Using parliamentary privilege, Conservative MP David Davis has questioned why UK readers were not allowed to examine an article on the case of former nurse Lucy Letby in a well-known US magazine.
The embargo on the New Yorker report, he told colleagues MPs, appeared to be “in defiance of open justice.”
Letby was found guilty last summer of killing seven infants while working as a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital. She has requested permission to file an appeal of her convictions. The attempted murder accusation against her, on which the previous jury was unable to reach a judgment, is scheduled for retrial in June.
A 13,000-word article detailing her case was published by The New Yorker on Monday, although it is not available online for UK readers. Because of Letby’s impending retrial, British media are constrained in their reporting under English law.
Davis stated, “That article was blocked from publication on the UK internet,” during Tuesday’s justice questions in the House of Commons. This appeared to be “in defiance of open justice,” he argued.
Davis requested that Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, examine the limitations of reporting. He said, “Will the Lord Chancellor investigate this and report back to the house?”
Chalk retorted that although court orders are binding, they can be overturned by an application. Therefore, it will have to happen in the regular order of things. Regarding the Lucy Letby case, I’ll merely say that the jury’s decision has to be accepted. If an appeal is warranted, it should proceed according to protocol.
Letby was found guilty of killing seven infants and attempting to kill six more between June 2015 and June 2016, receiving fourteen life sentences.
