Shocker: Is Key ‘Expert Witness’ in UK Nurse Baby Killings Trial Exposed?

Written by John O'Sullivan on August 25, 2023. Posted in Current News

Having personal experience of how science is used and abused in courtroom battles the recent sensational conviction of nurse Lucy Letby as modern Britain’s worst serial child killer is troubling. Did the science presented fairly reflect the facts or was an innocent women cruelly jailed for life?

Death of a newborn is expecially devastating when a criminal court rules that your precious baby was intentionally harmed at its most vulnerable and in the most trusted of hands.

This month Lucy Letby became the most prolific serial killer of children in modern British history when convicted of the murders of at least seven infants. At least six other babies sustained injuries when she was working as a neonatal nurse between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital (CoCH) in Chester, England.

But in the period June 2015 to June 2016 nobody suspected Lucy Letby of wrong-doing.  It was only after the Consultants, running the neonatal unit, were the subject of a critical report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) that the Consultants filed a report with the police alleging the infant deaths were due to the actions of nurse Lucy Letby.

Having studied independent reports on the case it became clear that this case was far more uncertain and problematic than the media have reported and it has spurned unease among many experts that the science presented to the jury was not only sub par, but may be tainted by confirmation bias.

In all but one case, the infants received autopsies, and the coroner found that they died of natural causes.

According to one independent expert source:

“Based upon published peer-reviewed research, and with the guidance, advice, and insights of other scientists, it is the view of Science on Trial that the scientific information put before the court by the expert witnesses is very simply inaccurate, misleading, and in many places false. The expert witnesses in this case are likely aware that the claims they have made lack necessary scientific findings, and if they were to write these claims up and attempt to submit them for publication, their submission would be quickly rejected.”

While another independent analyst revealed that:

“A former paediatrician sometimes called ‘Doctor Evidence For Hire’ is the prosecution’s linchpin ‘expert witness’. Retired since 2009, evidence shows that rather than as Dr Dewi Evans led under oath regarding the National Crime Agency contacting him to assist on the case – Dr Evans had insinuated himself into the case early on by contacting the police first and offering his services.

He testified that he thought he ‘could help’, ‘give advice’, ‘review case notes’ and ‘form an opinion of what led to the collapses of Child A and Child B’. Evans became involved in the Letby case when he travelled from Wales to Cheshire to ‘visit’ Cheshire police because, he said, there were concerns regarding the number of deaths at CoCH which were ‘unusual’ and which exceeded expectations. Defence counsel and no doubt many others saw this as ‘touting for business’. “

It appears Dr Dewi Evans profited handsomely from his craft. His company called Dewi Evans Paediatric Consulting Limited is listed on LinkedIn selling his services as an expert witness for hire. His company reports current accounts with cash at hand of over £108,000 for the financial year ending 2022. He appears to have invoiced totals between £80,000-150,000 annually during the period of the Lucy Letby investigation.

Critics of his assert that his testimony tended more towards the role of being an apologist for the doctors who were present at CoCH at the time, rather than presenting the confident and independent judgement of an expert.

In previous trial work the Lord Justice of Appeals had rejected Dr Dewi Evans’ evidence, describing it as “tendentious and partisan expressions of opinion that are outside of Dr Evans’ professional competence” which had “no place in a reputable expert report.”

From the outset, this case proceeded by pure scientific speculation, where it introduced employees of the same organization that employs the defendant (The National Health Service) to testify to the validity of the forensic investigation performed by an expert who solicited the role as an investigator (Dr Evans).

There were several instances where it could be argued that strict application of the scientific method was not only missing, but cock-eyed guess work predominated, as indicated in the following independent analysis: 

“…it is incredible that all of the claims against Lucy Letby rely on the half-baked assertions of Dr Evans regarding air emboli being the only cause that explains what happened to several of these neonates. Assertions that yet again may very well be outside his expertise.

The bulk of Dr Evans’ initial evidence in chief included taking the jury through a collection of medical training videos and explaining key terms and procedures. Among others, this included a training video on the Phillips neonatal patient monitors. During cross examination he undermined his own ‘expert evidence’ first by telling the jury that not everything could be learned from training videos, and then by admitting he had not only never used in clinical practice the Phillips monitors he had been taking them through – but that he had actually never seen one at all.”

It can be shown that Dr Evans provided no real suggestion in his testimony for Child A that any alternate potential theories for the cause of death were considered and discounted. In fact, he describes that he came to his conclusion (the air embolus) first, and then found he could even fit the circumstances of Child B to it.

This gave the impression that some degree of confirmation bias was inherent in his thinking. The impression of confirmation bias became stronger when Dr Evans rapidly and with little consideration concluded new evidence solely reinforced his theory of the case, such as the claimed skin mottling Registrar Harkness described seeing on Child A for the first time while giving evidence during this very trial.

lawhealthandtech.substack.com tells us:

“Another example came when, after it had been put to him during cross examination, he unequivocally denied that an infection could even be involved. He brushed infection aside with the bold claim that evidence of infection “would appear on a post-mortem examination”.

However, this is not always the case. Unless there was some obvious outward sign of infection, clinical observations at death that strongly suggested it, or the post-mortem request suggested it, the pathologist might not undertake the complete panel of tests that identify a broad range of viral and bacterial infections. “

Science on Trial, how does it stack up?

Essentially, the scientific “proof” in this case amounts to the conflation of gas embolism with air embolism, and the reliance on one single publication from 1989, which details the consequences of gas embolism. However, this is not the same phenomenon that Dr Evans uses in his assessment of cause of death.

Dr Evans contends that these infants, with wildly different autopsy findings, died due to air embolism and not gas embolism. The evidence Dr Evans relies on to prove air embolism is from a paper detailing a wholly distinct phenomena called gas embolism. This alone demonstrates how woefully out of his depth Dr Evans was in conducting his investigation.

The case against Lucy Letby was wholly circumstantial such that expert medical evidence required to convict her for a full life term should be of the most impeccable standard. But was it?

It has been repeatedly claimed that the number of deaths at CoCH increased in 2015 and 2016, and the implication was that these two years were unique in the number of infant deaths.

However, the original announcement made regarding the investigation, of the infant deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital, contained no statement surrounding an increased incidence of deaths. In the years subsequent to 2015 and 2016 the rates of perinatal death continued to increase.

• DCS Nigel Wenham stated on or around May 18th 2017 that: “Cheshire constabulary has launched an investigation, which will focus on the deaths of eight babies that occurred between that period [2015-2016] where medical practitioners have expressed concern”
• The cumulative infant mortality rate at the Countess of Chester Hospital, for 2015 and 2016 was lower than the national average.
• There is an unusual trend in the pattern of stillbirths and perinatal deaths.
• The number of perinatal deaths in 2017 and 2018 was higher than in 2015 and 2016, but Lucy Letby was not on the ward in these years
• In June 2019, Dr Gibbs retired.  Dr Gibbs was the Senior Consultant who accused Lucy Letby of murdering infants.  In that same year the number of perinatal deaths and stillbirths dramatically declined.

Principia Scientific is collaborating with interested third parties to impartially review all the scientific evidence to assist in resolving uncertaintities and we will post updates in due course.

References:

https://www.scienceontrial.com/

https://rexvlucyletby2023.com/

About John O’Sullivan:  John is CEO and co-founder of Principia Scientific International (PSI). John co-hosts TNT Radio’s Sky Dragon Slaying show with fellow PSI co-founders, Joe Olson and Joe Postma. He is a seasoned science writer and adept legal analyst who assisted Dr Ball in defeating world leading climate expert, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann in the multi-million-dollar ‘science trial of the century‘. O’Sullivan is credited as the visionary who formed the original ‘Slayers’ group of scientists in 2010 who then collaborated in creating the world’s first full-volume ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory’ debunking alarmist lies about carbon dioxide plus their follow-up climate book. His latest publication, ‘Slaying the Virus and Vaccine Dragon’ exposes dangerous mainstream medical group think and junk science.

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