Context
Sir David Davis MP used his Commons adjournment debate slot in November 2024 to raise the Lucy Letby case, setting out in parliamentary terms the principal statistical, medical and methodological concerns that had been accumulating on the public record. Sir David was the first senior parliamentarian to raise the case on the floor of the House.
Key passages
The Speaker’s warning first. Before the motion was moved, the Deputy Speaker reminded the House that “although there are currently no live proceedings before the courts, there is still the potential for further civil or criminal proceedings”, and that Members “will therefore wish to take care to avoid saying anything that could prejudice any case that might come before the courts in future”. Everything below was said under parliamentary privilege. It is reported here as what was said in the House, not as findings.
Why Sir David Davis changed his mind. He opened with a warning of his own that the speech would cover “infant deaths, failures in care and allegations of a grave miscarriage of justice”, and was candid about his starting point: “I initially accepted the tabloid characterisation of Letby as an evil monster”. He said he was then approached by statisticians, neonatal specialists, forensic scientists and lawyers, including “a past president of the Royal Statistical Society and a past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health”, all concerned by “what they perceived as the false analyses and diagnoses used to persuade a lay jury to convict Letby”.
The RCPCH passage he read out. Davis quoted a redacted section of the November 2016 review: “The consultants explained that their allegation was based on Nurse L being on shift on each occasion an infant died (although not necessarily caring for the infant) combined with ‘gut feeling’. There was no other evidence or history to link Nurse L to the deaths, and her colleagues had expressed no concerns about her practice.” He told the House that section “was never shown to the jury”. He also read the report’s finding of a “disconnection between the neonatal leadership and the trust’s government and risk management processes”.
The statistics, and the email. Davis said Cheshire Police approached Professor Jane Hutton in April 2018 and asked her to put a figure on the likelihood of a nurse being on duty “during all the deaths/collapses”, that she advised any proper inquiry “should not concentrate on one staff member from the outset”, and that the force later wrote to her: “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.” He put that against the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which he quoted as saying “Prosecutors cannot direct the police or other investigators.” Hutton’s view, he said, was that the statistical errors were “similar to those…in the Sally Clark case but worse.”
On Dr Evans. Davis told the House the defence had applied to exclude his evidence on the strength of an earlier judgment describing a report by him as “worthless” and one that “makes no effort to provide a balanced opinion”, and that the judge who wrote it, Lord Justice Jackson, then wrote to the trial judge enclosing it. The Court of Appeal considered and rejected the same ground; see our page on the May 2024 judgment.
The Government’s answer. The minister, Alex Davies-Jones, declined to engage with the merits: “It is not appropriate for me or the Government to comment on judicial processes, nor on the reliability of convictions or evidence.” She pointed to the CCRC as the route for anyone who believes they have been wrongly convicted once appeals are exhausted, and set out the limits of the Thirlwall Inquiry: it “will examine not the conviction, but rather the response of individuals within the trust based on what they knew or should have known at the time of the events when they occurred”, and “A statutory inquiry cannot apportion civil or criminal liability and will not review the jury’s findings.” She added that it was “open to the experts to contact the inquiry directly”.
What to read alongside this
See our page on the shift chart and the Dr Evans methodology for the evidential issues Sir David references, and our summary of the Shoo Lee Panel press conference.