The 'Misfits & Ghouls'

Summary

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DOUBT: The Case of Lucy Letby — Episode 6: “The Misfits & Ghouls”

Podcast: Amanda Knox Hosts | DOUBT: The Case of Lucy Letby
Host: Amanda Knox, narrated by Amy Robach
Episode Date: March 31, 2026

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Overview

This episode investigates the public and professional fallout after Lucy Letby’s conviction for killing and attempting to kill premature infants under her care as a neonatal nurse. While Letby received one of the harshest sentences in British legal history, the episode—hosted by Amanda Knox—explores how media, public opinion, and the UK’s almost sacred trust in the NHS (National Health Service) shaped both the trial and the reaction to a powerful investigative article by Rachel Aviv in The New Yorker. The episode examines how skepticism about Letby’s guilt was not only silenced but made taboo, and highlights the obstacles and risks facing those who dared to question the official narrative.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Verdict and Sentencing (02:37–07:42)

• Setting the Scene: Tense atmosphere in court as jury returns a series of verdicts in Lucy Letby’s extended trial.
  • “14 guilty verdicts all told. The rest, the jury either landed on not guilty or they were unable to decide.” — Amy Robach (03:56)
• Letby’s Absence: During later verdicts and sentencing, Letby abstains from attending court, citing illness.
• Sentencing: Justice James Goss delivers a historic sentence—multiple whole life orders with no possibility of release.
  • “This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children... you will spend the rest of your life in prison.” — Justice James Goss [actor reading] (07:00)

The Media Frenzy & Absence of Doubt (07:50–09:14)

• Media Justification: The story saturates UK news, equated with national obsessions like the O.J. Simpson trial in the US.
  • “It was a huge media phenomenon.” — Rachel Aviv (08:11)
• Lack of Skepticism: Absolute certainty in Letby’s guilt pervades reporting; skepticism is almost absent.

Critical Reporting & Rachel Aviv’s Investigation (09:09–10:26)

• Aviv’s Approach: Initial reluctance; reporting only continued because evidence and fact-checkers suggested possible innocence or at least doubt.
  • “If you start thinking she's guilty... then the whole story collapses.” —Rachel Aviv (09:37)
• Fact Checking: The rigorous process led one fact-checker to say, “Oh, my God, I think she might be innocent.” (10:26)

The Impact of "The New Yorker" Article (15:11–17:13)

• Shockwaves: Aviv’s article challenges entrenched narratives, opens the door to public doubt for the first time.
• Distinctiveness: Stood out due to depth (13,000 words), careful questioning, and boldness during a reporting blackout.
  • “It was just the first time that things were questioned really openly.” — Rachel Aviv (16:17)

Unexamined Evidence and Medical Consensus (16:40–19:54)

• Police & Doctors: Police relied heavily on doctors convinced of Letby’s guilt to interpret evidence, introducing bias.
• Expert Confusion: Many medical experts questioned the plausibility of key prosecution theories (e.g., air embolism, insulin evidence).
  • “There was just a general sense of this doesn't read on paper, at least as an intentional poisoning. And also the test that was used is just unreliable.” — Amanda Knox (17:22)
• Statistical Fallacies: Public and juries are prone to see sinister patterns in rare but random adverse events, referencing Nobel economist Daniel Kahneman (discussed 17:52).

Whistleblowers, Fear, and Taboo (18:59–21:07, 41:21–42:31)

• Suppressed Dissent: Experts questioned evidence privately but were afraid to speak out, fearing reputational destruction.
  • “Initially, people were really terrified that the fact that they had concerns might become public. They felt that it could destroy their careers because it was very taboo.” — Rachel Aviv (42:02)
• Doctors' Stake: Having become media heroes, the doctors who raised concerns found it “humiliating” to reconsider guilt.

The Role of NHS as Sacred Cow (22:06–30:55)

• National Symbolism: NHS portrayed not just as public service, but as part of British national identity (Olympic Opening Ceremony, 2012 referenced at 22:25–24:10).
• Defensiveness in Courtroom: Even defense wary of appearing to indict the NHS itself.

Media Blackout and Censorship (31:07–33:30)

• Reporting Restrictions: UK courts imposed blackout after announcement of retrial on ‘Baby K’ due to contempt risk.
  • “That was a really bold thing to do and heightened the impact in many ways because there was this element of people not being able to read it in the UK.” — Rachel Aviv (31:07)
• The New Yorker Circumvention: Article published in the U.S., passed around illicitly in the UK, increasing its mystique.

Political Fallout (33:34–34:21)

• Parliament Spotlight: The New Yorker article cited in British Parliament, sparking high-level debate about possible miscarriage of justice and media restrictions.
  • “Yesterday, The New Yorker magazine published a 13,000 word inquiry... which raised enormous concerns about both the logic and competence of the statistical evidence...” — Courtroom Narrator quoting David Davis MP (33:41)

Public Opinion vs. Rethinking the Narrative (36:10–40:31)

• Public Response Divergence: US readers horrified by the conviction, while UK readers, steeped in years of accusatory coverage, resist doubt.
• Human Element: Personal story of Polly, initially a believer in Letby’s guilt, gradually questioning the conviction after exposure to alternative reporting.
  • “I don't think I even questioned whether she was guilty or not... that was because of the media, I believe.” — Polly (37:46)
  • “It's theater, you know... There’s huge holes in the story that they were telling and what they had to back it up with.” — Polly (38:28)

Ostracization of Doubters (“Misfits & Ghouls”) (40:10–42:02)

• Media Ridicule: Letby supporters maligned as “misfits and ghouls” (title reference), conspiracy theorists, unreliable.
  • “I wrote in these pages soon afterwards about the strange band of misfits and ghouls convinced Letby is innocent and emboldened by conspiracy theorists.” — Actor reading opinion piece by Liz Hull (40:31)
• The Risk: Questioning the conviction meant risking both professional reputation and social ostracism.

Looking Forward: The Retrial of "Baby K" (43:21–44:24)

• Retrial Announced: Focus shifts to a new, highly scrutinized trial concerning the death of “Baby K.”
• Case Fragility: By Amanda Knox and others’ assessment, the evidence for this count is especially weak, setting the stage for a more contested second trial.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I shall deliver the sentencing remarks as if she was present to hear them and I direct that she is provided with a transcript of my remarks and copies of the victim personal statements read to the court.” — Justice James Goss [actor] (05:55)
• “It was everywhere. It was in the Daily Mail for sure, but it was also in the Guardian. There were, I think I counted more than 100 stories about the case in the Guardian... It was a huge media phenomenon.” — Rachel Aviv (08:11)
• “The police department was actually relying on the doctors who thought that Lucy Letby was the murderer as kind of translators to help them understand the medical evidence.” — Amanda Knox (16:49)
• “There was just a general sense of this doesn't read on paper, at least as an intentional poisoning.” — Amanda Knox (17:27)
• “Our predilection for casual thinking exposes us to serious mistakes in evaluating the randomness of truly random events.” — Quoting Daniel Kahneman, referenced by Amy Robach (17:52)
• “People who read it from America and from other countries outside of England kind of read it in a pretty consistent way. They were like, I’m so horrified. I cannot believe this woman was convicted of these crimes. People who read it in England, like, absolutely did not have that response.” — Amanda Knox (36:10)
• “I wholly believe it is a gross miscarriage of justice. I do not believe there were any murders or attacks. I believe those babies died due to poor care in a seriously failing hospital.” — Polly (36:54, 37:46 paraphrased)
• “I wrote in these pages soon afterwards about the strange band of misfits and ghouls convinced Letby is innocent and emboldened by conspiracy theorists.” — (Actor, quoting Liz Hull) (40:31)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Sentencing & Courtroom Dynamics: 02:37–07:42
• Media Coverage and Public Opinion: 07:50–09:14, 15:11–17:13
• Rachel Aviv’s Investigation & Fact Checking: 09:09–10:26, 16:00–17:52
• Critical Reporting, NHS as National Symbol: 22:06–30:55
• Reporting Restrictions and Media Blackout: 31:07–33:30
• Political Aftershocks—Parliament Debate: 33:34–34:21
• Polly’s Personal Account: 36:39–39:04
• Demonization of Doubters: 40:10–42:02
• Looking Ahead to Baby K Retrial: 43:21–44:24

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Conclusion

The episode powerfully illustrates how national mythology, institutional trust, and media narrative can lock a criminal case into a rigid framework—making it nearly impossible for doubt or dissent to be expressed or heard. It foregrounds the courage, risk, and necessity of critical journalism in the face of public consensus and institutional defensiveness. As the retrial for Baby K looms, the question persists: is Britain ready to reconsider the case of Lucy Letby, or will only “misfits and ghouls” dare to ask uncomfortable questions?

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Next episode teaser:
The retrial: “Baby K was a premature infant... prosecutors were alleging that Lucy tampered with the baby's breathing tube. This trial would face a more educated and more critical public, but the court of public opinion is very different from the court of justice.” (43:29)

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Transcript

[Amanda Knox]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.

[Nick Dickenpole]

On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand better version of

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[Danny Trejo]

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[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

Which by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.

[Nick Dickenpole]

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[Amy Robach]

Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here and

[TJ Holmes]

we know there is a lot of news coming at you these days. From the war with Iran to the ongoing Epstein fallout, government shutdowns, high profile trials and what the hell is that Blake Lively thing about Anyway, we are

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[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

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[Amanda Knox]

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[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

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If youf Knew Better brings real talk from women who've lived it, unpacking career pivots, relationship lessons and the mindset shifts that changed everything. Listen to if youf Knew Better with Amber grimes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ad Council Representative]

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[Amy Robach]

I feel sometimes that I'm not listened to. I would just want you to listen to me more often and evaluate situations with me and lead me towards success.

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Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional well [e-mail] that's sound sounditout together.org brought to you by the ad council and pivotal before we

[Amy Robach]

begin, please be Aware. This episode contains discussions around infant deaths and other difficult topics. Please take care while listening. After 10 months of intense, complicated testimony, the jury in Lucy Letby's case is finally ready to give a verdict. In all, the jury was asked to consider 22 charges. Seven of those were counts of murder, the rest attempted murder. It actually took the jury four days to deliver all their verdicts. You see, in England, a jury can return a verdict while still deliberating over others.

[Courtroom Narrator]

She was found guilty of murdering four babies and attempting to murder two. And then slowly, as time went a week, all the verdicts came.

[Amy Robach]

Reporter Kim Pilling, who had sat through every single day of the 10 month trial, remembers how the room felt each time the jury would announce a verdict had been reached.

[Courtroom Narrator]

You know, the tension was, you could hear it pinned up. It was, yeah, very tense.

[Amy Robach]

14 guilty verdicts all told. The rest, the jury either landed on not guilty or they were unable to decide. Lucy, who had become more withdrawn and seemed to retreat into herself over the trial, was only present for the first two days of verdict announcements.

[Courtroom Narrator]

She didn't come back for those last verdicts.

[Amy Robach]

Through her lawyer, Lucy Letby told the court that she was too unwell to attend anymore. That included when the judge would sentence her later, she would refuse to leave her cell as Justice Goss read her sentence. That decision, one of the few she was able to make for herself, didn't go over well with the families of the babies she had been found guilty of hurting.

[Courtroom Narrator]

They were all there to make their victim personal statements in person. Many of them, and I think they wanted to, to stare her down.

[Amy Robach]

But for many, there would still be some satisfaction with how heavy the hammer of justice fell on Lucy Letby. She would be facing one of the harshest sentences and ever handed down in the country she was facing.

[Personal Story Speaker]

She would, she would face her life in prison.

[Amy Robach]

I'm Amanda Knox and from Vespucci and iheart podcasts, this is the case of Lucy Letby, episode six, the Misfits and Ghouls.

[Justice James Goss (actor reading)]

The defendant Lucy Letby has refused to attend court for this sentence hearing.

[Amy Robach]

Lucy Letby's absence was definitely something that Justice James Goss had to deal with in court. We've had an actor read portions of his remarks.

[Justice James Goss (actor reading)]

I shall deliver the sentencing remarks as if she was present to hear them and I direct that she is provided with a transcript of my remarks and copies of the victim personal statements read to the court.

[Amy Robach]

On August 21, 2023, Justice Goss delivered his much anticipated sentencing decision.

[Justice James Goss (actor reading)]

Lucy Letby, over a period of almost 13 months between June 2015 and June 2016, when in your mid-20s and employed as a neonatal nurse in the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, with specialist training in intensive care, you murdered seven babies and attempted to murder six others.

[Amy Robach]

In the uk, a life sentence can mean two different things. One offers a chance at parole after serving a minimum sentence. The other is life, what they call a whole life order.

[Justice James Goss (actor reading)]

This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children. Lucy Letby, on each of the seven offences of murder and the seven offenses of attempted murder, I sentence you to imprisonment for life. Because the seriousness of your offences is exceptionally high, I direct that the early release provisions do not apply. The order of the court, therefore, is a whole life order on each and every offence and you will spend the rest of your life in prison.

[Amy Robach]

Lucy was now one of only three women in Britain facing a whole life sentence.

[Amanda Knox]

As soon as she was found guilty, it was. I mean, there was just no voicing of any skepticism or doubt about the verdict.

[Amy Robach]

Rachel Aviv is a writer with the New Yorker magazine. And while there was daily reporting of the story of Lucy Letby in the uk, it hadn't really made much of a splash in the us.

[Amanda Knox]

It was everywhere. It was in the Daily Mail for sure, but it was also in the Guardian. There were, I think I counted more than 100 stories about the case in the Guardian, of course, sort of national fixation of a level that felt like, you know, the equivalent of the O.J. simpson trial. It was a huge media phenomenon, but

[Amy Robach]

Rachel had done some reporting on other cases of women wrongly convicted of killing children. In those cases, much of the evidence against them relied on complicated and faulty statistics and ignored medical information. According to Rachel, the similarities to Let Be were striking.

[Amanda Knox]

I started following the case and just really looking at, like, the daily updates on the Chester, the local newspapers website. I was just sort of following it with like, an increasing sense of disbelief.

[Amy Robach]

Rachel was shocked at the lack of critical reporting in the uk.

[Amanda Knox]

I was struck just by the deference that, like, the journalistic community played toward the courts. Just the sort of deferential attitude towards authority in general was surprising to me.

[Amy Robach]

When Rachel first approached Lucy's story, she did it carefully and critically. She wasn't even convinced it would turn into a story for her magazine.

[Amanda Knox]

Well, there were two things that happened. One I think I told my editor all along, like, if I start reporting this, and then I think, oh, she's guilty, I'm just gonna stop. Like, there's no point in doing a she's guil story. So all along, I had a high level of being critical of the conclusions I might be drawing or not. And then when it got to the stage of the fact checking, I think the fact checkers were explicitly told, like, if you start thinking she's guilty, like, yeah, then the whole story collapses. And I think hearing their sort of evolving experience of reading the records was very affirming because their job is to basically doubt me and to doubt what I'm writing and the fact that. That they came in ready to doubt. And then, you know, one of the fact trickers said, like, oh, my God, I think she might be innocent.

[Miles Turner]

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[Brianna Stewart]

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[Personal Story Speaker]

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[Amy Robach]

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[Personal Story Speaker]

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[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

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[Danny Trejo]

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[Bob Pittman]

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[Creative Industry Expert]

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[Miles Turner]

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[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

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[Creative Industry Expert]

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[Creative Industry Expert]

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[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

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[Nick Dickenpole]

Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Amy Robach]

On May 13, 2024, Rachel Aviv's article a British nurse was found guilty of killing seven babies. Did she Do It? Was published.

[Rachel Aviv]

Well, the impact of the New Yorker piece was huge, absolutely huge.

[Amy Robach]

It would have been impossible for Rachel Aviv to know that the mere act of publishing her article would send shockwaves through an entire country. But the moment filmmaker and journalist Anuk Khouri heard about it, she knew the impression it would make just in terms

[Rachel Aviv]

of opening people's minds to the possibility that something else might have happened in the case, that everything might not be as it seemed.

[Amy Robach]

Anouk says the piece stood apart in a number of ways.

[Rachel Aviv]

That was quite an unusual piece of writing for a UK audience who's used to, more used to sort of news reporting.

[Amy Robach]

The article was over 13,000 words. The average news article is a fraction of that.

[Rachel Aviv]

The political class and probably people working in medicine and people who had some expertise in different fields. I think it had a big impact on them. And it was just the first time that things were questioned really openly.

[Amy Robach]

Rachel's article looked closely at the entire Lucy Letby saga and asked questions about every step from the police investigation.

[Amanda Knox]

The police department was actually relying on the doctors who thought that Lucy Letby was the murderer as kind of translators to help them understand the medical evidence. And so then their perception of what was going on was really filtered through people who had, who already had a belief that she was guilty.

[Amy Robach]

Was there consensus among the experts you talked to about the legitimacy or not of the evidence that was used to convict Letby?

[Amanda Knox]

Almost everyone was quite flummoxed by the air embolism idea. There were claims being made that just didn't cohere with people's understanding basic physiology. As far as the insulin evidence, everyone was very confused by those numbers. There was just a general sense of this doesn't read on paper, at least as an intentional poisoning. And also the test that was used is just unreliable.

[Amy Robach]

Shockingly, for the first time the public was asked to rethink the statistical information used to convict her. Specifically that chart which showed Lucy Letby was on duty each time a baby died. It was powerful evidence. We tend to assume that irregular things happen because someone intentionally caused them. Rachel wrote in her article. She quotes the Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman, who says that our predilection for casual thinking exposes us to serious mistakes in evaluating the randomness of truly random events. Reading this article for the first time, the British public was forced to question just how convincing this evidence really was. Was there anyone that you reached out to who was someone who questioned that narrative, but who was afraid to come forward?

[Amanda Knox]

Yeah, there was a statistician who had consulted for the defense who ultimately wasn't asked to testify, who had those concerns. Like, you know, she. I remember her telling me that she was really concerned that Lucy Letby was being bullied. And then the defense expert for the Letby team, who was never called, I mean, he said he was, like, staying up at night worrying about this. Like, I don't think he would have gone out and spoken about his concerns unless. I don't think it was something he was going to do on his own. But once he saw that a journalist was also concerned about this, then he was willing to sort of, like, almost access some of those real doubts he had. But I think when I first talked to him, he wasn't in a place of this woman is definitely innocent, but he was in a place of real doubt about the quality of evidence that he had seen at trial.

[Amy Robach]

Beyond the complicated evidence and the investigation's tunnel vision, Rachel's article also forced readers to confront more basic problems with the case against Letby.

[Amanda Knox]

I think status and gender also really came into play. This belief originated with a group of male doctors who had a lot of status in that environment. And so even though the nurses really did support Lucy Letby for a very long time, you could see that over the years with each sort of. But you could just see them sort of doubting themselves. There was this one very painful interview with Lucy Letby's direct manager, sort of like the nursing supervisor. And even after the verdict, you could tell she'd, like, come in there to say that she'd been fooled by Lucy Letby, but, like, she couldn't quite say that. She was still kind of asking, like, how can this be? Like, can someone be such a good actor? You know, I just. I spent so much time with her crying about this. It seemed so sincere. It was almost like she was asking, help me believe that she's guilty, because I still fundamentally don't.

[Amy Robach]

What do you think about why the evil nurse version of the story took hold so quickly?

[Amanda Knox]

There are few events as sort of destabilizing and terrifying as a young child dying. And I do think that it kind of like breaks our brains a bit to think that this is a random act that can happen to anyone. That, like, you combine a vulnerable child with some health problems and you combine that with an overworked hospital and busy doctors and a couple mistakes, and your child can die. So I think, like, on an intellectual level, it is easier to believe that there is one evil agent creating harm than to sort of sit with the fact that we are all susceptible to these random acts of, like, horrific luck, horrific bad luck.

[Amy Robach]

This is especially so in the UK because in the uk, all public health care is provided through the nhs, the National Health Service. It's worth taking a moment to explain a little about the lore of the nhs.

[Courtroom Narrator]

An enormous welcome to the City of London and to the Olympic Stadium for the Olympic Games of 2012.

[Amy Robach]

In 2012, the London Olympic Opening Ceremony set out to tell the world who Britain believed itself to be.

[Amanda Knox]

Ladies and gentlemen, the union flag is

[Rachel Aviv]

raised by representatives from the Royal Navy,

[Amanda Knox]

army and Royal Air Force.

[Amy Robach]

There were tributes to the monarchy, to the armed forces, to British music, Bowie, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols. There were even dozens of Mary Poppins floating down onto the stadium floor. But the moment that lingered most for me was something else entirely. A meticulously choreographed celebration of the National Health Service.

[Courtroom Narrator]

Now we move on to celebrate an institution which was founded the year of the last London Olympics in 1948. We're going to see a very special example.

[Amanda Knox]

Please welcome the staff of the United Kingdom National Health Service.

[Amy Robach]

Hospital beds rolled onto the stage. Nurses and doctors stood at the center of the spectacle. The NHS wasn't presented as a public service. It was presented as a national virtue on our end.

[Courtroom Narrator]

Baron's famous principle most society and legitimately call itself civilized. A sick person that provided medical aid because of lack of means.

[Miles Turner]

What's up? I'm Miles Turner.

[Brianna Stewart]

And I'm Brianna Stewart.

[Miles Turner]

And our podcast Game Recognized Game has never been done before.

[Brianna Stewart]

Two active players giving you a real look at our lives and what we actually think on and off the court.

[Miles Turner]

Nothing's off limits. We talk trade requests.

[Brianna Stewart]

What's the vibe of that? When it's like your star player is like, well, I want to leave and then actually, now I'm going to mistake. We talk tanking. I mean, honestly, like, I might get in trouble for this answer, but I think it's like, definitely happening in the wnba.

[Miles Turner]

And yeah, we talk about our mistakes too. They pulled me to the side and was like, hey, man, we got a call last night, man, you can't be rolling around the city like this the night before games, you know? You know Doing this, doing whatever.

[Brianna Stewart]

And of course, family stories. They'll be like, mommy, why did you miss that?

[Amy Robach]

Do you play basketball?

[Brianna Stewart]

Check out game recognized game with Stuy and miles on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Personal Story Speaker]

I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him and I said, hi, dad. And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. There's this badass convict, just finished five years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk at mom.

[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

Yeah.

[Danny Trejo]

On the CNO show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejl to talk about addiction transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to be binge featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Haddish, Johnny Knoxville and more.

[Personal Story Speaker]

I'm an alcoholic and without this probe, I'm gonna die.

[Danny Trejo]

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the C no show and listen now.

[Nick Dickenpole]

When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're talking about and they are experts at everything. Here at the Nick Dickenpole show, we're not afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes. What Coogler did that I think was so unique. He's the writer director.

[Creative Industry Expert]

Who do you think he is?

[Miles Turner]

I don't know.

[Nick Dickenpole]

You meet the, like the president, you think the president.

[Creative Industry Expert]

You think Canada has a president? You think China has a president? Those law Cruisette. God, I love that thing. I use it all the time.

[TJ Holmes]

What color?

[Creative Industry Expert]

I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it like it's like the old Polish saying.

[Nick Dickenpole]

Not my monkeys, not my circus. Yep, it was a good one. I like that saying.

[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

It's an actual Polish saying.

[Nick Dickenpole]

It is an actual Polish.

[Creative Industry Expert]

Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Miles Turner]

Yes.

[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually. I thought it was. I got that wrong.

[Nick Dickenpole]

Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Amy Robach]

A ambitious, well intentioned, ferocious and wealthy mother looks like in the black community.

[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

This woman's history month. The podcast Keep it Positive, Sweetie celebrates the power of women, choosing healing, purpose and faith. Even when life gets messy.

[Nick Dickenpole]

Love.

[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

It's not a destination.

[Nick Dickenpole]

You have to work on it every day.

[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

Keep it Positive. Sweetie creates space for honest conversations. On self worth, love, growth and navigating life with grace and grit, led by women who uplift, inspire and tell the truth out loud.

[Amanda Knox]

I have several conversations with God and I know why it took 20 years

[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

to hear this and more. Listen to keep it positive, sweetie, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bob Pittman]

Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between. This season of Math and Magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate Mike Milken, Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Selnick.

[Creative Industry Expert]

If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business.

[Bob Pittman]

Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and our own Chief Business Officer, Lisa Coffey.

[Amanda Knox]

Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed

[Amy Robach]

human promise behind it really makes it

[Rachel Aviv]

rise to the top.

[Bob Pittman]

Listen to Math and Magic stories from the frontiers of Marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Amy Robach]

In Britain, the NHS is more than an institution. It's a point of pride, a moral achievement, something people grow up being taught to protect. So when allegations emerged that babies had died on a neonatal unit, the question many were primed to ask was not whether the NHS had failed, whether the hospital had failed, but who within it was responsible. By the time Lucy Letby took the stand, her task was not simply to defend herself against accusations of murder, a daunting enough challenge. Implicitly, she was being asked to do something far harder to convince a jury, and in turn, the public, that something had gone catastrophically wrong inside one of Britain's most trusted institutions. All this was something that did not go unnoticed by Rachel.

[Amanda Knox]

I mean, the NHS is, you know, this sort of wonderful thing that is a huge part of the national identity and yet, like, it's been defunded over the years. So there's like these very difficult conversations to be had about the level of health care, particularly for women and babies. And I think at trial you could even see the defense lawyer saying, like, we love the nhs. This isn't about the nhs. Like, he was very almost afraid to make the jury think that they were being asked to say the NHS was bad. There was almost a sort of like, this is our nationality, we will not ruin this symbol. It's like easier to say that there's one evil creature doing these malevolent, crazy things that have no explanation than to say, like, every time I go to this hospital, that's extremely important to my national identity. There are these risks that are not being properly managed.

[Amy Robach]

But there was one thing that pushed Rachel's article into the stratosphere above all others, good old fashioned censorship.

[Rachel Aviv]

What was a surprise was that somebody published when reporting restrictions were still in place in the uk. That was a really bold thing to do and heightened the impact in many ways because there was this element of people not being able to read it in the uk and people want to read what they don't have access to.

[Amy Robach]

The restrictions Anouk Curry is talking about are pretty hard for North Americans to get their heads around. In the uk, as soon as a criminal matter becomes active, meaning a person gets arrested or a trial is announced, strict restrictions are placed on any media coverage. Anyone publishing anything that could be seen as a substantial risk to the course of justice can face contempt of court charges.

[Rachel Aviv]

Crown Prosecution Service decided that there would be a retrial on one count, and that was of Baby Kay. And I was at the court when it was just discussed, announced that there would be a retrial and therefore there were reporting restrictions in place that meant that nobody could write or talk about the Lucy Letby case for nine months. And that was absolutely extraordinary.

[Amy Robach]

You see, after Lucy Letby's first trial, there was one count of attempted murder that the jury could not come to agreement on. The death of Baby Kay. One month and four days after Lucy was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison, the prosecution announced it would be retrying her for the death of Baby K. Immediately, a media blackout was put in place.

[Amanda Knox]

Additional reporting is seen as breaking the reporting rules. So it felt like there was just no counter voices.

[Amy Robach]

But those restrictions are only enforceable in the uk. The New Yorker is, well, American. Rachel's piece came out in the spring of 2024, although some hard copies did end up making it to UK shelves. There were attempts in the UK to block access online, but clearly there are ways around geofencing and there's human instinct. People in the UK found a way

[Rachel Aviv]

to read it, so that probably heightened interest.

[Amy Robach]

One of the people who ended up reading the piece was a member of the British Parliament, a man named David Davis.

[Courtroom Narrator]

Yesterday, the New Yorker magazine published a 13,000 word inquiry into the Lucy Letby trial, which raised enormous concerns about both the logic and competence of the statistical evidence that was a central part of that trial.

[Amy Robach]

With the Lord Chancellor looking, standing up in the House of Commons, speaking about the possibility of miscarriage of justice, David Davis forced a different conversation.

[Courtroom Narrator]

That article was blocked from publication on the UK Internet, I understand, because of a court order. Now, I'm sure that court order was well intended, but it seems to me, in defiance of open justice,

[Amy Robach]

am I just naive? I mean, I've, I've learned a lot about journalism, but I've never gone to a school of journalism. Like, that's not my background. Am I naive to think that it's the job of journalism to question authority and not just be the mouthpiece of authority you are?

[Amanda Knox]

No, I mean, I'd say that's a good characterization. But I think, like the laws in England, I mean, I was really shocked. You're not supposed to interview people who are involved in the case. So how then are you going to get a sort of counter narrative to what the prosecution is putting out? That was the real problem. And that's why my story, I think there was just this like, sense of, like, how is no one else sort of articulating this? It was strange. I mean, I think it was the reporting restrictions, but I also think it was just sort of a general sense of deference to the doctors and experts who had made these judgments. When I asked for interviews from some of the doctors involved in the case and the experts, I just don't think it occurred to them that I wouldn't just be sort of helping them do a little victory lap about the conviction.

[Amy Robach]

What did these doctors have at stake if Lucy wasn't found guilty?

[Amanda Knox]

At the beginning, not much. But then I think, like anyone, they sort of developed identities that were around being these heroic whistles and they were treated like that in the media. And so, yeah, it is humiliating. Like, if they are not these heroic whistleblowers, what have they done? They've ruined a woman's life. I can understand, even on like a psychological level, why it would be hard for these doctors now to consider the evidence in a sort of neutral, objective way.

[Amy Robach]

Were you aware of how big of a splash your piece made when it came out?

[Amanda Knox]

I mean, something I noticed that I found really interesting was that people who read it from America and from other countries outside of England kind of read it in a pretty consistent way. They were like, I'm so horrified. I cannot believe this woman was convicted of these crimes. People who read it in England, like, absolutely did not have that response. And I think that's because they were looking at it through this framework of having been exposed to so much media coverage about this case.

[Amy Robach]

Mike check. Hi, nice to meet you. Would you mind introducing yourself for our audience?

[Polly]

Sure. My name is Polly. I work in a shop, actually, at the moment in a small village in the English countryside.

[Amy Robach]

Sounds idyllic. I first connected with Polly way back in 2024. She was just one of many people who reached out to me about the Lucy Letby case. In her initial email to me, she wrote, hey, Amanda, I wanted to get in touch to ask you to consider looking into a recent case that is extremely troubling. She told me that she believed Lucy was a victim of a troubled system. Writing quote, I wholly believe it is a gross miscarriage of justice. I do not believe there were any murders or attacks. I believe those babies died due to poor care in a seriously failing hospital. Polly, like the majority of people in the uk, followed the Lucy Letby story as it unfolded day by day.

[Polly]

The media in the uk, as you probably know, sort of got hold of this story and really went with it like a. I don't know, like a terrier after a rat or something, as they do quite often. The headlines that were coming out were fairly strong, shall we say. I don't think I even questioned whether she was guilty or not. I think that was, for me, at the beginning, it was a sure thing, you know, and that was because of the media, I believe.

[Amy Robach]

But as time went on, as the coverage piled on, many of the quiet questions Paulie had been asking herself during the whole saga grew louder.

[Polly]

I just had this huge thinking feeling that something was incredibly wrong with it. And when you sort of. You're listening to the drama of the prosecutions, and there's a lot of drama associated with it. It's theater, you know, and when you look beyond all the sort of incredibly dramatic emotive language, I just thought they just don't really have anything. Or what they do have has sort of been cobbled together. And then there's this narrative spun, and it just didn't. It just didn't sit right to me. It wasn't believable. There's huge holes in the story that they were telling, and what they had to back it up with.

[Amy Robach]

Reading Rachel's New Yorker story had a lot of people seeing the holes that Paulie saw. And that is exactly what Rachel had hoped would happen.

[Amanda Knox]

I mean, I hoped that it would cause people to really question their assumptions and think about the case in a very different way.

[Amy Robach]

Did it?

[Amanda Knox]

I think it did. I mean, I think it kind of like unleashed this. It felt like it opened space. I think having the New Yorker sort of come out and establish this real possibility of her innocence, like, opened up more, maybe confidence. Because there has been great reporting since my piece came out from British journalists about new aspects of the case. So I think it, like, the momentum shifted. It's been nice to watch momentum growing. Like, there have been more and more people feeling empowered to express their concerns and there's. There's more sense of, like, alarm and concern by journalists and people in government.

[Amy Robach]

But not everyone was jumping to join Paulie's innocence campaign, including some in the media, especially the newspapers that spent thousands of pages writing about Lucy's guilt. The following is an actor reading from an opinion piece by journalist Liz Hull. Hull covered the Letby trial for the Daily Mail.

[Polly]

I wrote in these pages soon afterwards about the strange band of misfits and ghouls convinced Letby is innocent and emboldened by conspiracy theorists.

[Ad Council Representative]

Online travel daily to Manchester Crown Court

[Polly]

to see the woman in the dock who they insist is the real victim in this case.

[Amy Robach]

This is how many of Letby's supporters were painted as just misfits and ghouls out to free a child murderer. Asking questions about the Letby case came with a great risk. Not just risk of being ostracized, but risk of coming across as a conspiracy theorist nut one that was not to be believed. The mere suggestion that something could have gone wrong in the system was unthinkable.

[Rachel Aviv]

I do wonder whether we should be more mindful when somebody's convicted that sometimes the system does get things wrong and sometimes things aren't absolute. And it feels that in this case, there was no room for that.

[Amy Robach]

Journalist Anouk Khoury was also hearing from people like Polly, people who were uncomfortable with the conviction. But these people, they were afraid to stick their necks out, in fear they too would be labeled a misfit or a ghoul. And that included professionals who were questioning the medical and statistical evidence.

[Rachel Aviv]

Initially, people were really terrified that the fact that they had concerns might become public. They felt that it could be. It could destroy their careers because it was very taboo. The narrative was set. Lucy Letby had unquestionably murdered seven babies and harmed a number of others. And to question that really was taboo.

[Amy Robach]

And this stranglehold on criticism, discussion, questioning, it's harmful. I know this personally and I'm grateful to the many misfits and ghouls who backed my innocence when it was extremely unpopular to do so.

[Rachel Aviv]

It just seems like it's black and white, doesn't it? We're told one thing or the other and what is needed sometimes is exploration in the middle of it to try and try and find out what the truth really is.

[Amy Robach]

There is no way. The Crown's office wasn't aware of the slow and steady beat of growing concern over Lucy's conviction. But their focus was now on the retrial of Lucy Letby for a charge they couldn't stick during her first trial.

[Rachel Aviv]

The Crown Prosecution Service decided that there would be a retrial on one count and that was of Baby Kay.

[Amy Robach]

Baby K was a premature infant born at 25 weeks at the Countess of Chester Hospital on February 17, 2016. She died in her parents arms three days after her birth on February 20. Prosecutors were alleging that Lucy tampered with the baby's breathing tube. This trial would face a more educated and more critical public, but the court of public opinion is very different from the court of justice. Now, if you look into the evidence for Baby K, it's not one of

[Amanda Knox]

the ones where there's the least possible

[Amy Robach]

evidence against against Lucy and where the whole case is basically the word of Lucy against the word of Ravi Jayara.

[Courtroom Narrator]

I think the prosecution is going to lose that troun.

[Amy Robach]

That's next time on the case of Lucy Letby. The Case of Lucy Letby is brought to you by Vespucci Iheart Podcasts and Knox Robinson Productions. I've been your host, Amanda Knox. This episode was written by Kathleen Goldhar. The co producer was Lucy Ditchment. The senior producer was Natalia Rodriguez. The assistant producer was Ami Gill. The sound designer is Tom Biddle. The theme music was also written by Tom Biddle. Story editing by Kathleen Goldhar. Fact checking by Ami Gill. Voice acting by Sarah Starling and David Charles. Legal advice was provided by Jackson Browning. The executive producers were Joe Meek, Amanda Knox, Christopher Robinson, Daniel Turkin and Johnny Galvin. Thank you for listening.

[Nick Dickenpole]

On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand better version of

[Creative Industry Expert]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Miles Turner]

Yes.

[Co-host Nick Dickenpole Show]

Which by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.

[Nick Dickenpole]

But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close though. Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[iHeart Country Festival Announcer]

Saturday, May 2, country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas at our 2026 I Heart Country Festival presented by Capital One. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell [e-mail] that's

[Amy Robach]

Ticketmaster.com this is Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes from the Amy and TJ podcast

[TJ Holmes]

and there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day and from all over the place.

[Amy Robach]

What's fact, what's fake and sometimes what

[TJ Holmes]

the f. So let's cut the crap, okay? Follow the Amy and TJ Podcast, a one stop news and pop culture shop to get you caught up and on with your day.

[Amy Robach]

And listen to Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Amber Grimes]

It's the new me and it's the old them. This woman's History Month. The podcast if you knew better with Amber Grimes spotlights women who turn missteps into momentum and lessons into power.

[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

My like tunnel vision of like I gotta achieve this was off the strengths

[Amanda Knox]

of like I want to make a

[Keep It Positive Sweetie Host]

better life for us.

[Amber Grimes]

If you knew better brings real talk from women who've lived it, unpacking career pivots, relationship lessons and the mindset shifts that changed everything. Listen to if you knew better with Amber grimes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ad Council Representative]

The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be. So we asked kids, what do you want your parents to hear?

[Amy Robach]

I feel sometimes that I'm not listened to. I would just want you to listen to me more often and evaluate situations with me and lead me towards success.

[Ad Council Representative]

Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional well being@soundedout together.org that's sounditout together.org brought to you by the ad council and pivotal this is

[Amanda Knox]

an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.