Lucy Letby has been refused permission to appeal a conviction for attempting to murder a girl at the hospital where she worked.
The former nurse, who is serving 12 life sentences, had sought to overturn the conviction on the grounds that she could not have a fair trial due to the “sheer vitriol” of the media coverage.
But senior judges dismissed his legal challenge after a two-hour hearing at London's appeal court on Thursday.
Letby, now 34, made no reaction to the judges' ruling and listened impassively via video link from the UK's only women-only prison, HMP Bronzefield in Surrey.
Letby was originally convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital in north-west England.
She was convicted after a retrial in June of attempting to murder a seventh baby, known as Child Ok.
Letby, who has always maintained his innocence, had been refused permission to appeal last year's convictions.
The former nurse asked Judge William Davis, Judge Jeremy Baker and Judge McGowan on Thursday to allow her to appeal against her conviction for trying to kill Child Ok.
Benjamin Myers KC, for Letby, told the three judges it was unprecedented that such a “highly damaging and emotional” comment had been made about a defendant before a criminal trial.
He said police detectives had described the nurse as “evil, merciless and unemotional”, while a senior prosecutor had branded her “devious, cold-blooded, calculated”. [and] manipulative” after his first trial last year.
Myers, for Letby, said the trial judge, Mr Justice James Goss, had been wrong to allow a retrial to take place given the “overwhelming and irremediable” public comment that followed his original convictions.
The lawyer said the appeal focused solely on this “very narrow” abuse of process argument and not on the extensive concerns that have been raised about the evidence in recent months. He said the media had been “saturated with pure vitriol” towards the former nurse before the retrial, citing 62 examples of hostile coverage, including a debate on ITV's Unfastened Girls titled: “Was Lucy Letby born evil?”
Myers said it had been “unprecedented” for a police force, in this case Cheshire Police, to launch “scorching attacks” on a defendant at a time when a retrial was being considered.
He told the judges: “When the police embarked on a media campaign that was undoubtedly… in such emotionally charged circumstances in a context of multiple convictions for the most serious crimes and where they knew that a retrial was being considered, we say that “It is unfair and should offend the court’s sense of justice and propriety.”
Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said this was not a “reasonable or accurate” characterization of the media coverage.
He told the judges that most of the disapproving public comments had been directed at hospital management for allowing Letby to remain in the neonatal unit despite concerns raised by senior doctors.
Johnson also said that the vast majority of the media material cited by Letby appeared immediately after the convictions in August 2023, 10 months before the retrial, so it would have “faded” from any juror's memory.
He cited the example of a “very, very pro-Lucy Letby” New Yorker article, published in the weeks leading up to the retrial, which he said had received “significant traction” when it was mentioned in parliament by Sir David Davis. .
Johnson said: “If ever this court wants evidence that publicity had no effect on this jury, this is it. Because it was very pro-Letby and contrary to the accusation materials that circulated with great traction on the Web in the weeks and days prior to the trial.”
He added: “In that context, one is reminded of the old epithet that today's cover is tomorrow's fish and chip wrappers.”
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