Lucy Letby: David Davis Says Cheshire Police Made ‘Egregious’ Failures — Calls for CPS and DPP Review
The Conservative former cabinet minister David Davis told parliament that the investigation into lucy letby showed “egregious” failures by Cheshire police, asserting the nurse convicted of multiple infant murders has suffered a miscarriage of justice. His intervention, drawing on reviews by two former detectives, calls into question expert appointments, investigative breadth and the handling of statistical evidence in a case that resulted in 15 whole-life sentences.
Lucy Letby: Why this matters now
Davis framed the debate as urgent: a conviction that resulted in life-without-parole sentences for the nurse was reached after an inquiry that he says fell short of professional standards. The Criminal Cases Review Commission has received an application from Letby’s lawyer, Mark McDonald (Letby’s lawyer), to refer the case back to the court of appeal and is reviewing that application. At the same time, Davis has signalled his intention to ask the director of public prosecutions to review the conduct of both the Crown Prosecution Service and Cheshire police, raising immediate questions about the adequacy of investigative practice in deaths in healthcare settings.
Deep analysis: investigative failures and the evidence at issue
Davis’s critique rests on a series of discrete procedural allegations drawn from the reviews of two former detectives: former Detective Superintendent Stuart Clifton, who led the probe into Beverley Allitt, and Steve Watts, a former assistant chief constable who authored national police guidance on investigations of deaths in healthcare settings. Both reviewers, the parliamentarian said, initially believed the nurse guilty but changed that view after examining the available facts and concluded the case merits characterisation as a “serious miscarriage of justice. ”
Central to Davis’s charge is the force’s failure to assemble and retain the right mix of expert advice. The force is said to have neglected official guidance to appoint a panel of experts, initially asked Prof Jane Hutton (medical statistician) to examine a rise in deaths and then stood her down. The subsequent expert team was led by Dr Dewi Evans (retired paediatrician), whose appointment, Davis argues, was not subject to proper due diligence. The initial decision to open a criminal investigation followed a single meeting with two hospital consultants at the Countess of Chester hospital, and Davis criticises the resulting focus as too narrow—concentrating suspicion on one staff member rather than systematically exploring all potential causal factors in the neonatal unit.
Those procedural questions intersect with the evidential debate. Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more in 2015 and 2016, and the court of appeal refused permission to appeal. Since the convictions, dozens of leading UK and international medical experts have examined the material and argued that a combination of natural causes and poor care on the neonatal unit better explains the deaths and collapses than deliberate harm. The contrast between these expert assessments and the force’s investigative choices is the core of Davis’s argument that the original enquiry failed to meet recognised standards.
Expert perspectives and wider consequences
Davis reiterated his view in parliament using the word “egregious” to describe the alleged failings of Cheshire police, and he highlighted the lessons from a prior high-profile miscarriage of justice in which a conviction was quashed after flawed statistical evidence. He cited the need for a review of police and prosecutorial behaviour and said he will call on the director of public prosecutions to act. The Criminal Cases Review Commission’s current review of the application submitted by Mark McDonald remains the procedural route for any judicial re-examination of the verdicts.
The implications extend beyond one criminal case. If the procedural criticisms outlined in parliament are upheld, they could prompt a re-evaluation of how deaths in healthcare settings are investigated nationally, the role and selection of statistical and medical experts, and the interaction between hospital clinicians and police investigators. Cheshire police’s handling of the inquiry, and the Crown Prosecution Service’s decisions flowing from it, are now subject to scrutiny that could have ripple effects for guidance authored by senior investigators and for trust in institutional processes.
At stake is not only the fate of lucy letby but the wider integrity of investigations where clinical complexity, statistical interpretation and criminal law intersect. Will the formal reviews now urged by a senior parliamentarian lead to concrete reforms in expert appointment, evidential standards and accountability mechanisms for such inquiries?
