It is amazing how quickly the mood of public fury can evaporate.
The damning report into the Grenfell fire has understandably provoked widespread outrage. In the thirst for justice, there have been demands for manslaughter prosecutions to be mounted against those responsible for failing to protect the innocent. Yet it is amazing how quickly the mood of public fury can evaporate.
That is what appears to be happening in the grim saga of Lucy Letby, the former nurse who is now serving multiple whole life sentences for the killing of seven infants and the attempted murder of another seven at Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit. The depravity of her crimes was shocking, but now, much to the indignation of her victims’ families, a major campaign is underway to overturn her conviction or at least secure her a retrial.
Backed by a host of politicians and commentators, the cause has been gaining influence in the broadcast and online media.
On Wednesday, the Tory MP Sir David Davis went on the Good Morning Britain show to declare that Letby is “probably innocent”, claiming that the evidence against her is weak. It is a view shared by her swelling army of supporters, some of whom wear yellow butterfly badges to display their allegiance.
An increasingly popular narrative holds that Letby was made a scapegoat to cover up the failings of the hospital’s management and “chronic underfunding of the NHS by the Tories”, to quote the words of one campaigner. In certain quarters, she is presented not just as a victim of the state but as a heroic whistleblower whose bosses were out to silence her.
“She is a political prisoner who dared to challenge an NHS hospital from the inside,” said a deluded backer this week.
That kind of conspiratorial nonsense does not deserve a hearing. But the entire “Lucy is Innocent” brigade should also be treated with the most profound scepticism, for it is disdainful of morality, dismissive of the facts and dangerous to the justice system.
There is a tremendous arrogance about the Letby campaigners, who seem to think they have a superior wisdom to the pair of juries that sat through months of court proceedings. This case was no “rush to judgement”, as the Letby mob pretends, but amounted to one of the longest trials in British criminal history. The police investigation alone involved half-a-million medical documents and interviews with more than 2,000 people.
Nor is the evidence anything like as flimsy as critics maintain. The police had been brought in after the hospital became alarmed at a sudden spike in deaths at the unit from June 2015. In turn, detectives approached Dr Dewi Evans, one of the country’s leading neonatal experts, and he identified 25 incidents of lethally suspicious activity in the unit, many involving insulin poisoning or air injected into the bloodstream. An examination of the shift patterns revealed Letby has been on duty every single time. The subsequent claim that Dr Evans cherry-picked the data to help frame Letby is another absurdity, for he knew nothing about her when he began his analysis. Tellingly, the incidence of unusual deaths fell dramatically when she was removed from the unit. There was other incriminating evidence against her too, like the testimony of a consultant paediatrician who said in court that he witnessed Letby “doing nothing” as she stood beside an incubator while a baby’s condition deteriorated rapidly because of a dislodged breathing tube.
Letby pleaded not guilty to charges, but her private notebooks reveal her twisted mindset. “I killed them on purpose” and “I am evil. I did this,” read two chilling entries.
Such confessionals cannot be ignored. There have been serious miscarriages of justice in the past but the Letby case does not look like one. On the contrary, it represents a vindication of the traditional jury system, one of the bulwarks of British liberty.
***
For a party that recently endured its worst ever election result, the Tories were remarkably cheerful on their return to Westminster this week. The reason for their optimism is that Labour’s apparent ascendancy is built on sand. Despite Sir Keir’s huge Parliamentary majority, he won little more than 33 per cent of the vote. Given how badly his government is already performing, it’s not inconceivable that the Tories could return to power before the end of the decade.
But such an outcome is dependent on finding the right leader and creating a united political force with a sense of purpose. Over the last century, the Tories have had a poor record in leadership contests, often rejecting the best candidate on ideological grounds or a desire to remain in their comfort zone. So in 1922 they chose the bluff, indolent Stanley Baldwin over the more dynamic Lord Curzon. In the same vein, they should have had Rab Butler rather than Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, Michael Heseltine rather than John Major in 1990, Michael Portillo instead of Iain Duncan-Smith in 2001, and Rishi Sunak rather than Liz Truss in 2022. But at least in this autumn’s contest, front-runners, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch, seem to be the two most appealing candidates, particularly because they both have developed serious plans for tackling mass immigration, the greatest issue of our times.
In recent months Jenrick has proved to be a powerful communicator, while Badenoch brings a bracing clarity to her work. But whoever is elected must be allowed to take charge without all the intrigue, self-indulgence and treachery that has bedevilled the party in recent decades. The Conservatives should leave the fanaticism and feuds to Labour.
***
One of Britain’s most inspiring and influential politicians, Lord Owen, announced his retirement from Parliament this week. Brave, determined and patriotic, he fought heroically against Labour’s destructive hard-left in the 1970s and 1980s, first from inside the party, then through the SDP, the party he helped to create.
He was disliked by some for his ferocious ambition, but as a teenage student, I was so taken with his mission to reshape the British political landscape that I joined the SDP. More recently I happened to work with him during the campaign over Brexit – he was a principled Eurosceptic – and I found him exactly like his image: intimidating, charismatic, formidable and cogent. New Labour was often called the SDP Mark II but Owen would have made a far better Prime Minister than Tony Blair.
Lord Owen: intimidating, charismatic, formidable and cogent.
***
A new survey shows that pride in our country has slumped dramatically over the last decade. That is hardly a surprise, given the systematic campaign of denigration that the woke brigade has conducted against our heritage and our identity. Even so, nearly three-quarters of people are still proud of our sporting achievements. This week that patriotic feeling has been given another boost by the continuing brilliance of Dame Sarah Storey, who at the age of 46, won her 18th Paralympic gold in her ninth games.
Dame Sarah is already a legend, but across the Atlantic a new British tennis star has emerged in Jack Draper, who has stormed into the semi-finals of the US Open. The Union Jack will be flying even higher if he makes it to the final.
Dame Sarah Storey, at the age of 46, has won her 18th Paralympic gold in her ninth games
***
The superb interview conducted by my Express colleague Matt Nixson with best-selling author Robert Harris last Saturday made me desperate to read his latest novel, a fictionalised account of the passionate affair between the First World War Premier H.H. Asquith and his aristocratic lover Lady Venetia Stanley. Mind you, the truth about Lady Venetia may have been even more racy than in Harris’s version in Precipice, for there is also speculation that she may have the lesbian lover of Asquith’s daughter, Lady Violet.