Child serial killer Lucy Letby loses initial attempt to challenge convictions

Lucy Letby, the neonatal nurse who became Britain’s worst child serial killer, haslost an initial attempt to challenge her convictions at the court of appeal.

The 34-year-old lodged an application for permission to appeal against all of her convictions in September. A judge has since refused her application after considering the case documents, a judicial spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.

Letby, 34, of Hereford, was sentenced to 14 whole-life orders after she was convicted of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others, with two attempts on one of her victims.

She is the third woman alive to be handed a whole-life jail term in the UK.

The other two women serving whole-life terms are Rose West, who tortured and killed at least nine young women in the 1970s and 80s, and Joanna Dennehy, who murdered three men in what came to be known as the Peterborough ditch murders in 2013.

Letby’s offences took place at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

Typically, applications for permission to appeal against a crown court decision are considered by a judge looking at legal documents without a hearing. If this is refused, people have 14 days to renew their request for permission at a full court hearing before two or three judges.

Letby’s legal team have not revealed her grounds for appeal. To succeed, an appeal must identify errors of law, for example in how a judge sums up a case for a jury, or draw on substantial fresh evidence.

The jury in Letby’s trial at Manchester crown court was unable to reach verdicts on six counts of attempted murder in relation to five children.

Letby will face a retrial at the same court in June on a single count that she attempted to murder a baby girl, known as Child K, in February 2016.

A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of the surviving and dead children.