in our view, fundamental unresolvable problems.”
Asked whether their withdrawal undermined Letby’s case, lawyer Mark McDonald said he “fundamentally” disagreed.
“They don’t know what I put into the CCRC because I haven’t told them, so how on earth could they make that conclusion?” they told a broadcaster.
It comes as the findings of a public inquiry into how she was able to repeatedly kill and harm babies on the hospital’s neonatal unit are due to be published on Tuesday.
The Thirlwall Inquiry was created to look into what happened at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016, while Letby was employed as a nurse in the neonatal unit.
One of the country’s most senior judges, Lady Justice Thirlwall, heard evidence at Liverpool Town Hall from numerous witnesses between September 2024 and February 2025, including from the parents of Letby’s victims.
The inquiry’s key objectives were to seek answers for the victims’ families and ensure lessons are learned – some 25 years after another nurse, Beverley Allitt, committed similar crimes on a children’s ward in Grantham, Lincolnshire.
Lady Justice Thirlwall noted that an inquiry had also taken place into events surrounding Allitt’s killing spree and said it was “utterly unacceptable” it had happened again within the NHS.
Her investigation did not examine Letby’s convictions or motives but instead focused on the conduct of those working at the Countess of Chester, including the board, managers, doctors and nurses from when Letby started her employment in 2012
Letby, 36, was moved from the neonatal unit to administrative duties in July 2016 after consultants expressed concerns about her to the hospital’s executive team.
Hospital bosses opted to carry out a number of reviews into the increased mortality in 2015 and 2016, and did not invite Cheshire Constabulary to investigate until May 2017, as Letby remained on site until her arrest more than a year later.
The inquiry examined whether suspicions should have been raised earlier and whether the police and other external bodies should have been informed sooner.
It looked at the response to concerns about Letby and whether the culture, management and governance structures and processes of the hospital trust, and the wider NHS, contributed to the failure to protect babies from Letby.
The inquiry also heard evidence about whether the accountability of senior managers should be strengthened.
Letby was previously denied permission to appeal against her convictions in 2024.