Judges: Nurse Convicted of Killing 7 Babies Can't Appeal

With a retrial scheduled, British press can't describe details of Lucy Letby hearing
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 24, 2024 10:30 AM CDT
Nurse Convicted of Killing 7 Babies Denied Appeal
This undated handout issued by Cheshire Constabulary shows nurse Lucy Letby.   (Cheshire Constabulary via AP)

Former nurse Lucy Letby, one of very few women in British history to be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole, has been denied permission to appeal her convictions. After a 10-month trial, the 34-year-old was found guilty last year of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six more while working in the neonatal unit of a hospital in northern England. She filed to appeal the convictions soon after the trial ended. On Friday, a panel of three of the most senior judges in England said permission to appeal had been refused, bringing an end to the appeal process, the Telegraph reports.

"This court, having heard her application, has decided to refuse leave to appeal on all grounds and refused all associated applications," said Dame Victoria Sharp. "A full judgment will be handed down in due course." Letby is due to be retried next month on one attempted murder charge involving a victim known as Child K, the BBC reports. Because of the retrial, the British media is not being allowed to report the full details of the judges' decision and the reasons for Letby's appeal.

A New Yorker story that raised doubts about some of the evidence that led to Letby's conviction is also blocked by the reporting restrictions. The story is geo-blocked for British readers of the New Yorker website and British news outlets would risk being found in contempt of court if they described its contents, the New York Times reports. At her sentencing last August, Justice James Goss gave Letby the harshest sentence possible, 14 whole-life sentences, for what he described as "a cruel, calculated, and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children." (More infanticide stories.)

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