PETER HITCHENS: I wish someone else would ask this: What if Lucy Letby is not guilty?

Horror can blind us to doubt. For years I angrily despised Chris Mullin’s campaign for the release of the Birmingham Six, Irishmen wrongly convicted of the 1974 IRA bombings in that city.

I was so infuriated by the despicable cruelty of the crime that I could not clearly see the weakness of the prosecution.

I apologize to Mr. Mullin and have learned from him that our justice system is not as good as we like to think.

So now I have to ask: what if Lucy Letby wasn’t guilty? In fact, I really wish someone else in the national media would bring this up. I have enough enemies as it is. But it looks like the responsibility falls on me. Would it be bearable if his belief was wrong? This young woman was sentenced to die in prison. Since her conviction, she has been the subject of very harsh public condemnation. She had to endure the (entirely justified and understandable) anger and grief of the parents of the babies she was convicted of murdering.

Letby injected air into children, gave them too much milk and assaulted them while they worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital (pictured)

From what I know about our prisons, you would be wrong to imagine that his endless days of detention will be a sort of “holiday camp”. Some people, whom I know well, believe that anyone convicted of such a crime should suffer beyond the capacity of a civilized justice system to punish them. Some welcome the possibility that the condemned could be persecuted by his fellow prisoners. I find this attitude distressing and contrary to Christian teaching, but it is common and those who wish it will have a good chance of winning their case.

Well, again, what if this happened and she wasn’t guilty? Today she was found guilty by a jury after a long and detailed trial, and I have no doubt that the jury had their reasons for making their decision. I’m not criticizing them. Either way, it was a big responsibility.

But ultimately, they made this decision almost entirely based on circumstances. I must confess that I was biased in his favor from the start, as I think many others were. How could this incredibly ordinary person, in a profession dedicated to human kindness, do such a terrible thing? What was his motivation? I have looked carefully at the purported confession note, but I think it can also be interpreted as a very distressed, alone and frightened woman describing her feelings after being accused by the police of unspeakable cruelty and being a evil human being.

I’m impressed that she testified in her own defense for several days – something lawyers generally don’t advise their clients to do if they suspect they are guilty. I am deeply impressed by the loyalty of a group of his close friends – including his former colleague Janet Cox – who continue to believe and speak out in his innocence. In these circumstances, it takes a lot of courage.

The immediate family of a person in this position has no choice but to be loyal. Friends, faced with a jury verdict like this, might be excused if they said, “Well, I wouldn’t have thought that of her, but…” These friends say she’s not guilty . Listen to them. Maybe they’re right. Now, I must tell you that a number of apparently expert voices have been raised among lawyers and scientists who fear that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. I’m not qualified to judge them, but if they are right, there are flaws in the prosecution of Lucy Letby, in the important claims made about the actions she is alleged to have taken. Questions also arise about the general condition of the unit in which she worked. An organization calling itself “Science on Trial” has produced an interesting analysis of the case that I find quite disturbing. Recently, Dr. David Livermore, a retired professor of medical microbiology, also expressed doubts. In an article published on the Daily Skeptic website, he said: “No one who cares about justice should be comfortable with this case. »

These voices are not alone. I cannot judge today whether the voices raised are those of eccentrics or geniuses ahead of their time. An experienced defense lawyer tells me that it is increasingly difficult for defendants in such cases to find expert witnesses to testify on their behalf – following the official exclusion a few years ago of one expert in particular who had until then often given such testimony.

And others urge me to take note of the very similar case of another pediatric nurse convicted of very similar crimes – Lucia de Berk.

In 2003, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Dutch courts for the alleged murder of her patients. His first appeal was rejected. Statistical analysis of her work schedules and seemingly damning quotes from her diary were used to condemn her. But after a six-year campaign, the medical knowledge on which she had been convicted was found to be seriously flawed and she was exonerated of all charges.

PETER HITCHENS: What if Lucy Letby wasn’t guilty? In fact, I really wish someone else in the national media would bring this up. I have enough enemies as it is. But it looks like it’s up to me

Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six others in the hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. She injected them with air, gave them too much of milk and attacked them. Pictured: The Countess of Chester Hospital

None of this means that Lucy Letby is innocent. But when the courts of this country come to re-examine this case, I think it would be helpful to justice if as many people as possible kept an open mind to the possibility that it might be. If she’s guilty, so much the better.

But if, in ten years, she finds herself in the TV spotlight in front of a courthouse, unrecognizable after years in prison, but finally free, I would rather be one of those who has kept such an open mind than one of those who have not done so. .

For me, King Charles’ visit to France was deeply shocking on two counts. His blatant partisanship in favor of green fanaticism, just about tolerable when he was heir to the throne, seems particularly inappropriate now that a major party in the state is finally beginning to understand that net zero emissions means national suicide.

There are millions of people who do not share his views, and he is their king too. He must respect them by keeping his political opinions to himself. And his ignorant repetition of the factually incorrect assertion that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked” (this appears to be the translation provided to the British media by the King’s Palace words in French) is becoming tiresome. The Foreign Office, which presumably supplied him with this line, knows it is ridiculous, as does anyone with any knowledge of the subject. I would have been interested to see what would have happened if he had told the French Parliament on Thursday that France’s disastrous war with Prussia in 1870 was “unprovoked.”

Mean old Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck knew (as modern statesmen do) that if you want a war, it’s far better to ask the other side to start it.

French President Emmanuel Macron (right) toasts with British King Charles III (left) during a state banquet at the Palace of Versailles, west of Paris, September 20, 2023.