WEBVTT - The Verdict 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.479 Before we begin, please be aware this series contains discussions 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:08.880 around infant deaths and other difficult topics. Please take care 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:09.640 while listening. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.280 We want to bring you this very urgent breaking news 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.400 because the neonatal nurse Lucy let Bee has been found guilty. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.800 The nurse Lucy let Be has been found guilty of 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:27.639 murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others while 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.600 they were in her care at a hospital in Cheshire. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.239 The nurse who should have been in charge of caring 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.680 the tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:39.400 in modern British history. 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.920 In August twenty twenty three, Lucy let Be, a young 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.760 neonatal nurse, was convicted in England of murdering seven tiny 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:52.960 babies and attempting to kill six more. 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.800 The case shocked the nation. A year later, she. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.000 Would be convicted again for the attempted murder of a 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:02.920 seventh baby. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.240 She's been handed fifteen. 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:11.520 Life sentences, all without the possibility of parole, meaning as 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.920 this case stands, she will never see the outside of 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:21.560 a prison again. Case closed, right, well. 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:23.319 Maybe not. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.360 Lucy Letby's convictions are now being contested. In the nearly 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.160 three years since her conviction. There's been a re examination 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:39.760 of evidence and an outpouring of revelations, prompting many to 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.520 reevaluate the case for her guilt, not just members of 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.840 the public, but lawyers, politicians, and some of the most 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:52.960 eminent doctors in the world. Today, this case is like 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.640 an open wound that has divided England, with opposite views 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.680 competing with one another across the media. 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:07.760 This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.959 involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:13.239 We did not find any murders. 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.960 In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.000 Are just bad medical case. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.040 They can't both be right, can they? 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.600 And yet we are now in a situation where there 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:35.320 are two parallel worlds. When Lucy let Be was first convicted, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.720 there were news headlines that flickered and vanished in the US. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.160 But I couldn't get this story out of my head. 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.280 A young, attractive woman accused of some of the worst 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:53.000 crimes imaginable, A story the tabloid newspapers fed on with glee, 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:58.560 A cold, calculating killer, the unexpected face of evil. 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:01.680 I had headlines like that and the. 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.960 Back of my neck prickled for the British media said 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:13.440 the same things about me, Foxy Noxie, sex lies and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:20.800 murder killer abroad she devil. My wrongful conviction in Italy 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.200 played out fifteen years prior. That experience taught me a 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.720 lot about how law enforcement can get it wrong, how 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.440 judgment can set in, and how stories can shape and 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:38.280 obscure the truth. Soon, a steady flow of messages came 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:44.480 into my inbox, my DMS, friends, journalists, strangers, and the 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:45.440 refrain was. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:48.200 You need to look. 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:54.720 At this one. The evidence doesn't stack up. The more 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.560 I looked into this case, the more clear it was 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:02.040 to me that inside this complicated story worry the police investigation, 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.000 the ten month long trial one of the longest in 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:11.480 British history, there were still many unanswered questions. Was Lucy 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:16.040 let be evil? If not, why did these infants die? 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.680 And how could a justice system and a nation become 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.559 so convinced that they locked away the most prolific child 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:28.200 killer in British history. I've sat in a cell, condemned 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.839 as a monster, while the world moved on, certain it 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:39.719 knew the truth, satisfied with easy answers. I'm allergic to 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:47.400 easy answers. I wanted to understand what had happened in 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.440 this hospital in the north of England, and so I 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:57.800 started asking questions. I'm Amanda Knox and from Vespucci and 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:02.039 iHeart podcasts. This is Doubt The Case of Lucy let 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:03.720 Be Episode one. 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:05.839 The verdict. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:19.120 Pira tucks for a complete betrayal of the trust placed in. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.239 Her role of Britain's most notorious killers. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:24.200 She's been found guilty. 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:25.800 Now she has no rights. 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.440 She got rid ofosed when she killed people's babies. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.440 When I first started looking at the media coverage of 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.760 the Lucy let Be case, what struck me wasn't just 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:39.240 the evidence, it was the narrative. How quickly the headlines 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.440 seemed to agree on who she was and what the 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:47.680 story meant. That kind of consensus doesn't happen by accident. 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:58.520 In November nineteen seventy two, two researchers Maxwell McCombs and 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:03.480 Donald Shaw were studying how people decide what matters. Their 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:08.039 work suggested something powerful that the mass media tells us 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.600 what to think about. That idea became known as agenda 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:20.680 setting theory. When a story dominates the headlines, it can 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.040 take on a life of its own. And feel impossible 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.040 to challenge. Believe me, I've been trying to undo the 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.920 damage the media did to my reputation for eighteen years 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:43.880 in counting. August eighteenth, twenty twenty three. This was the 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.400 day Britain stopped the end of the trial of neonatal 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.800 nurse Lucy Lutby in the northern city of Manchester, one 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.680 of the longest in British history, having run for over 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:03.200 ten months. British and international media, we're waiting for the verdicts. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.200 You've got to have material ready to go all the 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.960 TV stations outlets, So when we get the verdicts, whatever 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.960 they are, we've got to have news ready to roll. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.360 Kim Pilling was one of only a handful of reporters 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.080 who had been inside the actual courtroom every day of 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.280 the long drawn out trial. He had to prepare two 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.600 versions of the story, one for guilty, one for innocent, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.360 two completely different realities, one of which would become the 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:43.160 accepted truth, the other discarded as a lie. 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.000 And maybe breaching magic circle things here. 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.960 But to be adult about it, that's the way the world, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.080 because otherwise, which used to happen, you could be waiting 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:56.360 for hours on end for a reaction to two verdicts 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.960 and the media pressures now are so great, that's too late. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.200 The one things more instantly. 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.000 A seasoned reporter for the Press Association, Kim has covered 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.920 many trials in England. He understands the weight of a 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.720 lay jury's decision and how it can define a narrative. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:15.960 Two things was going to happen. 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.960 One if she was not guilty, then she, I have 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:25.320 no doubt, would have gone out of that dock and then, 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:27.920 you know, not very long after, and she would have 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.560 gone out onto the courtsteps at Manchester Crown and she 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.480 would have told the world media that you know, my 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:38.920 life has been destroyed by the Crown Prosecutor Service, Cheshire 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.480 place and certain people at the count of Cheship Hospital 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.760 who have heaped all the blame this unto me, who 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.640 I have never done anything wrong. I've no doubt that 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.720 would have happened if she'd have been cleared. If she 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.720 was going to be found guilty then and so it followed, 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:57.719 it was going to. 0:08:57.679 --> 0:08:59.720 Be in the headlines. They were all going to be there. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.439 Angel of death, flat bear, evil lat Bear, montelat BET's 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.280 told two completely different realities there. 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.440 When the verdict finally came the alternate reality Kim had 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.080 already drafted. The one where Lucy let be walked free 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:24.600 was instantly erased. The other version, the one labeled guilty, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:30.800 became the only story anyone heard. Within minutes, every major outlet, 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.319 from local radio stations to national news outlets to ministers 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:40.040 in the houses of Parliament, echoed the same headline, this 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:41.319 is what it sounded like. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:42.960 She's guilty. 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.400 The juries found Lucy Let be guilty of murdering seven 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.280 babies and attempting to murder another sixth. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.480 That moment of certainty one narrative takes hold and the 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:58.080 other vanishes wasn't lost on journalists Clucy De Olivera and 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.720 Rachel Levive, who followed the trial from a distance from 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:02.880 this side of the Atlantic. 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:09.200 Her conviction was front page news everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.880 then subsequently her sendencing a couple of days later. You know, 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.480 like this was how many many people first learned about 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.240 the case. They learned about that it happened by seeing 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.120 the picture of this woman on the front pages, described 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.240 as the most evil woman in Britain and the worst 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.760 serial killer of babies in modern times. 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.319 That was the first impression. 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.080 That was what people knew about Lucy Leffie. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.080 I mean it was everywhere. It was in the Daily 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.120 Mail for sure. I think I counted more than one 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.199 hundred stories about the case in the Guardian. It was 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.120 a course sort of national fixation of a level that 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.079 felt like, you know, the equivalent of the O. J. 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.920 Simpson trial. It was a huge media phenomenon. 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.400 The police, then the law courts and the jury set 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.040 the narrative which was then taken on and reinforced by 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:04.960 the media. I want to ask what your reaction was 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.760 when you first heard the news about the verdict in 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:09.640 Lucy's case. 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.360 I guess I wasn't that surprised, and if I was 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.839 in the courtroom on that jury, I probably would have 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:15.600 found her guilty. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.640 A family doctor for twenty years, doctor Phil Hammond is 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.840 a columnist for Private Eye, the much vaunted magazine famous 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.840 for its biting satire, where he writes about medicine under 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:29.200 the pseudonym MD. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.280 The media had been running with their burn the witch 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.120 headlines for a long time. So what's interesting, and again 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.000 you will know this from your own experience, is that 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.240 they take a quation and they stick it intoverted commas, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.080 evil murdering which deserves to rot in hell or whatever, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.760 and so there'd been a plea endless barrage of that. 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:53.640 Yep, he's not wrong. The stakes for me almost felt personal. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.560 Most people had accepted my guilty verdict when it was 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.240 first announced to the world, and now they were doing 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:06.240 the same for Lucy let Be wholesale. But just as 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.760 in my case, there were a handful of people, just 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:16.160 a few at first, who weren't convinced, and they started 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:35.200 to ask questions. It's a horrifying thing to imagine that 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.440 a nurse, someone trusted to care for babies and save 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:43.240 their lives, could instead deliberately harm them. But in court, 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.760 the prosecution's case was supported by the doctors who worked 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.679 with Lucy let Be and the evidence of seven medical experts. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.280 The defense didn't call any. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.280 Experts to counter that narrative, perhaps because there was no 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.000 hard evidence, a lot of smoke but no fire. As 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:06.080 it were, no one actually witnessed let Be harming any babies, 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.520 and as my lawyers initially argued, zero plus zero plus 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.160 zero still equals zero. 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.840 But that argument didn't work in my first trial. 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.640 So there was layer upon layer of gosh, how can 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.840 she possibly be innocent amongst all this, So I did write. 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.360 My first piece in Private Eye was actually to say, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.920 let be lessons. Why don't we listen to whistleberwers? Isn't 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:41.160 this appalling? Seven experts appeared for the prosecution, none appeared 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.960 for the defense, and seven doctors who worked at the 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.160 hospital stood up and said we think she's guilty. So 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.200 there were fourteen medical experts who said she was guilty. 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.520 Not a single doctor or medical expert appeared so purely 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.480 on the numbers, you know, as sometimes in a jury, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:56.680 or baffled by all the science. 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:57.559 And it was complicated. 0:13:57.600 --> 0:13:59.640 But if you think this is fourteen zero, you got 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.559 forty experts up here thinks she's guilty, zero speaking out 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.640 for Therefore I think on the balance of probability, she's guilty. 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.040 Phil Hammond's logic was the same as most of Britain's. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.160 Few people would be bold enough to question the testimony 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.079 of so many doctors. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.200 On the day she was convicted, I tweeted, sometimes the 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:22.120 law gets it wrong. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.080 But to understand how doubt begins, you have to meet 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.560 the people who won't stop asking questions. One of them 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.840 is John Sweeney, a bear of a man, a decorated 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.680 reporter who has directly confronted Vladimir Putin and others, A 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.320 self confessed professional troublemaker. 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.480 On the day she was convicted, I was in Ukraine. Well, 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.760 I've got a flat jacket a helmet, and I thought, 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:50.480 I I'll tweet this. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:51.920 I'll put my flatjack at the helmet. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.280 And the first person to call me was my agent, Humphrey, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.480 and he said, put that fucking tweet. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.680 Down now, and I said, no, I'm in Ukraine and 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:02.520 you can't get me. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:03.960 When we talk. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.760 It's summer and John is sitting in his retreat, his caravan. 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.040 He has a big mug of tea in his hand, 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:14.720 his laptop balanced on a low table. John tells stories 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:19.640 inside stories. Most start with an investigation he's chasing, or 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.960 his beloved Liverpool football club, and they all take the 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.640 long way round, but they usually start or end with 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:31.520 a fight for justice. He knows my story too, the 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.080 hell that played out in my life in a city 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.440 in central Italy in two thousand. 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.960 And nine, by the way, weirdly fast in Peruja, I 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:42.480 heard I heard this. 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.720 As we talk about Italy and his friends there, John 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.400 suddenly leaps up as his neighbor shouts his dog is 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:50.000 on the loose. 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.320 Do oh shit, lo is he gone? 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.040 Then a minute later he appears at the door with 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:57.160 his sheepish dog. 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.760 Sorry, my dog run away, and. 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.600 The conversation picks up exactly where it left off. This 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:09.800 is John unstoppable, always chasing something, be that a dog 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.880 or a story. 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:14.400 On the day of let. 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.080 Be's conviction, he tweeted out a link to a blog 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.600 post whose author we'll hear from later in this episode, 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.360 and he wrote, this piece by a statistician sets out 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:26.920 the evidence that Lucy let Be may well be the 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.360 victim of a miscarriage of justice, that the Crown has 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.560 taken a cluster of accidental or natural deaths and pointed 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.480 the finger at let Be. There is no compelling evidence 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.920 of a single murder. The law sometimes gets it wrong. 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:45.840 And I got a ton of abuse. 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.960 From that tweet, and so serve my literary agent, my 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.600 book agent, Humphrey is a good bloke. So take that 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.480 tweet down. You're getting slaughtered. You'll lose your stunning in 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.840 the public. And I'm a war reporter. Kind of use 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.800 for people shooting at me and being nasty to me. 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:05.919 It's it's kind of what I do for a living. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.240 But it did not feel good being abused, and people 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:11.680 were saying, how dare you? 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.080 You're disgusting? What about the children? 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:21.800 John's tweet set off a firestorm. He was accused of cruelty, 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.919 of disrespecting the victim's families, and worse, because at the 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.880 heart of the story are unimaginable losses, brand new lives 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:36.920 gone too soon, and parents living with pain that words 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:38.120 can't hold. 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.080 When a story touches. 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:46.040 That kind of grief, questioning it becomes taboo. Even asking 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:51.560 what if can sound like heresy, and so anyone who 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.680 raised doubts about the verdicts was branded a conspiracy theorist. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.280 John delete, I'll follow you, but this is ridiculous and 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:00.800 a gross judgment. 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:01.359 To post today. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.320 Imagine if the bereaf families read this, They've sat through 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.399 harrowing evidence of how their child died and came. 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.960 Face to face with the person guilty of their murders. 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.560 There I like you love the stuff you did from Ukraine, 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.879 But my god, what an insensitive bastard posting this on 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:18.760 the day of the burger. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:24.720 But John was no stranger to medical murder cases gone wrong. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.359 In the early odds, he'd been one of just a 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.320 handful of reporters doggedly pursuing answers in the case of 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.280 Sally Clark, a mother convicted of murdering two of her sons. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.040 The case against Sally Clark was held together by a 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:46.280 deeply flawed statistical argument, which was picked apart after her conviction. 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.600 When the evidence for one son's murder fell apart, the 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:57.000 evidence for the other one did too. John's reporting helped 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:01.520 to eventually overturn Sally's conviction. She was freed, and her 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:06.360 exonerations set off a public reckoning that saw the wrongful 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:12.600 convictions of other mothers overturned as well. In the summer 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.680 of twenty twenty three, for John and others, the Lucy 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:22.520 let Be case felt an awful lot. Like Sally Clark's, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:32.359 doubt has a way of spreading. Doctor Phil Hammond initially 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:37.080 accepted the verdicts, but he would soon shift position after 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:40.320 he received a letter from a neo natologist who'd been 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.320 lined up to give evidence for Lucy let Bey's defense team. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.200 For reasons that are still unclear, the expert was never 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:49.760 called to speak in court. 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:55.400 Professor Michael Hall, who was the most senior neonatology expert 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.240 in the whole trial, far more so than the prosecution experts. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.040 He'd retired intoenty eighteen, whereas one prosecution expert had stopped 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.439 seeing baby and retired in two thousand and nine, another 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:07.159 had stopped being a top level in the anatologies in 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.240 two thousand and eight. So he was the most expert person. 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:12.880 And he wrote to private that great length, and he said, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.240 I read your piece. I think you're wrong. I think 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.119 at the very least she had an unfair trial. I 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:20.720 sat through the entire trial. I read all the net records. 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.040 I prepared reports on most of the babies. I think 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.280 they were sicker than the prosecution portrayed. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.160 The letter was enough to start to change Phil's perspective. 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:34.200 On the case. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:43.600 Quietly privately, over the coming months, he began to dig deeper. 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.160 In the weeks that followed the verdicts, only one newspaper 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.359 ran a piece countering the established narrative the jury's verdict. 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.360 Veteran British journalist Peter Hutchins wrote in his opinion column 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.280 in the Mail On Sunday newspaper, I wish somebody else 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.600 would ask this, what if Lucy let Be is not guilty, 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:22.879 and he added, horror can make us blind to doubt. 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.560 When Lucy let Be was convicted, a single version of 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.879 events took hold, the one the public saw on front 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.200 pages and breaking news banners. 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:34.920 But outside that. 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:42.080 Spotlight, another story was forming, as yet untold, quietly hesitantly 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.760 among journalists, scientists, and people who felt something didn't add up. 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:53.879 You could call it a split narrative, one dominant and loud, 0:21:54.800 --> 0:22:00.359 one almost whispered. While the country absorbed the story of 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.680 the nurse turned monster, a handful of journalists were already 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.760 beginning to look again, to ask if the story everyone 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:14.119 thought they knew might not be the whole story. 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:19.600 We had a month after the trial where there was 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:25.720 really extensive reporting about the convictions, and the headlines were 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.720 very much Britain's worst child serial killer in modern history. 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.040 One headline proof there is the devil among us. 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.800 Annook Curry is an investigative journalist and documentary maker who 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.520 started examining the case towards the end of the trial. 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:48.120 There was a very very powerful narrative off the back 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.840 of the convictions, which is understandable in many ways. I 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.440 don't think we can underestimate the impact that the media 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.560 coverage in the immediate aftermath of the convictions had But 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:03.440 what are I noticed happened was that two of the 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:10.800 consultants who had been instrumental in Lucy let be being 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:14.520 investigated in the first place. They were vocal. One of 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:19.159 them spoke at length to ITV News, another to BBC Panorama, 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:25.520 and they gave their narratives. So the general public believed 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:29.879 that doctors had been screaming and shouting about this nurse 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:33.200 and believed that she had been harming babies, when in 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:37.320 natural fact, the reality when you look at the documentation 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:41.680 is much more nuanced, and that was definitely a narrative 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:46.679 that somehow or other became quite cemented in people's minds. 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:53.119 The pediatricians who worked on the neonatal unit with Lucy 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.560 ledbe since her convictions had emerged as the heroes of 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.879 this tragedy. The media reported that they had put everything 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.000 on the line to stop her, they said, but were 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:06.800 thwarted every. 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:07.359 Step of the way. 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:11.040 You can hear the toll this took on one of 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.600 the doctors, doctor Robb Jayram, in an interview he gave 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:16.760 to ITV News in twenty twenty three. 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:20.840 The families and the police have both said to us 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:23.840 that they consider you to be a hero. Do you 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:26.600 think the enormity of the part you played in all 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:35.040 of this has sunk Kenya. 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:39.480 I'm not here, I pull. 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:41.840 I was just doing my job. 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:46.520 Just over a month after this interview from September twenty 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:52.800 twenty three, everything went silent. The police and Crown Prosecution 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:57.360 Service or CPS as it's known in the UK, decided 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:01.119 to retry Lucy Ledby for one count of attempted murder 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:03.639 that the jury had failed to reach a decision on 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:07.320 in the first trial, and in the UK, if a 0:25:07.359 --> 0:25:12.720 trial is pending, all reporting is banned. The idea is 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:16.000 to prevent anything being published that might prejudice the case. 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:20.280 But given that a narrative of guilt had already firmly 0:25:20.359 --> 0:25:24.760 taken hold, the press blackout served to silence the emerging 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:28.760 voices of investigative journalists who were concerned about the safety 0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:30.080 of Letb's convictions. 0:25:34.280 --> 0:25:38.040 Then you have a long pause where nothing can be challenged. 0:25:38.320 --> 0:25:40.320 And I think that was really unusual, and that was 0:25:40.400 --> 0:25:44.240 because of the reporting restrictions that were in place. Because 0:25:44.920 --> 0:25:49.760 the Ground Prosecution Service decided that they would retry Lucy 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:52.960 let Be on one count it meant that there was 0:25:53.000 --> 0:25:56.479 one narrative been put out there after the trial, and 0:25:56.520 --> 0:25:59.120 then there was avoid. 0:26:00.800 --> 0:26:03.840 Anook and others had started to connect with experts in 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:07.240 the fields of science and medicine who were using social 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:11.480 media to raise concerns about the safety of convictions. Unable 0:26:11.520 --> 0:26:15.119 to report, they continued to work on the case quietly 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:16.680 behind the scenes. 0:26:16.960 --> 0:26:21.480 What people would do was to engage with journalists that 0:26:21.520 --> 0:26:24.720 they trusted and talk to them and that's what went on. 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:25.800 And it wasn't just me. 0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:28.920 There were other people like Felicity Lawrence at The Guardian 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:33.080 and later Sarah Napton at the Daily Telegraph, John Sweeney 0:26:33.760 --> 0:26:36.760