Convicted baby killer Lucy Letby has engaged the services of a lawyer who previously defended another nurse jailed for murdering their patients.
Letby, who is serving 15 whole life sentences, hopes her new barrister, Mark McDonald, will succeed in overturning her sentencing after two failed appeals.
The 34-year-old has no prospect of parole and will live out her days behind bars after she was found guilty of murdering seven babies and of the attempted murder of seven others at the Countess of Chester Hospital in two separate trials.
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After shedding her previous representatives, who had led her defence during the two trials and two failed appeal attempts, the ex-neonatal nurse has now pinned her hopes of overturning her conviction on her new legal counsel. And it’s not her recently-appointed lawyer’s first rodeo.
Mr McDonald has previously worked on high-profile appeals. This includes Ben Geen’s case, another nurse who was jailed for life in 2006 or murdering two of his patients and poisoning 15 others.
Green made three appeals, one to the Court of Appeal in 2009, and two further appeals to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in 2013 and 2015. All three appeals were denied.
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Yet the barrister believes there is a strong case for Letby’s innocence, claiming that “juries get it wrong”.
Mr McDonald told the BBC: ”I knew almost from the start, following this trial, that there is a strong case that she is innocent. The fact is juries get it wrong. And yes, so do the Court of Appeal, history teaches us that.”
Speaking to Channel 5 News, the barrister said there was “absolutely” a strong case for her defence, and added that he was asking legal officials to return the case to the courts on “fresh evidence”.
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Mr McDonald said he has started preparing to take Letby’s case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), and apply for it to be sent back to the Court of Appeal, which rejected the two previous appeal attempts.
Despite maintaining her innocence, Letby’s convictions make her the worst child serial killer in British history. She’s also just the fourth British woman slapped with a whole life sentence, following on from Rose West, Myra Hindley and Joanna Dennehy.
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