12 Oct 2025

The case for Lucy Letby

From Sunday Morning, 9:38 am on 12 October 2025

Award-winning NZ feature documentary maker Charlotte Purdy has been researching the Lucy Letby case for more than two years. Letby, a neo-natal nurse, was convicted of the murder of seven infants at the UK’s Countess of Chester Hospital.

Charlotte Purdy’s research caught the eye of Channel 4’s commissioning agents and led to her being given an associate producer role for the channel’s new documentary Lucy Letby: Murder or Mistake. Charlotte joins Jim to talk about the case and about what her research uncovered.

A handout image released by Cheshire Constabulary police force in Manchester on August 17, 2023, shows the November 2020 custody photograph of nurse Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby was on August 18, 2023, found guilty of murdering seven newborn babies and trying to murder six others at the hospital neonatal unit where she worked, becoming the UK's most prolific killer of children. Letby, 33 -- on trial since October 2022 -- was accused of injecting her young victims, who were either sick or born prematurely, with air, overfeeding them milk and poisoning them with insulin. (Photo by Cheshire Constabulary / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT " AFP PHOTO / Cheshire Constabulary/ Handout " - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

Lucy Letby Photo: AFP / Cheshire Constabulary