Tonight Channel 5 screened a documentary which looked critically at the evidence in the case of nurse Lucy Letby, who was convicted of seven murders and seven attempted murders of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital intensive care unit during 2015-16.
While many have raised concerns about the evidence following her most recent conviction on 2 July 2024, my colleague Scott McLachlan (along with statistician Richard Gill) was raising legitimate concerns about the case well before Lucy’s first trial ended in August 2023. At that time nobody else was raising such concerns. An interview I did with Scott shortly after the first conviction was watched by over a million people on twitter, youtube and rumble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k12f_VFCbtI
Scott is a Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Health at Kings College London in the Division of Digital Health and Applied Technology Assessment within the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care. In addition to his PhD in computer science he has extensive training in law and nursing and has a forensic knowledge of the case. Qualifications that speak for themselves.
My own interest in the case focuses on the ‘probability of coincidences and clusters’; it was the ‘too many deaths occurring when Lucy was on duty for it to be a coincidence’ narrative that was a major driver of the case against her. Using Bayesian probability analysis, I had previously written about how such clusters of deaths are likely to occur without any malpractice and had provided such evidence to support the case for appeal in a similar case (Ben Geen).
When the company making the documentary for Channel 5 approached Scott and me to be interviewed for it we were happy to oblige. It was agreed filming would take place in my house. A crew came and filming lasted all day. Here Scott is being prepared for his interview.
At that point the documentary producers were very happy with our interviews.
However, on 2 August Scott and I got phone calls informing us that, because of some of our views expressed on X (twitter), they were cutting our interviews from the documentary. Views which had nothing to do with the Lucy Letby case and our investigation of it. No specific examples were given.
What is more important in a documentary whose strapline was “Unpacking and questioning the evidence used to convict neonatal nurse Lucy Letby”? That our investigation, prescient and hitherto considered crucial enough to include, is heard, or omitted due to what can only be described as the chilling vagaries of cancel culture? One of our chief concerns surrounding Lucy’s trial is that evidence that should have been heard, was not, potentially leading to a miscarriage of justice. It is ironic therefore, that the makers of this documentary have sought to do the same. It illustrates just how pernicious cancel culture has become.
In my phone call, I said I hoped they would reinstate our interviews, as it is vital that all the concerns about Lucy’s trial be heard. If they did not, I was prepared to write about it publicly and so I am. It goes without saying, Scott and I would be happy to help in any way we can to see that justice is eventually done.
For anybody who wants an idea of the material Scott provided, and which was edited out of the documentary, here is an interview I did with him while the crew were setting up their equipment: