Loading summary
Transcript122 lines
- [00:00]
Amanda Knox
There's a difference between liking a house
- [00:02]
John Sweeney
and actually getting it. Redfin is built to make up that difference and close the gap between finding
- [00:08]
Amanda Knox
and owning the home for you.
- [00:10]
John Sweeney
Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, so when you find a home you love, you're not a
- [00:16]
Amanda Knox
step behind when it comes to making an offer.
- [00:18]
John Sweeney
That means less watching great homes disappear
- [00:20]
Amanda Knox
and more focus on the one you'll call home.
- [00:23]
John Sweeney
Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses.
- [00:27]
Amanda Knox
Get started@redfin.com own the dream sometimes all
- [00:32]
John Sweeney
we want is more of the same. Like another round of golf played from a channel with 24. 7 coverage, another look at the garden and the deer as they pick their way through it, another Taco Tuesday followed by a Whatever's in the Fridge Wednesday. And to get more of the same, all we need is a little help with adaptable care plans from qualified compassionate caregivers matched to your family's needs. Home Instead can help you and your passion stay home no matter what's on your horizon. Visit home instead online for a better what's next?
- [01:01]
Amanda Knox
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this,
- [01:04]
John Sweeney
but anyone can get the same Premium
- [01:06]
Amanda Knox
Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have
- [01:13]
John Sweeney
one of your assistant's assistants switch you
- [01:14]
Amanda Knox
to Mint Mobile today.
- [01:16]
John Sweeney
I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per intro rate. First 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms@mintmobile.com youm know when a
- [01:32]
Amanda Knox
commercial becomes a thing everyone's suddenly talking about? Yep, this is one of those. Elf cosmetics just dropped an absurdly funny telenovela called Melissa celebrating positivity, inclusivity and accessibility. Stars Melissa McCarthy, but the Real Star Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil.
- [01:47]
John Sweeney
When language fails her and lips are
- [01:49]
Amanda Knox
dull and dry, only glow can revive the elf. Glow Reviver Lip Oil is an ultra glossy tinted lip oil that nourishes, hydrates
- [01:56]
John Sweeney
and enhances your lip's natural color.
- [01:58]
Amanda Knox
Watch the full episode of the new
- [02:00]
John Sweeney
elf enovela@soyumbano.com before we begin, please be aware this series contains discussions around infant deaths and other difficult topics. Please take care while listening.
- [02:15]
Amanda Knox
We want to bring you this very urgent breaking news because the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty the
- [02:23]
John Sweeney
nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty
- [02:25]
Amanda Knox
of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others while they were in
- [02:31]
John Sweeney
her care at a hospital in Cheshire.
- [02:33]
Amanda Knox
The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.
- [02:43]
John Sweeney
In August 2023, Lucy Letby, a young neonatal nurse, was convicted in England of murdering seven tiny babies and attempting to kill six more. The case shocked the nation. A year later, she would be convicted again for the attempted murder of a seventh baby. She's been handed 15 life sentences, all without the possibility of parole. Meaning, as this case stands, she will never see the outside of a prison again. Case closed, Right? Well, maybe not. Lucy Letby's convictions are now being contested. In the nearly three years since her conviction, there has been a re examination of evidence and an outpouring of revelations, prompting many to re evaluate the case for her guilt. Not just members of the public, but lawyers, politicians and some of the most eminent doctors in the world today. This case is like an open wound that has divided England, with opposite views competing with one another across the media.
- [04:03]
Amanda Knox
This was a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign of child murder involving the smallest and most vulnerable of children. We did not find any murders. In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care.
- [04:24]
John Sweeney
They can't both be right, can they? And yet we are now in a situation where there are two parallel worlds. When Lucy Letby was first convicted, there were news headlines that flickered and vanished in the us. But I couldn't get this story out of my head. A young, attractive woman accused of some of the worst crimes imaginable. A story the tabloid newspapers fed on with glee. A cold, calculating killer. The unexpected face of evil. I read headlines like that and the back of my neck prickled. For the British media said the same things about me. Foxy Noxy. Sex, lies and murder. Killer abroad. She Devil. My wrongful conviction in Italy played out 15 years prior. That experience taught me a lot about how law enforcement can get it wrong, how judgment can set in and how stories can shape and obscure the truth. Soon, a steady flow of messages came into my inbox. My DMs, friends, journalists, strangers. And the refrain was, you need to look at this one. The evidence doesn't stack up. The more I looked into this case, the more clear it was to me that inside this complicated story, the police investigation, the 10 month long trial, one of the longest in British history, there were still many unanswered questions. Was Lucy, let be evil? If not, why did these infants die? And how could a justice system and a nation become so Convinced that they locked away the most prolific child killer in British history. I've sat in a cell condemned as a monster while the world moved on, certain it knew the truth. Satisfied with easy answers. I'm allergic to easy answers. I wanted to understand what had happened in this in the north of England. And so I started asking questions. I'm Amanda Knox and from Vespucci and iheart podcasts. This is the case of Lucy Letby, episode one, the Verdict.
- [07:17]
Amanda Knox
Her attacks were a complete betrayal of the trust placed in her. One of Britain's most notorious killers. She's been found guilty. Now she has no rights. She got rid of those when she killed people's babies.
- [07:31]
John Sweeney
When I first started looking at the media coverage of the Lucy Lutbey case, what struck me wasn't just the evidence, it was the narrative. How quickly the headlines seemed to agree on who she was and what the story meant. That kind of consensus doesn't happen by accident. In November 1972, two researchers, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, were studying how people decide what matters. Their work suggested something powerful that the mass media tells us what to think about. That idea became known as agenda setting theory. When a story dominates the headlines, it can take on a life of its own and feel impossible to challenge. Believe me, I've been trying to undo the damage the media did to my reputation for 18 years and counting. August 18, 2023. This was the day Britain stopped the end of the trial of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby in the northern city of Manchester, one of the longest in British history, having run for over 10 months. British and international media were waiting for the verdicts.
- [09:07]
Amanda Knox
You've got to have material ready to go, all the TV stations, outlets, so when we get the verdicts, whatever they are, we've got to have news ready to roll.
- [09:19]
John Sweeney
Kim Pilling was one of only a handful of reporters who'd been inside the actual courtroom every day of the long drawn out trial. He had to prepare two versions of the story. One for guilty, one for innocent. Two completely different realities, one of which would become the accepted truth, the other discarded as a lie.
- [09:45]
Amanda Knox
I may be breaching magic circle things here, but to be adult about it, that's the way of the world. Because otherwise, which used to happen, you could be waiting for hours on end for a reaction to two verdicts. And the media pressures now are so great, that's too late. They want things more instantly.
- [10:06]
John Sweeney
A seasoned reporter for the Press Association, Kim has covered many trials in England. He understands the weight of a lay jury's decision and how it can define a narrative.
- [10:17]
Amanda Knox
Two things was going to happen. One, if she was not guilty, then she, I have no doubt, would have gone out of that dock and then, you know, not very long afterwards, she would have gone out onto the court steps at Manchester Crown and she would have told the world's media that, you know, my life has been destroyed by the Crown Prosecution Service, Cheshire Police and certain people at the county of Chess Hospital who have heaped all the blame this onto me, who. I've never done anything wrong. I've no doubt that would have happened if you'd have been cleared. If she was going to be found guilty then. And so it followed. It was going to be the headlines. They were all going to be there. Angel of Death let bear, Evil let there. So two completely different realities there.
- [11:14]
John Sweeney
When the verdict finally came, the alternate reality Kim had already drafted, the one where Lucy Letby walked free, was instantly erased. The other version, the one labeled guilty, became the only story anyone heard. Within minutes, every major outlet, from local radio stations to national news outlets to ministers in the Houses of Parliament, echoed the same. Same headline. This is what it sounded like. She's guilty. The jury's found Lucy Letby guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another six. That moment of certainty, one narrative takes hold and the other vanishes, wasn't lost on journalists Clusy de Oliveira and Rachel Aviv, who followed the trial from a distance, from this side of the Atlantic.
- [12:06]
Amanda Knox
Her conviction was front page news everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And then subsequently her sentencing a couple
- [12:14]
John Sweeney
of days later, you know, like, this was how many, many people first learned about the case. They learned about that it happened by seeing the picture of this woman on the front pages, described as the most evil woman in Britain and the worst serial killer of babies in modern times.
- [12:29]
Amanda Knox
That was the first impression.
- [12:30]
John Sweeney
That was what people knew about Lucy Lepe.
- [12:33]
Amanda Knox
I mean, it was everywhere.
- [12:34]
John Sweeney
It was in the Daily Mail for sure.
- [12:36]
Amanda Knox
I think I counted more than 100
- [12:37]
John Sweeney
stories about the case and the Guardian.
- [12:39]
Amanda Knox
It was, of course, sort of national
- [12:41]
John Sweeney
fixation of a level that felt like,
- [12:45]
Amanda Knox
you know, the equivalent of the O.J. simpson trial.
- [12:46]
John Sweeney
It was a huge media phenomenon. The police, then the law courts and the jury set the narrative, which was then taken on and reinforced by the media. I want to ask what your reaction was when you first heard the news about the verdict in Lucy's case.
- [13:12]
Amanda Knox
I guess I wasn't that surprised. And if I was in the courtroom on that jury, I probably would have found her guilty.
- [13:19]
John Sweeney
A family doctor for 20 years, Dr. Phil Hammond, is a columnist for Private Eye, the much vaunted magazine famous for its biting satire where he writes about medicine under the pseudonym Maryland.
- [13:34]
Amanda Knox
The media had been running with their Burn the Witch headlines for a long time, so what's interesting, and again, you will know this from your own experience, is that they take a quote and they stick it in inverted commas. Evil murdering witch deserves to rot in hell or whatever. And so there'd been a pretty endless barrage of that.
- [13:51]
John Sweeney
Yep, he's not wrong. The stakes for me almost felt personal. Most people had accepted my guilty verdict when it was first announced to the world, and now they were doing the same for Lucy Letby wholesale. But just as in my case, there were a handful of people, just a few at first, who weren't convinced, and they started to ask questions. Questions. Sometimes all we want is more of the same. Like another round of golf played from a channel with 247 coverage, another look at the garden and the deer as they pick their way through it, another Taco Tuesday followed by a Whatever's in the Fridge Wednesday. And to get more of the same, all we need is a little help with adaptable care plans from qualified, compassionate caregivers matched to your family's needs. Home Instead can help you and your passion stay home no matter what's on your horizon. Visit Home Instead online for a better what's next? Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty, which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist. It's efficacious. You're going to get results, and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful Beauty Confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningfulbeauty.com
- [15:32]
Amanda Knox
Premier Protein it's for getting after life, not just Fitness. With 30 grams of protein, 160 calories and no sugar added, helping people fuel their joyful lives with Premier Protein, you can say yes to to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with the kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends, Premier Protein offers delicious flavors like cafe latte, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, strawberry and cake batter, to name a few. Find your favorite flavor@premierprotein.com this message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place with Greenlight you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk free@greenlight.com iheart.
- [16:38]
John Sweeney
It's a horrifying thing to imagine that a nurse, someone trusted to care for babies and save their lives, could instead deliberately harm them. But in court, the prosecution's case was supported by the doctors who worked with Lucy Letby and the evidence of seven medical experts. The defense didn't call any experts to counter that narrative, perhaps because there was no hard evidence, a lot of smoke but no fire as it were. No one actually witnessed let be harming any babies. And as my lawyers initially argued, zero plus zero plus zero still equals zero. But that argument didn't work in my first trial.
- [17:30]
Amanda Knox
So there was layer upon layer of gosh, how can she possibly be innocent amongst all this? So I did write my first piece in Private Eye was actually to say, let be lessons. Why don't we listen to whistleblowers? Isn't this appalling? Seven experts appeared for the prosecution, none appeared for the defense, and seven doctors who worked at the hospital stood up and said, we think she's guilty. So there were 14 medical experts who said she was guilty. Not a single doctor or medical expert appeared. So purely on the numbers, you know, as sometimes in a jury you're baffled by all the science and it was complicated. But if you think this is 14, zero, you've got 14 experts up here think she's guilty, zero speaking up for her. Therefore I think on the balance of probability she's guilty.
- [18:13]
John Sweeney
Phil Hammond's logic was the same as most of Britain's. Few people would be bold enough to question the testimony of so many doctors.
- [18:23]
Amanda Knox
On the day she was convicted, I tweeted, sometimes the law gets it wrong,
- [18:28]
John Sweeney
but to understand how doubt begins, you have to meet the people who won't stop asking questions. One of them is John Sweeney, a bear of a man, a decorated reporter who has directly confronted Vladimir Putin and others. A self confessed professional troublemaker.
- [18:50]
Amanda Knox
On the day she was convicted, I was in Ukraine where I've got a flat jacket and a helmet and I thought, I'll tweet this, I'll put my flat jacket and helmet. And the first person to call me was my agent Humphrey. And he said, put that fucking tweet down now. And I said no. And I'm in Ukraine and you can't
- [19:08]
John Sweeney
get me when we talk. It's summer and John is sitting in his retreat, his caravan. He has a big mug of tea in his hand, his laptop balanced on a low table. John tells stories, inside stories. Most start with an investigation he's chasing or his beloved Liverpool football Club. And they all take the long way round. But they usually start or end with a fight for justice. He knows my story too. The hell that played out in my life in a city in Central Italy in 2009.
- [19:43]
Amanda Knox
By the way, we. I've got a flat in Perugia.
- [19:47]
John Sweeney
I heard. I heard this. Where? In. As we talk about Italy and his friends there, John suddenly leaps up as his neighbor shouts, his dog is on the loose.
- [19:56]
Amanda Knox
Have you watched the dog? Oh, no. Is he gone?
- [20:00]
John Sweeney
Then a minute later, he appears at the door with his sheepish dog.
- [20:04]
Amanda Knox
Sorry, my dog ran away.
- [20:06]
John Sweeney
And the conversation picks up exactly where it left off. This is John, unstoppable, always chasing something, be that a dog or a story. On the day of Letby's conviction, he tweeted out a link to a blog post whose author we'll hear from later in this episode. And he wrote. This piece by a statistician, sets out the evidence that Lucy Letby may well be the victim of a miscarriage of justice, that the Crown has taken a cluster of accidental or natural deaths and pointed the finger at Letby. There is no compelling evidence of a single murder. The law sometimes gets it wrong.
- [20:49]
Amanda Knox
And I got a ton of abuse from. From that tweet, and so much so that my literary agent, my book agent, Humphrey, is a good bloke, said, take that tweet down, you're getting slaughtered. You'll lose your standing in the public. And I'm a war reporter, so I'm kind of used to people shooting at me and being nasty to me. It's. It's kind of what I do for a living. But it did not feel good being abused. And people were saying, how dare you? You're disgusting. You're. What about the children?
- [21:22]
John Sweeney
John's tweet set off a firestorm. He was accused of cruelty, of disrespecting the victims, families, and worse. Because at the heart of this story are unimaginable losses. Brand new lives gone too soon and parents living with pain that words can't hold. When a story touches that kind of grief, questioning it becomes taboo. Even asking what if? Can sound like heresy. And so anyone who raised doubts about the verdicts was branded a conspiracy theorist.
- [22:02]
Amanda Knox
John Delete I follow you, but this is ridiculous and a gross misjudgment to post today. Imagine if the bereaved families read this. They've sat through harrowing evidence of how their child died and came face to face with the person guilty of their murders. I like you, love the stuff he did from Ukraine, but my God, what an insensitive bastard posting this on the day of the verdict.
- [22:26]
John Sweeney
But John was no stranger to medical murder cases gone wrong. In the early aughts, he'd been one of just a handful of reporters doggedly pursuing answers in the case of Sally Clark, a mother convicted of murdering two of her sons. The case against Sally Clark was held together by a deeply flawed statistical argument which was picked apart after her conviction. When the evidence for one son's murder fell apart, the evidence for the other one did too. John's reporting helped to eventually overturn Sally's conviction. She was freed and her exoneration set off a public reckoning that saw the wrongful convictions of other mothers overturned as well. In the summer of 2023, for John and others, the Lucy Letby case felt an awful lot like Sally Clark's. Doubt has a way of spreading. Dr. Phil Hammond initially accepted the verdicts, but he would soon shift position after he received a letter from a neonatologist who'd been lined up to give evidence for Lucy Letby's defense team. For reasons that are still unclear, the expert was never called to speak in court.
- [23:57]
Amanda Knox
Professor Michael hall, who was the most senior neonatology expert in the whole trial, far more so than the prosecution experts. He'd retired in 2018. Whereas one prosecution expert had stopped seeing baby and retired in 2009. Another had stopped being a top level neonatologist in 2008. So he was the most expert person. And he wrote to Private Eye at great length and he said, I read your piece. I think you're wrong. I think at the very least she had an unfair trial. I sat through the entire trial. I read all the net records. I prepared reports on most of the babies. I think they were sicker than the prosecution portrayed.
- [24:36]
John Sweeney
The letter was enough to start to change Phil's perspective on the case. Quietly, privately, over the coming months, he began to dig deep, deeper. In the weeks that followed the verdicts, only one newspaper ran a piece countering the established narrative. The Jury's Verdict. Veteran British journalist Peter Hitchens wrote in his opinion column in the Mail on Sunday newspaper. I wish somebody else would ask this, what if Lucy Letby is not guilty? And he added, horror can make Us blind to doubt. When Lucy Lepi was convicted, a single version of events took hold, the one the public saw on front pages and breaking news banners. But outside that spotlight, another story was forming, as yet untold, quietly, hesitantly, among journalists, scientists and people who felt something didn't add up. You could call it a split narrative, one dominant and loud, one almost whispered. While the country absorbed the story of the nurse turned monster, a handful of journalists were already beginning to look again to ask if the story everyone thought they knew might not be the whole story.
- [26:21]
Amanda Knox
We had a month after the trial where there was really extensive reporting about the convictions and the headlines were very much Britain's worst child serial killer in modern history. One headline proof There is the devil among us.
- [26:42]
John Sweeney
Anouk Curry is an investigative journalist and documentary maker who started examining the case towards the end of the trial.
- [26:49]
Amanda Knox
There was a very, very powerful narrative off the back of the convictions, which is understandable in many ways. I don't think we can underestimate the impact that the media coverage in the immediate aftermath of, of the convictions had. But what I noticed happened was that two of the consultants who had been instrumental in Lucy Letby being investigated in the first place, they were vocal. One of them spoke at length to ITV News, another to BBC Panorama, and they gave their narratives. So the general public believed that doctors had been screaming and shouting about this nurse and believed that she had been harming babies, when in actual fact, the reality, when you look at the documentation, is much more nuanced. And that was definitely a narrative that somehow or other became quite cemented in people's minds.
- [27:56]
John Sweeney
The pediatricians who worked on the neonatal unit with Lucy Letby since her convictions had emerged as the heroes of this tragedy. The media reported that they had put everything on the line to stop her, they said, but were thwarted every step of the way. You can hear the toll this took on one of the doctors, Dr. Ravi Jayram, in an interview he gave to ITV news in 2023.
- [28:24]
Amanda Knox
The families and the police have both said to us that they consider you to be a hero. Do you think the enormity of the part you played in all of this has sunk in yet? I'm not hero, Paul. I was just doing my job.
- [28:49]
John Sweeney
Just over a month after this interview, from September 2023, everything went silent. The police and Crown Prosecution Service, or cps, as it's known in the uk, decided to retry Lucy Letby for one count of attempted murder that the jury had failed to reach a decision on in the first trial. And in the uk, If a trial is pending, all reporting is banned. The idea is to prevent anything being published that might prejudice the case. But given that a narrative of guilt had already firmly taken hold, the press blackout served to silence the emerging voices of investigative journalists who were concerned about the safety of Letby's convictions.
- [29:40]
Amanda Knox
Then you have a long pause where nothing can be challenged. And I think that was really unusual. And that was because of the reporting restrictions that were in place. Because the Crown Prosecution Service decided that they would retry Lucy Letby on one count, it meant that there was one narrative had been put out there after the trial, and then there was a void.
- [30:07]
John Sweeney
Anouk and others had started to connect with experts in the fields of science and medicine who are using social media to raise concerns about the safety of convictions. Unable to report, they continued to work on the case quietly, behind the scenes.
- [30:23]
Amanda Knox
What people would do was to engage with journalists that they trusted and talk to them. And that's what went on. And it wasn't just me. There were other people like Felicity Lawrence at the Guardian and later Sarah Napton at the Daily Telegraph, John Sweeney, who's known for his coverage of these kind of cases. And so it was an unusual experience as a journalist, where you're gathering information quietly and following as things evolved. And it started with a few experts who had concerns and then snowballed.
- [30:57]
John Sweeney
Writers, scientists and doctors based outside of the UK were able to publish and share their opinions and analysis safely online. Being outside of UK jurisdiction, despite the UK restrictions, there was plenty of debate on social media where people took risks. Some bloggers tried to protect themselves using international domains. A number of these people reached out to me here in the us, saying they thought the Letby case had echoes of my own. I recorded some of these early conversations as I became increasingly aware that there was more to this case than most people realized, that the developments would be worth charting.
- [31:43]
Amanda Knox
I'm in a slightly interesting position and I'm not a journalist, I'm just a blogger.
- [31:52]
John Sweeney
Remember John Sweeney, the journalists in the helmet and flak jacket who tweeted on the day of Lucy Letby's conviction? Well, when he tweeted, he shared the blog of a statistician called Peter Elston who had become consumed by the case during the trial. Here he is talking to me back in February 2024.
- [32:13]
Amanda Knox
And until fairly recently, I was just a boring old fund manager who had a bit of an amateur interest in the justice system and. And miscarriages of justice. And then because of my blog, I'd written about, well, up until the verdicts were announced. I'd probably written about 10 pieces about the Lucy Letby case. And then when the verdicts were announced, all of a sudden the traffic to my blog just rocketed.
- [32:43]
John Sweeney
Peter was concerned that a young nurse was in prison for life for crimes she didn't commit. His blog became a refuge for others who had doubt, others who had followed the case and felt something about it all didn't add up and they wanted somewhere, anywhere to talk about it, because
- [33:03]
Amanda Knox
obviously a lot of people who were quite shocked by the verdicts and the mainstream media were reporting that Lucy was a serial killer. To get an alternative view, you had to look outside of that. And my blog was a place where people could get a slightly alternative view of things.
- [33:25]
John Sweeney
Numerous people have reached out to me about this case because they said that it reminded them of what happened to me, what similarities you see between this case and what I went through.
- [33:39]
Amanda Knox
Well, you're talking about scapegoating. It seems to be systemic within the NHS that there is this very toxic culture of scapegoating that has emerged in recent decades. But, yeah, it's certainly something that I've heard quite a lot about.
- [34:06]
John Sweeney
The nhs is the UK's National Health Service, funded by the taxpayer and free for all. You're likely to hear it referenced to throughout this series. In recent years, it's been roundly criticized. What about the media's involvement in this case? How has that impacted it at all?
- [34:28]
Amanda Knox
There was no reporting by the mainstream of an alternative hypothesis, namely that Lucy wasn't a serial killer. And I suppose if you think about that from the media's perspective, we're now in a situation where I know there are very serious journalists out there who are absolutely convinced that Lucy is not a serial killer and they're champing at the bit to write the story about the miscarriage. The British journalists who I'm particularly in touch with, they can't write the story because of the reporting restrictions.
- [35:14]
John Sweeney
In the silence that followed, something unexpected happened. Yes, the loudest voices went quiet, but the smaller, quieter ones found each other. If agenda setting is about who controls the storytelling spotlight, what was happening now was the opposite. A story growing in the dark. So thank you so much for reaching out about this case. You are one of many people who have reached out to me. By autumn 2023, another key voice was saying what many were afraid to say. Richard Gill, a retired professor of statistics. Richard is British, but moved to the Netherlands decades ago after falling in love with a Dutch girl. It occurs to me is that just a coincidence? Or is this a coordinated effort among advocates to reach out to people who might be interested?
- [36:11]
Amanda Knox
It's not coordinated, but advocates do have contact with one another. And I'm, you know, like the spider in the middle of the spider's web. People come to me and I connect them to other people.
- [36:23]
John Sweeney
Excellent. Richard was one of the first to publicly question the evidence, tweeting, writing, connecting experts across continents back in 2023. In the UK, many who shared his doubts stayed hidden in private Facebook groups. They were nurses, people afraid to see speak, afraid to be seen as defending a baby killer. When you stay in your home, what you love gets to stay too. From the gardens that grow wild to the grandkids that run wilder, from the Friday night baseball games to the Sunday morning brunches, even the daily crosswords and weekly book clubs, there's room for it all. With help from Home Instead, the largest in Home Senior Care network. With over 30 years of trusted experience delivering the peace of mind you deserve, visit Home instead online for a better what's next?
- [37:21]
Amanda Knox
Now I'd like to introduce you to
- [37:22]
John Sweeney
Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created
- [37:25]
Amanda Knox
by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care products simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all
- [37:37]
John Sweeney
skin tones and types and it's designed
- [37:39]
Amanda Knox
to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum.
- [37:51]
John Sweeney
This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. Its melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for fresh freshness and released onto the skin
- [38:00]
Amanda Knox
to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews,
- [38:05]
John Sweeney
why not give it a try?
- [38:06]
Amanda Knox
Subscribe today and you can get the
- [38:08]
John Sweeney
Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95.
- [38:11]
Amanda Knox
That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All that available@meaningfulbeauty.com Premier Protein it's for getting after life, not just Fitness. With 30 grams of protein, 160 calories and no sugar added, helping people fuel their joyful lives with Premier Protein, you can say yes to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with the kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends, Premier Protein offers delicious flavors like Cafe Latte, chocolate caramel, Vanilla, strawberry and cake batter, to name a few. Find your favorite flavor@premierprotein.com did you know
- [38:52]
John Sweeney
that parents rank teaching financial literacy as
- [38:55]
Amanda Knox
the toughest life skill?
- [38:57]
John Sweeney
That's where Greenlight comes in, the debit card and money app made for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to
- [39:03]
Amanda Knox
kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance
- [39:06]
John Sweeney
and track spending with real time notifications. Kids learn how to earn, save and spend responsibly while parents have peace of mind knowing smart money habits are being built with guardrails in place. Try Greenlight Risk free today@greenlight.com iheartra that's greenlight.com iheart I'm a member of a
- [39:30]
Amanda Knox
couple of closed Facebook groups, a bigger one of 80 or so people and a smaller one of 20. And many of them are nurses and many of them are people who have quite close insight into what goes on there. One of them is a former police inspector. And these people do not dare to come out in public. They are carefully, sort of one by one, talking to their best friends, and they are very happy when one of their best friends agrees to sort of listen to them for a little while. But yes, the tabloid media and social media have created an atmosphere where people do not dare to say that they think that Lucy Letby is innocent. Now I'm sort of famous and I stand up and say that. And lots of people email me that they are so grateful that somebody else is saying this out loud. And they tell me all kinds of things and they tell me really interesting things. They find out things and I put them onto Twitter. And I do think that the atmosphere is slowly, slowly, slowly shifting. But it's very, very slow.
- [40:47]
John Sweeney
In that silence, a second story began to take shape, one built quietly in emails, in closed forums, in midnight phone calls. The story of a health system under strain and a woman at its center, a story we will hear much more about in future episodes. It's been two and a half years since the trial of Lucy Lepy ended up. She has exhausted her appeals. She remains in prison. Yet her case never became yesterday's news. It's as fresh today as it was on the day Judge Goss, choking back tears, described the violent acts Lucy Letby had been found guilty of inflicting on the babies. Letby still dominates headlines and will continue to do so for who knows how long. The discourse around her now couldn't be more different than the one that greeted her verdict. Gone is the mainstream certainty that this is a story about a serial killer brought to justice in its stead is an all out war fought in the public square between two sides that can't agree on a shared version of reality. On one, police, the prosecution experts and the grieving families pleading with the public to accept her guilt. On the other, an ever growing number of prominent voices, among them some of the most eminent doctors in the world, shouting from the rooftops that the evidence doesn't add up, that there were probably never any murders at all. Over the course of this series, we won't just be cutting through the tangle that has sprung up around this case, we'll be hearing from people directly involved in it and we'll be uncovering vital evidence that has never been made public before, not even to the jurors who convicted Lucy Lepe. And if we want to understand what happened in the the UK hospital where a nurse was accused and babies died, we have to go there next time. We go back to the start of this story, to 2015, to the Neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital where too many babies were dying and the fingers of two doctors began to point at one young nurse. In later interviews broadcast on ITV and BBC, they would describe the moment their suspicions turned toward one of their own staff nurses.
- [43:32]
Amanda Knox
Could she be doing something deliberately? Oh no, it can't be Lucy. Not nice Lucy.
- [43:36]
John Sweeney
That's next on Doubt the Case of Lucy Letby. Doubt the Case of Lucy Let Be is brought to you by Vespucci, iHeart podcasts and Knox Robinson Productions. I've been your host, Amanda Knox. The co producers were Joe Meek and Lucy Ditchment. The assistant producers were Clusy De Oliveira and Lami Gill. Senior producer and production manager was Natalia Rodriguez. This episode was written by Joe Meek with help from Anouk Curry. Audio mix by Tom Biddle. The theme music was written by Tom Biddle. Story editing by Kathleen Goldhar. Legal advice was provided by Jack Browning. The producers at iHeart Podcasts are Chandler Mays and Katrina Norville. The executive producers were Joe Meek, Amanda Knox, Christopher Robinson, Daniel Turkin and Johnny Galvin. Thank you, thank you for listening. Sometimes all we want is more of the same. Like another round of golf played from a channel with 247 coverage. Another look at the garden and the deer as they pick their way through it. Another taco Tuesday Tuesday followed by a Whatever's in the Fridge Wednesday. And to get more of the same, all we need is a little help with adaptable care plans from qualified, compassionate caregivers matched to your family's needs. Home instead can help you and your passion stay home no matter what's on your horizon. Visit home instead online for a better what's next?
- [45:28]
Amanda Knox
Premier protein it's for getting after life, not just fitness. With 30 grams of protein, 160 calories, and no sugar added, helping people fuel their joyful lives with Premier Protein, you can say yes to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation at
- [45:42]
John Sweeney
work, building an epic fort with the
- [45:44]
Amanda Knox
kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends, Premier Protein offers delicious flavors like cafe latte, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, strawberry, and cake batter, to name a few.
- [45:54]
John Sweeney
Find your favorite flavor@premierprotein.com you see it instantly. It's Coldwater Creek, the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive style styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just the right drape Feel good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your look. Coldwater Creek's authenticity is embodied in every piece, embracing its confident spirit that carries through to today. Discover Coldwater Creek clothing designed to fit your life the way you want. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreek.com, shop the new spring collection at 20% off $75 or more with code iheart20. Did you know that parents rank teaching financial literacy as the toughest life skill? That's where Greenlight comes in the debit card and money app made for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to
- [46:52]
Amanda Knox
kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance,
- [46:55]
John Sweeney
and track spending with real time notifications. Kids learn how to earn, save, and spend responsibly while parents have peace of mind knowing smart money habits are being built with guardrails in place. Try Greenlight Risk free today@greenlight.com iheart that's greenlight.com iheartra.