Context
Benjamin Myers KC delivered the defence closing speech at Manchester Crown Court in July 2023, at the end of what had been the longest criminal trial in English history. The closing revisited each of the themes Myers had set out in opening, now reinforced by the evidence adduced over ten months of trial. This summary tracks the closing’s structure and, where the post-conviction independent expert evidence has subsequently reinforced each strand, notes the reinforcement.
The clinical-context close
Myers reminded the jury of the context the unit was operating in: shortage of consultant and middle-grade medical staff, infrastructure failures, infection-control pressures, and an acuity profile that exceeded the unit’s Level 2 designation. The cluster of unexplained deaths, he said, was in that context a signal of systems failure rather than a signal of a single deliberate actor.
The September 2024 Guardian investigation and the Thirlwall Inquiry evidence have substantially reinforced this reading.
The medical-evidence close
Myers walked through each alleged mechanism — air embolism, insulin, air in stomach — and identified, for each, the methodological limitation in the Crown’s expert reading. The skin signs did not match the Lee 1989 paper. The insulin assay was a screening test never designed for forensic use. The air-in-stomach finding was non-specific, with NEC as a plausible competing explanation.
The Shoo Lee International Expert Panel’s February 2025 finding — no medical evidence of deliberate harm in any case reviewed — is the direct formal scientific confirmation of what Myers told the jury in July 2023.
The statistical close
Myers reminded the jury that the shift-rota chart was the product of selection, not measurement: 25 events had been chosen partly because Letby was there, and her shift attendance against that selected set generated a visual match by construction. The Royal Statistical Society’s post-Sally-Clark framework specifically warned against arguments of this shape.
Prof. Richard Gill’s 2024 lecture and Prof. Peter Green’s subsequent published commentary reinforce the statistical critique in depth.
The notes close
Myers addressed the Post-it notes directly. The notes, he said, read in full, contained contradictory lines — including “I haven’t done anything wrong” alongside “I did this”. That oscillation is the psychological signature of self-blame under sustained accusation, not of purposeful admission. A private note written at home, without audience, does not meet the criminal-law standard for confession.
Our self-blame psychology analysis develops this framing in detail, as do the clinical-psychology expert reports filed with the CCRC application.
The digital-evidence close
Myers reminded the jury that the Facebook searches and search-history evidence were curated subsets of years of routine activity. The denominator was not shown. A young nurse actively using social media and actively looking up clinical information on her patients would generate exactly this kind of record. The specific subset highlighted as incriminating was a selection, not proof of a pattern.
The judicial-burden close
Myers closed by reminding the jury of the Crown’s burden: the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, the requirement to consider each count individually, and the principle that doubts on the medical evidence must be resolved in favour of the defendant.
Why the closing matters in retrospect
Every major theme the post-conviction expert evidence has developed was put to the 2023 jury in Benjamin Myers KC’s closing. The difference between then and now is not the framework; it is the volume of independent expert back-up. The Panel, the Joint Insulin Report, the statistical reports, the further expert reports filed with the CCRC all reinforce what Myers told the jury. They do not displace it.
Read alongside
Defence closing — short summary, Defence opening — short summary, Myers opening — expanded summary, Benjamin Myers KC — biography.