When the former nurse was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, a 1980s research paper was key to the prosecution’s case. But the author of the paper himself believes there has been a miscarriage of justice – and so too do other doctors
On 4 February 2025, Lucy Letby’s barrister, Mark McDonald, convened a press conference at the grand baroque Westminster venue One Great George Street. It became a landmark moment, the culmination of months in which a number of distinguished experts had spoken out to question the former nurse’s convictions.
The media were addressed for an hour by a Canadian medical professor, Dr Shoo Lee. He said that a panel of international experts disputed the prosecution case that had led to Letby being found guilty in two trials of murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2015 and 2016, and attempting to murder seven others. She was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders, and the court of appeal unanimously refused her permission to appeal.
The case of the serial killer couple is so harrowing that everyone involved is still haunted to this day. But is there really any point in making them recall these hideous crimes? And why have crucial details been omitted?
Another day, another addition to the “point and gasp” school of true crime documentaries; one which adds nothing to our understanding of a terrible crime or of those who committed it, nothing to our safety as individuals or as a society, nothing except our appetite for voyeurism and the normalisation of it. Most true crime documentaries are in this school. Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story is no exception. Perhaps the sordid, exploitative aspects of the genre are felt more strongly here precisely because it is one of our own stories, and one many of us remember reading about in the papers and seeing on the news as the awful discoveries were made at the time. Usually we watch these films at one remove. We can at least feel we are learning about how terrible America can be, or that a victim who would otherwise be forgotten amid the great mass of victims evil people create has been memorialised. Here, we are more fiercely confronted with our complicity and the weakness of the arguments for watching.
The best that can be said about the latest three-part testimony to human depravity is that it is superficial. It does not delve into the one aspect of the 1994 case that has the potential to edify – the backgrounds of the killers, the psychology of their relationship, and whether the world would have been different if they had not met; it also glosses quickly over the system’s failure to prosecute Fred West for rape early on in his murderous career – but neither does it dwell on the baser details of the case, the ones I suspect the officers and relatives interviewed here have in mind when they say how much this experience still haunts them.
Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story is on Netflix now.
The French study of 15,000 people shows men emit 26% more pollution due to eating red meat and driving more
Cars and meat are major factors driving a gender gap in greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests.
Men emit 26% more planet-heating pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. The gap shrinks to 18% after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as income and education.
Its European allies must commit to the long-haul – but they, as much as Zelenskyy, will reap the rewards
My train rolled into Kyiv last week as Russian ballistic missiles and drones hit the city, killing a mother and her son. I had last been in Ukraine just over a year earlier. Back then, in April 2024, the mood was dark. Frustrated by delays in western military aid, people had a palpable fear of escalating Russian territorial gains, perhaps even a collapse of Ukraine’s frontline. Today, the international context is even more fraught. The Biden administration was frustratingly slow and scared, but few doubted that the US wanted to prevent Russia from prevailing. The same cannot be said of Donald Trump, whose ideological affinity with Vladimir Putin has thrown Europe, starting with Ukraine, off balance.
But despite the Trump administration’s betrayals, I found the mood in Kyiv more confident than a year previously. After more than three years of war, Ukrainians are tired, but they are not exhausted. The soldiers, civil society representatives, parliamentarians and government officials I met seemed ever-more determined to stand tall and defend their country.
Two reports published today catalogue ‘gruesome yet avoidable accidents’ on construction sites despite the Gulf kingdom’s claims thatwork-related deaths have fallen
Thousands of migrant workers are likely to die in Saudi Arabia as a result of a building boom fuelled by the 2034 World Cup and other major construction projects, human rights groups have warned.
The Gulf kingdom has seen a surge in demand for cheap migrant labour, with a significant increase in foreign workers since 2021, as it starts preparations for hosting the World Cup and drives forward projects including the futurist megacity Neom.
Research looking at hygiene and healthcare habits of the primates finds implications for understanding origin of human healthcare
Humans are not unique in having a host of hygiene and healthcare habits, researchers have found: chimpanzees also wipe their bottoms, tend each other’s wounds and even clean up after sex, according to a new study.
The research from the University of Oxford is not the first to show that great apes take care of themselves. Scientists have previously found chimpanzees use insects to treat their own wounds and those of others, while orangutans have been observed treating wounds with the sap and chewed leaves of plants with known medicinal properties.
Declassified documents reveal secret support by intelligence agencies without oversight by elected politicians
A secret coalition of western intelligence agencies supplied Israel with crucial information that allowed the Mossad to track and kill Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks in western Europe in the early 1970s, newly declassified documents have revealed.
The support was offered without any oversight by parliaments or elected politicians, and, if not actually illegal, would have caused a public scandal.
"I just hope he went quickly and I'm grateful for the people -- and I hope to meet them -- that surrounded him and protected his body so he wasn't just out in the middle of the road," his daughter said.
A Premier League player was placed into an induced coma after he had to undergo surgery on an abdominal injury that was deemed “urgent,” various outlets reported on Tuesday.
Former world champion cyclist avoids jail after pleading guilty to committing aggravated act likely to cause harm after 2023 incident that killed Olympian Hoskins
Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis has received a suspended jail sentence over a road incident that led to the death of his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins.
Dennis, 34, appeared in South Australia’s district court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a charge of committing an aggravated act likely to cause harm.
Evidence about a prior fight between Karen Read and John O'Keefe may be allowed in court after defense team's questioning created an opening for prosecutors.
With Democrats sizing up their 2028 plans, Pete Buttigieg spoke at a town hall in Cedar Rapids and criticized the Trump administration: “The American people bow to no king.”
At a town hall on Tuesday night in Iowa, Pete Buttigieg said Democrats needed to adjust their pitch to voters, insisting that they must “connect everything we believe, everything we say, everything we do, to everyday life.”
While the recent federal election turned into a tight race between the Liberals and Conservatives that left other parties trailing far behind, a new poll suggests most Canadians don't want the country end up with a two-party system. Read More
The "Little Mermaid" star claimed in court documents that the rapper shoved her face into the steering wheel of his car and said, "Get out of my car, bitch."
Mendoza, the former Yankees bench coach, watched Cabrera fracture his left ankle while sliding into home plate during the ninth inning Monday, forcing him to leave the field via an ambulance.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha. Follow live updates
The victory is the first domino to fall in setting up a potential Pacers-Knicks rematch in the conference finals, something that hasn't happened in 25 years.
Even with the matchup against the Pirates, even with the chance to show them what they missed by not keeping him a starter, Clay Holmes has avoided approaching it as a chance to prove Pittsburgh wrong.
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