‘Did we get the WRONG person?’ Doc who helped convict Lucy Letby reveals doubt over evidence & says ‘I live with guilt’

A CONSULTANT who helped put Lucy Letby behind bars has admitted his “guilt” over her case – casting doubt on the killer nurse’s conviction.

In a shock admission, Dr John Gibb – who worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital with Letby – confessed “no one actually saw her do it”.

The pair were on the same ward between 2015 and 2016 – when Letby was found to have murdered seven babies and attempted to kill seven more.

Dr Gibb repeatedly raised concerns to management about the nurse, who he initially described as “quiet and competent”.

The consultant paediatrician said a staffing review was ordered on the neo-natal ward after babies started dying “more frequently than ever”.

It concluded that Letby was the one person on duty for all the baby deaths and collapses – a key factor in her conviction in August 2023.

She was found guilty of seven counts of murder following a nine-month trial and 22 days of jury deliberation.

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In other bombshells from Netflix’s documentary…

• Letby’s mum screams in unseen footage of nurse getting arrested
• A close pal of Letby reveals what she was like at university
• One of the baby’s mums reveals Letby’s chilling admission in court
• An expert accuses data used to convict Letby of being ‘misinterpreted
• Defence barrister claims Letby’s haunting notes were due to therapy and ‘not a confession’
• Letby was ‘scapegoated’ by the hospital she worked at, her lawyer claims

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The sickening death toll saw her become the UK’s most prolific killer nurse and one of Britain’s worst-ever female serial killers.

But Dr Gibb has since spoken of his “guilt”, confessing they may have got “the wrong person” – as the nurse looks set to spend her life behind bars.

Speaking on Netflix’s documentary The Investigation of Lucy Letby, he admitted: “I live with two guilts.

“Guilt that we let the babies down… and tiny, tiny, tiny guilt ‘Did we get the wrong person?’

“There’s a guilt, you know, just in case… miscarriage of justice.

“I don’t think there was a miscarriage of justice… but you worry that no one actually saw her do it.”

Top barrister Mark McDonald – recruited by Letby’s “distraught” parents – is now leading the charge to get the nurse’s case reviewed.

He sent an appeal application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – which reviews possible miscarriages of justice – early last year.

In the documentary, Mr McDonald also highlights that Letby’s defence team did not once call an expert witness during the harrowing trial.

Data used to convict Letby was ‘misinterpreted’

Echoing Dr Gibb, the lawyer pointed to a lack of visual evidence and CCTV footage to prove Letby was definitively behind the baby’s deaths.

And he has even called into doubt evidence provided by the chief prosecution expert during Letby’s trial, Dr Dewi Evans.

Dr Evans told the court one baby had died after suffering an air embolism, where air enters the blood vessels and blocks blood flow to the organs.

His evidence had been compounded by research done by Dr Shoo Lee, noting skin discolouration due to air in the baby’s circulation.

Potentially a young woman could be in jail for the rest of her life… and die in prison for the wrong reason

Dr Shoo Lee, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto

But Mr McDonald took it upon himself to get in contact with Dr Lee – who suggested that his work had been “misinterpreted” during the trial.

He said: “I was worried because if my paper had been misinterpreted, then we’ve got a big problem on our hands.

“I looked at the evidence and I realised that they did not describe the kind of skin discolouration diagnostic of air embolism.

“What they had described was skin discolouration due to hypoxia or lack of oxygen. This means that the conviction was potentially wrong.

“I was very troubled. Potentially a young woman could be in jail for the rest of her life and to die in prison for the wrong reason.”

Dr Lee later convened a panel of the top 14 neo-natal experts from around the world, who examined and wrote a detailed report on each case.

Their findings were presented by Dr Lee at a press conference in London, hosted by Tory MP David Davis.

They concluded there had been no “malfeasance causing death or injury”, with Dr Lee adding, “if there was no murder… there was no murderer”.

But Sarah, whose baby Zoe tragically died on the neo-natal ward during Letby’s sickening spree, slammed the panel as “disgusting”.

The mum – anonymised on screen using AI technology – is the first parent involved in the trial to be interviewed on screen for a documentary.

She slammed the “audacious” politician Mr Davis for introducing Dr Lee as the “star of the show” during the press conference.

Sarah fumed: “This is not a show. There is no star. This is nothing to smile about.

“The audacity from a politician to introduce someone like this… it is disgusting.”

Speaking in the documentary, Sarah revealed she recognised Letby “as soon as I saw her face” on the news following her arrest.

The “broken mum” chillingly recalled seeing the neo-natal nurse with a clipboard when she visited baby Zoe for the first time.

Sarah also told how she sat just three metres from Letby during the trial – and repeatedly saw the killer nurse “staring at her” from the dock.

In a heartbreaking admission, Sarah said she felt she had “failed as a mum” in the immediate aftermath of Letby’s conviction.

She said: “I felt relieved, happy and then instantly broken. Because now this is true… I can’t escape this reality.

“I felt I needed to say sorry to my daughter. In my head, I failed… as a mum. I was asleep when this was happening.

“When she needed me I wasn’t there.”

Letby’s haunting notes were ‘not a confession’

Another crucial element in Letby’s conviction was the haunting scribbles she had written in diaries and on Post-It notes.

The chilling cache of evidence was discovered in Letby’s three-bedroom home on July 3, 2018.

I blamed myself… not because I’d done something, because of the way people were making me feel

Lucy Letby

Cops attended her and her parent’s homes numerous times – arresting her on three occasions.

In one clip, Letby’s mum Susan can be heard screaming at officers as they pile into the house and detain her daughter.

She can be heard shouting “please no, not again no… no. I can’t” as detectives wake up a startled Letby.

The nurse hid the disturbing notes in a red suitcase and black bin bags scattered around her home.

She wrote, “I am evil,” while another note read, “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them”.

There were also some that bore the messages “Kill me” and “Help me”, along with the names and initials of some the babies she murdered.

In one, Letby scrawled: “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this.

“No one will ever understand or appreciate what’s like.”

But Mr McDonald claimed that Letby had been advised to write her thoughts and feelings down by occupational therapy.

The barrister said the nurse’s sinister scrawls were a “form of therapy” rather than “a confession”, as the court was told.

When quizzed about the scribblings in a police interview, Letby fought back tears as she claimed “everything had got on top of me”.

The nurse went on to blame the consultants on the unit for targeting her, adding she “only ever did my best for those babies”.

Defending the notes, she told cops: “It was when I had not long found out I’d been removed from the unit.

“I felt like they were blaming my practice, that I might have hurt them without knowing, through my practice. That made me feel guilty.

“I blamed myself… not because I’d done something, because of the way people were making me feel.”

Letby was “scapegoated” by staff at the Countess of Chester

During the documentary, viewers are introduced to one of Letby’s closest pals, Maisie, who also studied nursing at the University of Chester.

She describes meeting Letby on the first day of lectures, with the nurse’s smile “putting her at ease straightaway”.

The pair quickly became “inseparable”, with Maisie hailing her friend’s “quirky sense of humour”.

They were both assigned to work at the Countess of Chester hospital.

But Maisie told how “shy and quiet” Letby had been ignored by nurses on the ward, who went “out their way” to make things difficult for her.

The pair continued their “special friendship” and remained in contact while Letby was in prison.

In previously unseen letters, the killer nurse spoke of her cushy ensuite cell and how she missed her “babies” back home.

They can say Letby was always there when something went wrong… but we know this was a very small unit and she did extra shifts

Mark McDonald, Criminal barrister

And since the medic’s murder convictions, questions have been asked of the hospital and whether it is fit for purpose.

Quoting research done by a New York Times journalists, Mark McDonald suggests Letby may have been a “scapegoat” for the unit.

He claims nurses were in tears after stressful shifts and were “overworked” by punitive bosses.

During the documentary, Mr McDonald points to a lack of resources and staff to attend to “so many babies” on the ward.

Maisie shockingly claimed she had been left alone a number of times with high-dependency babies during her placement.

The then-student nurse was reportedly told “if they go blue, give us a shout” by more senior members of the team.

Mr McDonald also suggests “compelling evidence” Letby was on shift for all of the collapses was actually due to low staff numbers on the ward.

He continued: “The purpose of such a rota is simple… it’s compelling evidence for the jury.

“They can say that she was always there when something went wrong. But we know this was a very small unit… and she did extra shifts.

“Letby was more qualified than many nurses on the unit which meant she got the sickest babies.

“It would be odd if she wasn’t there when something went wrong.”