Lucy Letby was a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital in the north west of England. In August 2023 a jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted her of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others in the hospital's neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. A second jury convicted her in July 2024 of the attempted murder of another baby girl. She was 33 when she was first sentenced, and she is serving 15 whole life orders, which mean she will never be released.
She has always denied harming any baby. The Court of Appeal refused her permission to appeal in May 2024 and again in October 2024. Since then a group of doctors and scientists working with her new legal team has disputed the medical evidence on which she was convicted, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, confirmed in February 2026 that a review of her convictions is under way. Separately, a statutory public inquiry led by Lady Justice Thirlwall examined how the hospital responded to the deaths and collapses, and published its report on September 15, 2026. The inquiry did not reexamine the convictions.
Under court orders made between 2021 and 2023, the babies, their surviving brothers and sisters, the parents of the babies who died, and some medical and nursing staff may not be identified. The children are known only by letter, as they were in court.
Letby grew up in Hereford, a cathedral city near the Welsh border. LBC reported after her conviction that childhood friends described a quiet, studious girl who had wanted to be a nurse from an early age. She studied at the University of Chester, graduating in 2011, and trained as a children's nurse. Part of her training was spent on placements at Liverpool Women's Hospital; the Press Association has reported placements there in 2012 and 2015.
She worked on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital from January 2012, according to the Press Association. The trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, said in his sentencing remarks that she started as a Band 5 nurse in 2012, became a mentor to student nurses, and in the spring of 2015 qualified to care for the sickest babies in intensive care. He described her as intelligent and outwardly conscientious, confident and professional, a nurse colleagues spoke highly of and several counted as close friends. LBC reported that about two years after she started she helped with an appeal that raised 3 million pounds for the unit, and quoted a 2013 Chester Standard interview in which she said her role involved caring for a wide range of babies who needed various levels of support. She had a clean record with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
The unit had four nurseries. Nursery 1 was intensive care, Nursery 2 high dependency, and Nurseries 3 and 4 special care, according to the Court of Appeal. Between June 2015 and June 2016 the number of deaths and sudden collapses on the unit rose sharply. LBC reported that the hospital recorded 15 baby deaths and 17 life-threatening incidents in the 12 months to June 2016, and that in 2016 it stopped accepting babies born before 32 weeks, partly because of the high mortality rate.
The courts set out the case baby by baby. The Court of Appeal and the sentencing remarks record what the juries found, and the counts on which she was cleared or no verdict was reached. Every finding is disputed by her current legal team.
Child A was a twin boy. He died on June 8, 2015, about a day after he was born. The jury found that Letby murdered him by injecting air into his bloodstream. His twin sister, Child B, collapsed early on June 9 or June 10, 2015, and was resuscitated; the jury convicted Letby of her attempted murder by the same method.
Child C, a boy, died on June 14, 2015. The prosecution said air had been forced down his nasogastric tube, and the jury convicted Letby of his murder. Child D, a girl, was born on June 20, 2015 and died early on June 22 after three collapses. The jury convicted Letby of murdering her by injecting air.
Child E and Child F were twin boys born on July 29, 2015. Child E died at 1:40 a.m. on August 4, 2015. The jury found that Letby murdered him; the prosecution case was that he had bled and that air had been injected. Because his doctors believed at the time that he had died of a bowel condition, no post-mortem examination was carried out, the judge said. His brother, Child F, collapsed on August 5, 2015. The prosecution said insulin had been added to his intravenous feed, and the jury convicted Letby of his attempted murder. At trial the defense accepted that Child F, and later Child L, had been poisoned with insulin, but Letby denied that she was the person responsible.
Child G, a girl, collapsed on September 7 and September 21, 2015. The jury convicted Letby of two counts of attempting to murder her by overfeeding her with milk and air, and found her not guilty on a third count concerning Child G.
Child H, a girl, was the subject of two counts of attempted murder. The jury found Letby not guilty on one and could not agree on the other.
Child I, a girl, was born on August 7, 2015. She collapsed on September 30 and on October 13, 14 and 22, 2015, and died at 2:10 a.m. on October 23, 2015. The jury convicted Letby of her murder; the prosecution case was that air had been pushed into her stomach and injected into her bloodstream.
Child J was the subject of one count of attempted murder, on which the jury could not agree. Child K, a baby girl, was the subject of another count on which the first jury could not agree.
Child L and Child M were twin boys; Child M was born on April 8, 2016. The jury found that Letby attempted to murder Child L by insulin poisoning between April 9 and April 11, 2016, and attempted to murder Child M by injecting air on April 9, 2016.
Child N, a boy, was the subject of three counts. The jury convicted Letby of attempting to murder him on June 3, 2016, by causing trauma to his throat, and could not agree on the other two counts.
Child O and Child P were brothers, two of a set of triplets. Child O was born on June 21, 2016 and died at 5:47 p.m. on June 23, 2016. The jury found that Letby murdered him; the prosecution case was that he had been injected with air and his liver injured. Child P, the first-born of the triplets, died the next day, June 24, 2016. The jury convicted her of his murder; the prosecution said air had been pushed down his feeding tube. The third triplet survived and is protected by the court's order as a sibling.
Child Q was the subject of one count of attempted murder, on which the jury could not agree.
The families' victim personal statements were read to the court at sentencing. Their names cannot be published.
The Court of Appeal summarized how suspicion arose. In 2015 two consultant pediatricians, Dr. Stephen Brearey and Dr. Ravi Jayaram, carried out an informal review of the deaths and collapses and identified Letby as the common factor. A further review followed in February 2016. Letby kept working on the unit until June 2016, when the senior consultants removed her from clinical duties. LBC reported that she was then given clerical work, which she did until 2018.
The Thirlwall Inquiry later found that senior nurses "never accepted" that the consultants' concerns were, or might be, justified. The consultants who had raised concerns were themselves investigated during a grievance that Letby brought, and three of them were told to apologize to her. Plans were drawn up to return her to the neonatal unit and later abandoned. The hospital's leadership commissioned a series of reviews, including one by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which did not address whether babies were being deliberately harmed; the college accepted at the inquiry that its review could not answer the doctors' concerns and should never have been undertaken.
Senior doctors first contacted Cheshire Police in April 2017. Meetings on April 27 and May 15, 2017 led to the police investigation, according to the Court of Appeal; CBS News, with the Associated Press, reported that the investigation opened in May 2017. The parents, the inquiry found, learned only in 2018 that a nurse's actions might have caused the collapses and deaths.
Before the police were called, an inquest into Child A's death was held in October 2016. It returned a narrative conclusion: the cause of his collapse and death could not be determined, nor whether it was natural or unnatural. The Press Association has reported that the consultants' concerns about Letby, which had by then led to her removal from clinical duties, were not mentioned at that inquest.
Letby was arrested on July 3, 2018 and released on bail three days later, LBC reported. Police searched her home in Chester that day; the Court of Appeal records that a handwritten note recovered on July 3, 2018 ended with the words "I am evil, I did this." She was arrested again in June 2019 and a third time in November 2020, when she was charged and refused bail.
The charges in November 2020 were eight counts of murder and ten of attempted murder, involving 17 babies, as recorded by Mrs Justice Steyn in a ruling on reporting restrictions at Chester Crown Court on December 21, 2020. One child was named in both a murder count and an attempted murder count. In that ruling the judge kept orders protecting the identities of the nine living children until they turn 18, together with their parents, and protecting for life the parents who were to give evidence. LBC reported that one murder count was dropped before trial. By the time the trial began, the indictment had 22 counts concerning 17 babies: seven of murder and fifteen of attempted murder.
The prosecution's medical case was led by Dr. Dewi Evans, a retired consultant pediatrician. The Court of Appeal recorded that he had reviewed some 60 cases for the police, and that it was during that review that he identified the two insulin poisonings. Another pediatrician, Dr. Bohin, peer reviewed his work, and Professor Arthurs gave radiology evidence.
The trial began on October 4, 2022, at Manchester Crown Court before Mr Justice Goss and a jury, according to the Court of Appeal. Nicholas Johnson KC led the prosecution; Benjamin Myers KC represented Letby.
The prosecution case was circumstantial. It relied on expert evidence that the babies had been deliberately harmed, on the timing of the collapses, on staffing and door-swipe records that the prosecution said showed Letby was the only person present at every deterioration and death, and on material found in her home. CBS News reported that prosecutors called her a "constant malevolent presence" on the unit. The prosecutor Pascale Jones said that in her hands "innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids, or medication like insulin would become lethal."
Police had found more than 200 confidential nursing handover sheets in her home, which the prosecution described as "trophies." Letby said she had taken them home by accident, and that only 21 related to babies named in the indictment. The prosecution also relied on her Facebook searches for the families of babies after collapses and deaths; she said these were among hundreds of searches she made.
Then there were the notes. A Post-it note shown in court read, in part, "I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them," CBS News reported. Another sheet of writing included the words "I am evil I did this" and, according to the sentencing remarks, the phrase "the world is better off without me." The prosecution called the writing "literally a confession." Myers said it reflected a young woman who had lost confidence in herself. "That is a note to herself," he told the jury.
The defense argued that there was not enough evidence that Letby had done anything at all. Myers described her as a "hard-working, dedicated and caring" nurse and said the collapses and deaths could have had natural causes, or been the result of staffing shortages or failures of care by others. He suggested that four senior doctors had blamed her to cover failings on the unit.
Letby gave evidence for 14 days and denied every charge. "I only ever did my best to care for them," she said, and "I am there to care not to harm." She told the jury that the unit had problems with raw sewage coming up through some sinks. On June 14, 2023, the defense called Lorenzo Mansutti, a hospital estates plumber, who described foul water coming up a wash basin in Nursery 1 in 2015 or 2016 and said that across the building such problems came up "maybe weekly." Under cross-examination by Johnson he agreed that many problems were caused by adults putting things down sinks and that the Nursery 1 incident had not been repeated. The defense closed its case that day.
The jury began deliberating on July 10, 2023, LBC reported. One juror was later excused, and the judge allowed the remaining 11 to return verdicts on which ten agreed, CBS News reported.
The verdicts were returned between August 8 and August 16, 2023, and the jury was discharged on August 18 after failing to agree on the remaining counts, according to the Court of Appeal. The jury found Letby guilty of the murders of Child A, C, D, E, I, O and P, and of seven counts of attempted murder concerning Child B, F, G (two counts), L, M and N. It found her not guilty of one count concerning Child G and one concerning Child H. It could not reach verdicts on six counts: one concerning Child H, one concerning Child J, one concerning Child K, two concerning Child N, and one concerning Child Q.
On August 21, 2023, Letby refused to come to court for sentencing, and Mr Justice Goss sentenced her in her absence. He directed that she be given a transcript and copies of the families' statements. He found that she had acted with "premeditation, calculation and cunning," choosing moments when other staff were away and, on some occasions, falsifying records to suggest babies had deteriorated before they collapsed. He found that she had kept handover sheets and other papers as "morbid records," and that she showed a "detached enthusiasm" for resuscitations. He described the offenses as "a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder" and said there was "a deep malevolence bordering on sadism" in what she did. "You have shown no remorse," he said. "There are no mitigating factors."
He imposed life imprisonment with a whole life order on each of the 14 counts.
On December 12, 2023, an independent panel of the Nursing and Midwifery Council ordered that she be struck off the nursing register, with effect in January 2024 if she did not appeal.
Letby applied for permission to appeal against the August 2023 convictions. A single judge, Sir Robin Spencer, refused leave, and she renewed the application before the full Court of Appeal: Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the King's Bench Division, Lord Justice Holroyde and Mrs Justice Lambert. The court heard argument on April 22, 23 and 25, 2024, and announced on May 24, 2024 that every application was refused. Its written reasons were handed down on July 2, 2024, after the retrial had ended, as Lucy Letby v R [2024] EWCA Crim 748.
The main grounds were these. First, that the trial judge should have excluded Dr. Evans's evidence. The court held that Evans "unarguably" had the expertise required, that his role in the investigation did not disqualify him, and that the defense complaints went to the weight of his evidence, which was a matter for the jury. Second, that there was no case to answer on the counts that depended on air embolus, because no expert had enough clinical experience of it and the research base was too thin. The court held that air embolus is not a "bogus" theory, that the experts had not diagnosed it from skin discoloration alone but from a combination of findings and the exclusion of other causes, and that the defense had identified no realistic alternative. Third, a challenge to the judge's direction that the jury did not need to be sure of the precise harmful act in each count. A fourth ground, about how long insulin persists, was withdrawn, and a fifth, about a complaint concerning the jury, was refused.
The defense also asked the court to admit fresh evidence from Dr. Shoo Lee, a Canadian neonatologist who in 1989 co-wrote, with a colleague named Tanswell, the paper on air embolism in newborns that was cited at trial. That paper described about 50 known cases and reported skin discoloration in about 11 percent of them. Dr. Lee's reports were offered to show that Evans and Bohin had relied on discoloration outside the paper's description. The court refused to admit the evidence.
The court said the judge had handled the trial "with exemplary skill and patience" and described his rulings as "thoughtful, fair, comprehensive and correct."
The prosecution announced on September 25, 2023 that it would seek a retrial on one of the counts on which the jury had failed to agree: the attempted murder of Child K, a baby girl. It did not seek a retrial on the others. The retrial began on June 10, 2024, before Mr Justice Goss and a new jury.
The prosecution case was that Letby had deliberately dislodged the baby's breathing tube. It rested on the evidence of Dr. Ravi Jayaram, the consultant who said Letby had deliberately dislodged the tube, and not on expert evidence to prove the unlawful act. His account was strongly challenged by the defense. The jury knew of her earlier convictions, with directions limiting how it could use them. On July 2, 2024, it convicted her. On July 5 she was given a further whole life order, her 15th.
Court staff confirmed in September 2024 that she was seeking to appeal against that conviction, the Express and Star reported. Her application raised a single ground: that the retrial should have been stopped as an abuse of process because of publicity and post-verdict comments by police and prosecutors. A court of Lord Justice William Davis, Lord Justice Jeremy Baker and Mrs Justice McGowan refused leave on October 24, 2024, in R v Lucy Letby [2024] EWCA Crim 1278. It found that most of the publicity came in the week after the August 2023 verdicts and had faded, that the comments by police and the CPS were not made in bad faith, and that "it would not be unfair to try Lucy Letby for the single offence of attempted murder." The court said it would not analyze the expert evidence, which was not in issue.
During the retrial, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court that some door-swipe data used at the first trial, which recorded staff going in and out of the intensive care nursery, had been "mislabelled." The CPS said accurate data had been presented at the retrial and that it was "confident that this issue did not have a meaningful impact on the prosecution, which included multiple strands of evidence," Scottish Legal News reported in August 2024. The Conservative MP David Davis wrote to the chief crown prosecutor for Mersey-Cheshire asking how the error bore on the case.
After the retrial a new barrister, Mark McDonald, took up Letby's case. In December 2024 he said that Dr. Evans had changed his opinion on how three of the babies died, Child C, Child I and Child P, whom the jury had found were killed by air pushed down a nasogastric tube. McDonald said the cause of death before the Court of Appeal was "different now, according to Dr. Evans," and argued that Evans was "not a reliable expert," the Associated Press reported. Evans rejected that. He called McDonald's observations "unsubstantiated, unfounded, inaccurate," said the evidence on Child I was "compelling and overwhelming" and on Child P "consistent and considerable," and said he had sent a detailed report on Child C to Cheshire Police clarifying the timing and cause of death, the Press Association reported. He said any appeal belonged in court and offered to give evidence on oath. The CPS said at the time that "two juries and three appeal court judges have reviewed a multitude of different strands of evidence."
On February 4, 2025, at a news conference in London chaired by David Davis, Dr. Shoo Lee presented the findings of a panel of 14 neonatologists and pediatricians from several countries who had reviewed the medical records of the 17 babies. "In summary, then, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders," Lee said, according to the Associated Press. The panel attributed the deaths and collapses to natural causes or poor medical care, and criticized staffing, skills in resuscitation and intubation, misdiagnosis and slow treatment on the unit. Lee said the prosecution had misread his 1989 paper and that the skin discoloration described at trial was not consistent with air embolism. McDonald said the medical evidence had been "demolished." The CPS did not comment on the panel's conclusions; it had said before that two juries and three appeal judges had rejected the arguments that the expert evidence was flawed. Evans repeated that the concerns about his evidence were unfounded.
A separate report, about 100 pages long, by the engineering expert Helen Shannon and the bioengineering professor Geoff Chase, questioned the convictions for poisoning Child F and Child L with insulin and concluded it was "very unlikely" that the babies had been poisoned, ITV News reported. In September 2026, the day before the Thirlwall report was published, ITV reported that Shannon and Chase had withdrawn from the defense team. In a letter to the CCRC they said some arguments now being put forward on Letby's behalf were not scientifically credible and had "fundamental unresolvable problems," and that these arguments were "placing the long-term interests of Ms Letby at serious, unnecessary and unacceptable risk." They stood by their own insulin report. McDonald said he "fundamentally" disagreed that the case had been undermined. "They don't know what I put into the CCRC because I haven't told them," he said, adding that both sets of experts say Letby is innocent.
The dispute has also drawn political attention. The former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for an urgent reexamination of the case and asked the CCRC to review it quickly, CNN reported in July 2025. A Netflix documentary, The Investigation of Lucy Letby, was released worldwide on February 4, 2026. Its trailer included police footage of one of her arrests, filmed at her parents' home in Hereford; ITV reported that her parents called the use of the footage a "complete invasion of privacy."
None of these claims has been tested in court. The convictions stand.
Her lawyers applied in early 2025 to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which can refer a conviction back to the Court of Appeal when new evidence or argument means it may not be upheld. On February 13, 2026, the commission's chair issued a statement setting out the timeline. It received a preliminary application on February 3, 2025, asked for a waiver of legal privilege to see the defense files on February 13, 2025, received expert reports in March and April 2025 and the main submissions on May 2, 2025, and continued to receive further reports and submissions through August and October 2025. It received the privilege waiver and defense material on December 11, 2025, and further submissions and expert reports on January 21, 2026.
"A review of Ms Letby's convictions is underway," the statement said. "It is not for the CCRC to determine innocence or guilt in a case; that's a matter for the courts." It added: "We do not make decisions on the basis of external pressure from anyone." The commission had announced no decision on whether to refer the case by October 21, 2026.
Cheshire Police continued to investigate after the trials. Detectives reviewed the care of about 4,000 babies admitted while Letby worked at the Countess of Chester, from January 2012 to June 2016, and during her placements at Liverpool Women's Hospital, and she was interviewed under caution in prison, the Press Association and ITV reported. In July 2025 the force sent files to the CPS.
On January 20, 2026, the CPS announced that it would bring no further charges. Frank Ferguson, head of its Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said prosecutors had considered murder and attempted murder in respect of two babies who died and seven who survived, at the Countess of Chester and at Liverpool Women's Hospital, and "concluded that the evidential test was not met in any of those cases," Nursing in Practice reported. Cheshire Police said it was "not the outcome that we had anticipated" and that it had believed the evidence met the charging standard, but must respect the decision. The force said the decision did not affect her existing convictions.
Families of six of the babies asked for the decision to be reviewed under the Victims' Right to Review scheme. On August 5, 2026, the CPS said a prosecutor independent of the original decision had reconsidered six offenses of attempted murder concerning six babies and upheld the decision not to charge. The CPS described this as its final decision.
A separate investigation, Operation Duet, concerns possible corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter at the hospital. On June 30, 2025, three people who were on the hospital's senior leadership team in 2015 and 2016 were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, questioned and released on bail, CNN reported; police did not name them. Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes said the arrests did not affect Letby's convictions. In April 2026 Healthcare Management reported a further arrest connected with Operation Duet, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, with the person bailed pending further inquiries. No charge in that investigation had been reported as of October 2026.
The government commissioned the inquiry in September 2023, after the first verdicts, and it was chaired by Lady Justice Thirlwall. Its hearings opened in September 2024 at Liverpool Town Hall, heard from 133 witnesses and read almost 400 statements, ITV reported, and closing statements were heard in March 2025. On March 19, 2025, the chair refused an application by four former senior managers of the hospital to pause the inquiry. The report was delayed several times before its publication date of September 15, 2026 was announced. The inquiry took the convictions as its starting point. "The convictions stand," Lady Justice Thirlwall said, noting that the Court of Appeal had already reviewed them.
The report was published in Liverpool on September 15, 2026, in a summary, a set of recommendations and three volumes (House of Commons paper HC 601). "There was a complete failure to protect babies on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital," Lady Justice Thirlwall said. She described "dysfunctional management and governance; a gulf between hospital leadership and clinicians; and failure to understand the fundamentals of safeguarding." The report found that the hospital's safeguarding policy did not consider the possibility of deliberate harm by a member of staff, that senior managers delayed for a long time in calling the police, and that parents were kept in the dark for years, their babies' records shared with outside experts without their consent. It called the treatment of parents "reprehensible." It found that some babies would have been saved, and some attacks prevented, had action been taken earlier, and ITV reported her finding that the attacks on Child A, B, C and D "would probably have been detected" had video monitors been in place.
The inquiry's own release says the report contains 17 recommendations. According to the inquiry and ITV, they include livestreaming video monitors in all cots and incubators in neonatal units, CCTV directed at insulin storage until access is controlled biometrically, board-level monitoring of every child and baby death by March 31, 2027, a single NHS protocol for suspected deliberate harm by staff, and safeguarding training for all staff including board members.
In the House of Commons the same day, the Health and Social Care Secretary, Yvette Cooper, apologized on behalf of the government and the health service. "I am profoundly sorry for the failures set out so clearly in this report," she said. She said the inquiry had not examined the convictions, the legal process or the court evidence, and did not cut across the CCRC's work. She announced plans for cot cameras, said the government would extend the barring scheme to senior NHS managers "as soon as Parliamentary time allows," and said a full response would follow.
The Cheshire coroner opened inquests into the deaths of five of the babies, Child C, E, I, O and P, on February 4, 2026, and suspended them pending the inquiry's report; an inquest into Child D's death had been opened and suspended earlier. In May 2026 the coroner continued the suspension of all six and provisionally relisted them to begin on May 10, 2027, with a further review in November 2026, the Press Association reported. Letby has been granted interested party status at the inquests. The family of Child A did not want his inquest reopened.
Letby is serving 15 whole life orders. The Press Association reported in February 2026 that she was held at HMP Bronzefield, and news reports on September 15, 2026 said she was serving her sentences. She maintains her innocence. As of October 21, 2026, the Court of Appeal has twice refused her leave to appeal, a CCRC review of her convictions is under way with no decision announced, the CPS has decided not to bring further charges against her, and the six inquests are listed for May 2027.
Proven by jury verdict, with leave to appeal refused: the murders of Child A, C, D, E, I, O and P, and the attempted murders of Child B, F, G (two counts), K, L, M and N.
Not proven: the attempted murder counts concerning Child G (one count) and Child H (one count), on which she was found not guilty; the counts concerning Child H, J, N (two counts) and Q, on which the first jury could not agree and which were not retried; and the further allegations concerning nine babies at the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women's Hospital, which the CPS decided in January 2026 not to charge. None of these may be described as offenses she committed.
Disputed: the medical basis of the convictions. The prosecution experts, led by Dr. Dewi Evans, and the two juries and the Court of Appeal accepted that the babies were deliberately harmed. The panel led by Dr. Shoo Lee, and the defense team led by Mark McDonald, say the evidence shows natural causes and poor care, and that air embolus was wrongly diagnosed. Evans denies that his changed account of the cause of death in three cases undermines the convictions. Two experts who questioned the insulin convictions later withdrew from the defense team over other arguments it was making. These issues are now before the CCRC.
Corrected record: the door-swipe data mislabeled at the first trial, which the CPS says did not meaningfully affect the prosecution.
2011: Letby graduates from the University of Chester.
January 2012: begins work on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Spring 2015: qualifies to care for babies in intensive care.
June 8, 2015: Child A dies.
June 9 or 10, 2015: Child B collapses and survives.
June 14, 2015: Child C dies.
June 22, 2015: Child D dies.
August 4, 2015: Child E dies; Child F collapses on August 5.
September 7 and 21, 2015: Child G collapses.
October 23, 2015: Child I dies.
2015: Dr. Brearey and Dr. Jayaram review the deaths informally.
February 2016: a further review.
April 9 to 11, 2016: Child L and Child M collapse.
June 3, 2016: Child N collapses.
June 23 and 24, 2016: Child O and Child P die.
June 2016: Letby is removed from clinical duties.
October 2016: inquest into Child A returns a narrative conclusion.
April 2017: senior doctors contact Cheshire Police; meetings on April 27 and May 15.
July 3, 2018: first arrest; her home is searched.
June 2019: second arrest.
November 2020: third arrest; charged with 8 murders and 10 attempted murders; remanded in custody.
December 21, 2020: Mrs Justice Steyn's reporting restrictions ruling.
October 4, 2022: trial begins at Manchester Crown Court.
June 14, 2023: defense case closes.
July 10, 2023: jury retires.
August 8 to 18, 2023: verdicts; jury discharged on August 18.
August 21, 2023: 14 whole life orders, imposed in her absence.
September 2023: the government commissions the Thirlwall Inquiry.
September 25, 2023: retrial announced on the Child K count.
December 12, 2023: NMC panel orders her struck off.
April 22 to 25, 2024: Court of Appeal hearing.
May 24, 2024: leave to appeal refused.
June 10, 2024: retrial begins.
July 2, 2024: convicted of attempting to murder Child K; Court of Appeal reasons published.
July 5, 2024: 15th whole life order.
September 2024: Thirlwall Inquiry hearings open.
October 24, 2024: leave to appeal against the retrial conviction refused.
December 2024: McDonald says Dr. Evans changed his opinion on three deaths; Evans disputes it.
February 3, 2025: preliminary application to the CCRC.
February 4, 2025: Dr. Shoo Lee's panel presents its findings.
March 2025: inquiry closing statements; application to pause refused.
June 30, 2025: three former senior leaders arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
July 2025: Cheshire Police send files on further babies to the CPS.
January 20, 2026: CPS decides on no further charges.
February 4, 2026: inquests into five deaths opened and suspended; Netflix documentary released.
February 13, 2026: CCRC confirms a review is under way.
April 2026: further arrest in Operation Duet.
May 13, 2026: inquests relisted provisionally for May 10, 2027.
August 5, 2026: CPS review upholds the decision not to charge.
September 15, 2026: two insulin experts leave the defense team; Thirlwall report published; Commons statement by Yvette Cooper.
October 21, 2026: serving 15 whole life orders; CCRC review continuing; no referral announced.