Welcome to the September 2025 newsletter.
We begin by looking at the recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection at the Countess of Chester Hospital (CoCH).
Their 42-page report details a catalogue of failures, including visibly dirty equipment, inadequate infection control, severe overcrowding, prolonged ambulance handover times, and critical staffing shortages.
The A&E department received an “inadequate” rating, with the overall facility deemed as “requires improvement”.
Perhaps most concerning, the hospital is failing to manage sepsis effectively. The latest data from June 2024 shows that only 59% of patients received treatment within the hour, way below the target of 84%.
The hospital's CEO, Jane Tomkinson, expressed disappointment and promised enhanced actions, but her response feels inadequate given the gravity of the findings and the hospital's history of unaddressed concerns.
The Yellow Butterfly Group is frankly mortified that given what we already know as fact, (due to what is already in the public domain about the state of the hospital 10 years ago) they are still falling well short of the most basic standards required.
I think you can see where we are going with this and I’ll leave it to you to fill in the blanks. You can read the full article published in the Guardian below:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/08/emergency-care-lucy-letby-countess-chester-hospital-falling-short-legal-standards
Also from the Guardian was an article relating to the role of expert witnesses, where Supreme Court Deputy President Lord Patrick Hodge has urged judges and lawyers to enhance their scientific and technical literacy to better evaluate expert witness testimony.
Speaking as president of the Expert Witness Institute, Hodge emphasised the need for caution to prevent future miscarriages of justice.
Although he didn’t directly cite Lucy in his criticism, it’s hard not to believe she wasn’t somewhere very near the forefront of his mind when expressing such concerns.
Hodge then warned of the dangers of an expert witness compromising their impartiality by being too anxious to please the client or the lawyers who have instructed them. Again, need I say more?!
More information is in the brilliant article by Jessica Murray below:
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/aug/08/judge-tells-colleagues-to-be-on-their-guard-over-expert-witness-evidence
August also saw not one but two documentaries aired on ITV1 and BBC1 respectively.
The ITV one, titled “Beyond Reasonable Doubt", was largely put together in support of Lucy’s innocence, looking at some of the many things to come to light post-trial.
There is no question that the documentary has reached huge numbers of people who had forgotten all about Lucy since the original verdicts were passed a little over 2 years ago and were probably completely unaware of the concerns surrounding the safety of the conviction.
It is crucial that documentaries such as this continue to be made to keep Lucy fresh in the public’s mind and to constantly update the steady flow of developments that keep coming and coming.
The documentary can be watched in full on YouTube by clicking the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UohWz9L6PTs
The following week brought the BBC Panorama documentary titled “Who To Believe".
This documentary was a lot more sceptical and leaned in favour of Lucy being guilty, which shouldn’t really come as any great shock to those of you who have been following the case for a while now.
A large portion of the program centred around challenging the new evidence that has come from both the international panel of 14 experts and several others who have also weighed in at various times.
It was very disappointing to see those claiming to debunk the new evidence remaining anonymous. Transparency should work both ways and we should be able to scrutinise their credentials, the same way those speaking in Lucy's defence have themselves been scrutinised.
For those of you annoyed at how this documentary was played out, I’d urge you not to be and to remember the saying, “No one is your friend, no one is your enemy, everyone is your teacher!”
In other words, you learn nothing by marking your own homework and these new counter claims should still be taken seriously and fully looked into. “If” genuine flaws have been found, then it’s better to have them pointed out now and get them rectified, rather than further down the line during a CCRC or CoA review or worse still in court, where the stakes couldn’t be higher.
What we must never be is complacent, lazy or apathetic. That is exactly the attitude that got Lucy convicted the first time around and we must not let history repeat itself. There is no growth in comfort and everything must be reviewed over and over again to ensure the case is 100% water tight.
That brings us to the shocking claim at the end of the documentary about the increased number of breathing tube dislodgements when Lucy had training at Liverpool Woman’s Hospital (LWH) in 2012 and 2015.
The original airing of the program claimed that breathing tubes became dislodged 40% of the time when Lucy was on shift, compared to the usual average of around 1%.
Leaving aside the fact that Lucy was actually training at LWH and under almost constant supervision, these metrics are completely untrue.
After a series of complaints to the BBC, they took the surprising but very welcome step of revising some of the data and the language used in this particular part of the documentary. Although they didn’t go quite far enough, it does show what can be achieved by calling out these erroneous claims in the right and proper way and via the correct channels provided.
You can listen to and compare before and after versions in the YouTube link below, which has been very helpfully put together by Jabe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vExxEQi4dPE
I highly recommend you subscribe to Jabe’s channel. It has lots of similar things related to Lucy, where sections have been cut out of various documentaries, TV programs and news outlets so you, the viewer, are able to watch exactly what it is that you are looking for.
From the opening titles of the first documentary to right now, the petition enjoyed a huge surge of over 1700 signatures, which we are both delighted about and very grateful for. As of now, it stands at 6821 signatures.
I would like to express my personal thanks to those of you who have gone out of your way in the last month to share it on various platforms including Facebook, X and YouTube. You know who you are and from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
I have said it before and I will say it again that the petition is something we all have equal share in. Every signature counts as one and every milestone it hits is a collective achievement that we can all be proud of.
The Yellow Butterfly Group has three very busy months coming up before the run up to Christmas and you will be seeing and hearing a lot more between now and then. We also aim to double the content on our YouTube channel in that time, so please keep an eye out for that.
For now I will close by reminding everyone that fighting for Lucy’s justice is always going to be a rocky road, with lots of highs and lows along the way. We should absolutely celebrate every small victory, but at the same time remember that the only victory that really counts is when Lucy walks free.
Until then, the only reward is that we get to fight again.
Christopher Logan (YB Group founder, chairman and campaign lead)