The press conference called by Lucy Letby's defence team is set to begin in a few minutes.
Barring any technical glitches—I will be watching virtually—I plan to live-tweet developments as they unfold.
The press conference has begun. Letby's defence barrister is at the podium.
He is introducing the seated members of the panel: consultant neonatologist Richard Taylor, retired consultant paediatrician Roger Norwich and Royal Statistical Society member Peter Elston.
McDonald is reading the first of two statements.
Per the statement, the defence "will immediately seek permission from the Court of Appeal to take the exceptional, but necessary, decision to apply to reopen the Appeal of Lucy Letby and immediately review all her convictions."
"Obviously, our evidence, and statistical analysis, showed that [sic] Lucy Letby's presence at everything."
This is Paul Hughes—Cheshire police's lead investigator on the Letby case.
Everyone from police to prosecutors to the reporters in court agreed that the—yes, statistical—evidence of which nurses were on shift when the relevant deaths and collapses happened was absolutely central to the case.
But the supposedly solid foundations of the infamous "nurses present" graph have since collapsed. As a result, many are now trying to claim that statistics played no role whatsoever at Letby's trials.
It's a lie.
Here is how @BBCPanorama presented the—yes, statistical—nurse shift chart evidence last year.
"Staff rotas – we were able to show the jury that Letby was the one common denominator in the series of deaths and sudden collapses on the neonatal unit."
- Item 3 of 4 in the CPS' list of "Key evidence in the prosecution case"
Thus far, the following people's voices have been highlighted in the intro:
- Criminal barrister Mark McDonald
- Dr Svilena Dimitrova, consultant neonatologist and Ockenden review team member
- Dr Phil Hammond, @PrivateEyeNews's "Resident MD" columnist
@PrivateEyeNews Dr Phil Hammond describes how, after publishing a column accepting Letby's guilt last year, he heard from a number of prominent people raising questions about the case.