The conviction of Lucy Letby for the murder of seven neonates and the attempted murder of six others stands as a watershed moment in British criminal history. structural fragility that legal scholars and our own
are only now beginning to dismantle: the prosecution’s total reliance on the expert testimony of Dr. Dewi Evans.
To the jury, Dr. Evans was presented as a distinguished, independent authority—a "grand old duke" of neonatology. But a forensic audit of his legal history and his conduct reveals a terrifying pattern. The public record suggests Dr. Evans functions not as an impartial servant of the court, but as a "hired gun"—an instrument of the prosecution designed to secure convictions by retrofitting science to suit police narratives.
Is Dr. Evans an impartial expert? Or is he a man who finds murder where others see tragedy, simply because he was instructed to find it?
The "Smoking Gun": The Court of Appeal Censure (2022)
The most damning indictment of Dr. Evans’s credibility does not come from defence barristers, but from one of the highest judges in the land.
In December 2022—while the Letby trial was actually ongoing—Lord Justice Peter Jackson handed down a judgment in the Court of Appeal regarding Dr. Evans’s conduct in a separate case involving a care order for two children.
Dr. Evans had produced a report supporting an application to appeal, effectively arguing against the findings of other experts. Lord Justice Jackson did not merely reject Dr. Evans’s arguments; he dismantled his entire professional competence.
In his written judgment refusing permission to appeal, the senior judge described Dr. Evans’s report as "worthless."
He went further, stating that the report:
"Makes no effort to provide a balanced opinion."
He concluded that the report ended with "tendentious and partisan expressions of opinion" that were outside his professional competence.
Let that sink in. "Worthless." "Partisan." In legal terms, this is a nuclear strike. It implies the expert is operating on bias rather than scientific deduction. Yet, despite being branded scientifically worthless in a parallel context, Dr. Evans was allowed to continue standing before the Letby jury as the world’s leading authority on neonatal murder.
A Pattern of "Finding" Murder
This was not an isolated incident. Dr. Evans has a documented history of seeing violence where others see tragedy.
1. The Death of Lindsay Angela Alvarez (2009/2014)
In the tragic case of a toddler who died from salt poisoning complications, Dr. Evans was called as an expert witness. While the inquest heard the child had fallen down stairs weeks prior, Dr. Evans told the court he "couldn't rule out" that she might have been thrown down the stairs, injecting a theory of violence into a complex medical case. The Public Prosecution Service ultimately ruled out prosecution, yet Dr. Evans had already introduced the spectre of murder.
2. Re A and B (Children) [2015]
In a Northern Ireland High Court case, Dr. Evans initially provided a report suggesting injuries to a child were non-accidental (abuse). However, under cross-examination and after being shown photographs he hadn't properly considered, he "shifted his opinion" and moved away from his original conclusion. The trial judge criticised him, noting that his evidence "should have been more considered and structured."
This establishes a terrifying pattern: Dr. Evans frequently starts with a presumption of guilt/abuse, only to have his theories crumble when tested against rigorous evidence or judicial scrutiny. In the Letby trial, his theories were accepted as fact.
The "Shopping List": Retrofitting Science to Suspicion
In any legitimate forensic investigation, the medical evidence must lead to the conclusion. In the Letby case, Dr. Evans inverted this principle: the conclusion dictated the evidence.
Dr. Evans abandoned the gold standard of "blind review." Instead of analysing medical notes neutrally, he admitted in cross-examination that he was fully aware of the police suspicions and "intelligence" regarding Letby before he finalised his reports.
The most chilling admission concerned the "
Air Embolism
Air Embolism: A blockage of blood supply caused by air bubbles. In this case, Dr. Evans diagnosed it based on "red rashes," contradicting the medical textbook definition of "white/blanching" skin.
" theory—the mechanism of death for several babies. In a shocking moment of candour, Dr. Evans admitted: "I had not thought of air embolus" until he saw the police intelligence.
This is the "shopping list" approach. The clinical signs did not trigger the diagnosis; the police narrative did. He effectively went shopping for a cause of death that the police could use to implicate a nurse, settling on a "stealth weapon" that is conveniently invisible at autopsy and leaves no trace.
The Air Embolism Lie: Rewriting the Textbooks
To substantiate this "Air Embolism" theory, Dr. Evans relied heavily on skin discolouration—rashes seen on the infants. He told the court these were pathognomonic (unique proof) of air injection, citing a seminal 1989 paper by Lee & Tanswell.
However, a basic reading of that paper reveals a discrepancy so vast it borders on fabrication. The scientific literature describes "blanching" (white) patches where blood flow is blocked by air bubbles (ischemia). The witnesses in the Letby case, however, described bright red or purple rashes.
When challenged on this fundamental mismatch, Dr. Evans did not reconsider. He dismissed the authoritative textbooks as "limited" and invented a new, unproven theory about "histamine release" to explain away the contradiction.
He effectively told the jury: The textbook is wrong; I am right; this is murder.
The "Ivory Tower": A Retired Critic
It is crucial to note that Dr. Evans effectively retired from frontline clinical practice around 2009. The events at the Countess of Chester occurred in 2015 and 2016.
This six-year gap is a lifetime in neonatology. By the time he was judging Lucy Letby, he was applying a standard of "textbook perfection" to a unit in crisis, ignoring the reality of chronic staffing shortages, and raw sewage leaks in the sluice rooms.
He saw "sabotage" where a practising clinician would have recognised a hospital system collapsing under pressure.
Conclusion: The Expert on Trial
Lucy Letby is serving a whole life order. But that conviction rests on a foundation that is geologically unstable: the opinion of Dr. Dewi Evans.
He is a "methodological opportunist" who admitted to helping the police find theories. He is a man whose reports have been legally condemned as "worthless" and "partisan" by a Lord Justice of Appeal.
Justice demands that evidence be tested against the highest standards. In the case of Lucy Letby, it was tested against the word of a man who should never have been allowed in the witness box.
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