Lucy Letby's next steps as she 'toys' with victims' parents in bid to appeal
Baby serial killer Lucy Letby is cruelly 'toying' with victims' families in her bid to appeal her string of murder convictions, according to a forensic psychologist. While a legal expert has warned the former neonatal nurse is in for an 'uphill battle' as he outlines her next steps following her formal lodge at the Court of Appeal last week.
The prolific killer was handed a whole-life order in August after jurors found her guilty of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others during her campaign of terror at the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and 2016. The conviction made the 33-year-old Britain's most prolific child killer, alongside the likes of Ian Brady, Myra Hindley and the so-called Angel of Death paediatric nurse Beverley Allitt. She is only the fourth woman in UK history to receive such a sentence.
While most of the nation has questioned her motive for the killings, which has left experts stunned, clinical and forensic psychologist Dr Naomi Murphy - who has spent 25 years working with serious violent and sexually violent criminals in prisons and hospitals - said there could be a multitude of reasons behind her motivation to appeal. One possibility, she suggests, is that it could be a way of still “toying” with the families of the babies she murdered.
“One of the things that’s quite disturbing is the fact that the families seemed to be quite prominent in her mind throughout her offending. She did something like 2,300 searches on Facebook, even on Christmas Day,” Dr Murphy told the Mirror. “My concern is that for some people, if toying with the family was part of the thrill for her, the appeal process would be a way to still be able to be symbolically offending. When people commit multiple offences of this kind of nature, there is a thrill to the act of killing, so where does that go when you're prevented from still being able to do that?”
Lucy Letby pictured at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2012 (MEN MEDIA)
Letby is spending the rest of her life behind bars (Cheshire Constabulary via Getty)Other motivations could be to try and protect her relationships with friends and family who have supported her, Dr Murphy added. “When people have been convicted of serious offences, they're really worried about being isolated and alienated from anyone in their lives,” she said.
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“I have worked with a number of people in prison who maintained their innocence over years, sometimes decades, until their parents have died, for instance. And it's only been at the point where my parents have died, that they've been able to say, ‘Yes, I did do this’. People don't want to let their family members down and they don't want to be a disappointment.
“She's also committed an offence which is considered to be the lowest of the low amongst the hierarchy of offences in prison and would attract a lot of hostility and animosity, possibly even violence in prison. And no doubt her family are also experiencing retaliation to some degree, so maintaining innocence over a period of time allows the kerfuffle to die down to some degree.”
During the process of making a bid for an appeal, Dr Murphy said Letby will likely be holding onto the hope that she may be able to “undo everything”. “She will still be holding on to hope - so whilst it might be unpleasant to be having all this stuff raked over publicly all over again, that will be tempered by this hope that ‘this time, it might go my way.’”
But despite Letby's bid to challenge her baby murder convictions, legal expert Antony O’Loughlin, who is the director and head of litigation and general counsel at the UK Law firm Setfords, said Letby "faces an uphill battle." Having applied for permission to appeal, Mr O'Loughlin said Letby will need to provide strong evidence that there has been an “error of law or some form of procedural irregularity", which would deem her convictions unsafe.
“It is difficult to see permission being granted by a judge, in which case, she would need to take her application to a full hearing before two or three judges,” Mr O’Loughlin explained. “Letby’s trial was thoroughly conducted over 10 months. The jury reached clear decisions in the relevant cases, based on the factual evidence presented. This was such a high profile and emotive case and the court took great steps to ensure that the process was robust and the evidence was presented properly. There was a lot of expert medical evidence, given over a 10-month trial, and they will have been very careful to ensure the convictions in this case were sound and the process was followed to the letter.
File court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook dated 02/05/23 of Lucy Letby giving evidence in the dock at Manchester Crown Court (PA)“You might think that a judge would simply find it unpalatable at this point to overturn such hideous convictions but I think it’s more that with a trial this long, that has been conducted so carefully, that it will be unlikely that enough grounds would exist to now try and unpick that.”
Even if Lucy Letby did manage to convince the Court of Appeal, Mr O’Loughlin warns she will still face numerous other hurdles - including whether or not the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will go for a retrial on the counts that the jury failed to reach a verdict on. It is thought the CPS will announce whether this will be happening on Monday 25 September, in relation to the six counts of attempted murder in relation to five children the jury were unable to reach verdicts on.
Alongside this, Mr O’Loughlin added: “The police continue to investigate other potentially suspicious deaths and there may be further charges brought against Letby in future. Therefore, even if she manages to convince the Court of Appeal to hear her appeal, her legal jeopardy is far from over.”
In terms of Lucy’s motivations behind her bid to appeal, Mr O’Loughlin said she has “nothing to lose” in making the appeal. He highlighted: “Her whole life will be in prison and she has a small window to launch an appeal in 28 days so she could be thinking ‘Why not try? On the other hand, she’s maintained throughout that she has been innocent in the face of overwhelming evidence so it could be somehow in her mind, she’s convinced herself that she’s innocent.”
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