Unseen bombshell email sent by doctor who was only Letby eyewitness CONTRADICTS his evidence to jury, Sun doc reveals

THE Sun’s investigative documentary will tomorrow night reveal a bombshell email undermining the ONLY eyewitness account against Lucy Letby. Consultant Dr Ravi Jayaram told jurors he walked into a nursery after becoming worried about leaving Letby alone with extremely premature Baby K. An email contradicts what Dr Ravi Jayaram told jurors Credit: Dan Charity Letby was jailed in August 2023 Credit: AP Dr Jayaram never claimed he actually saw Letby interfere with Baby K’s breathing tube Credit: PA He said he found the nurse standing beside the infant as her oxygen levels plummeted and her breathing tube was dislodged – but claimed Letby had neither sounded the alarm nor called for help. The prosecution said the chilling encounter amounted to Letby being caught “virtually red-handed”. But an email written by Dr Jayaram before police began their investigation gives a fundamentally different account. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! In the May 2017 he messaged to fellow consultants: “Staff nurse Letby at incubator and called Dr Jayaram to inform of low saturations.” It means his original account recorded Letby herself summoning the doctor as the baby’s oxygen levels fell – and is fundamentally DIFFERENT to what he told the court. It is not suggested this was intentional but it is another factor which could cast doubt on the safety of Letby’s conviction. Former Assistant Ch Con Dr Steve Watts – who wrote the manual on murder investigations in hospital settings – said the differing accounts needed to be looked at. He told The Sun: “On the one hand, he’s saying that Lucy Letby was standing there and inappropriately taking no action whatsoever. And on the other hand, he’s telling us that Lucy Letby called him in. I would be asking why his accounts were different.” Most read in The Sun Beverley Allitt cop, retired Det Supt Stuart Clifton – who has reviewed the Letby evidence for The Sun – said: “This is not a smoking gun at all. “It’s not even a damp squib because he’s confirmed it in his own words.” He added: “Dr Jayaram, you would have expected, if he thought that there was a murderer around, that he would have… done something, called her out. He would have taken some positive action in respect of that. “The reaction of Dr Jayaram on this particular day does not lead me to believe that he had come across somebody that had attempted to murder a baby. He didn’t take any course of action that suggested that. It comes as… A whistleblower says Lucy Letby may have been ‘scapegoat’ to cover up failures at the unit A mum says she believes her boy died of a sewage-linked bug that came from the taps months after Letby was removed from the unit Evidence that could have helped Letby’s defence ‘wasn’t heard in court’ A top surgeon’s damning verdict undermines the prosecution star witness “He didn’t even write that in the notes. And yet here he is, some considerable time later, giving this evidence to a court.” The discrepancy in Dr Jayaram’s account is so stark that the Thirlwall Inquiry has now highlighted it in her final report into the scandal at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016. Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall wrote: “That Dr Jayaram had gone into the room because he was called by Letby was different from what he had said in evidence.” She added: “No questions were asked about that.” Thirlwall found: “In the event, he told no one for over a year.” Dr Jayaram never claimed he actually saw Letby interfere with Baby K’s breathing tube. And despite later describing the incident as so troubling that it would remain in his “nightmares”, he made no medical note recording his suspicion, filed no Datix incident report and did not report his suspicion to police at the time. The incident nevertheless later became important as consultants pushed for police to investigate the extraordinary rise in deaths and collapses at the Countess of Chester Hospital. By March 2017 Dr Jayaram had told a senior manager about an incident in which a “baby deteriorated and LL at end of cot”. Weeks later, he and fellow consultants were assembling information to put before police. In his May email, Dr Jayaram said the purpose of the document was “for the police to have their interest piqued”. Letby has always denied the allegations against her Credit: Collect Consultants pushed for police to investigate the extraordinary rise in deaths and collapses at the Countess of Chester Hospital Credit: Dan Charity He suggested they should “highlight explicitly” cases where Letby had been in attendance and close to babies’ incubators. But the account recording that Letby called him to Baby K was not included in the final document sent to police, according to reports. Neither was his observation that events surrounding her subsequent death could be explained by extreme prematurity. The revelation is significant because Baby K later became one of the most dramatic allegations against Letby. At her 2024 retrial, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC asked Dr Jayaram whether he had received “any call for help from Lucy Letby?” He replied: “No, not at all.” He told jurors he had instead gone into the nursery because he already felt uncomfortable about Letby being alone with the child. Letby was convicted of attempting to murder Baby K by deliberately dislodging her breathing tube. The jury at her original trial had been unable to reach a verdict on the allegation. Questions are now also being raised about how narrowly the subsequent police investigation focused on the nurse. Former Assistant Chief Constable Dr Steve Watts has claimed detectives appeared to settle on Letby as the culprit at an early stage rather than adequately testing competing explanations. He said: “At a very early stage, it appears that Cheshire Police decided these children had been injured deliberately, and that Lucy Letby had done it.” Cheshire Police strongly dispute criticism of their investigation. The force says the six-year Operation Hummingbird investigation was painstaking and extensive, involving almost 70 officers, around 2,000 people being spoken to and multiple independent medical experts. And police were not persuaded to investigate by Baby K alone. Consultants presented them with a much wider picture involving unexplained deaths and collapses, unusual clinical features and their belief that Letby’s presence was a common factor. Former Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Wenham later described hearing the consultants’ concerns as an extraordinarily powerful moment. He told the Thirlwall Inquiry: “I can’t describe how powerful it was.” The consultants, he said, had “lived and breathed these events” and finally had the opportunity to speak to someone who would listen to them. A police spokesman said: “Cheshire Constabulary will not be commenting further in relation to this case. We strongly refute the allegations made and remain confident in the integrity of the investigation, the conduct of the prosecution, and the decisions reached by the courts. Our thoughts remain with the families of the babies – who have always been at the heart of this case.” A spokesperson for the Countess of Chester Hospital said: “We understand the significant public interest in these matters and recognise the importance of providing reassurance to our patients and the local communities we serve. “However, it is equally as vital that we continue to recognise and cooperate with the ongoing legal processes and we are unable to comment on issues that remain subject to an ongoing investigation by Cheshire Police. “When it is appropriate to do so, we will provide further information about the actions we have taken to strengthen patient safety and governance and about any further actions we take or have taken to address the Thirlwall Report’s findings and recommendations.” Dr Stephen Brearey and Dr Ravi Jayaram both declined to comment. WATCH & STREAM on 5 Lucy Letby: Scapegoat? Monday, September 21 at 10pm Comment now