Lecture: The Case of Nurse Lucy Letby – When Statistics Become Evidence (Prof. Dr. John O'Quigley)
The Institute for Biostatistics and Medical Informatics invites you to a lecture by Prof. Dr. John O’Quigley of University College London titled:
The Case of Nurse Lucy Letby – When Statistics Become Evidence
The lecture will take place on Thursday, May 14th 2026, at 14:00 in the Physiology Lecture Hall of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana (Zaloška 4), and will be held in English. The content is suitable for both professional and general audiences.
The case of nurse Lucy Letby
In August 2023, at Manchester Crown Court, U.K., nurse Lucy Letby was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison. Fifteen times over. No possibility of ever being released. She was accused of murdering and harming new born babies, several of which were very premature and whose lives already hung in the balance. What was the material evidence against nurse Letby? Incredibly enough, there was none. How many witnesses saw her attempting to inflict harm on any baby. Incredibly enough ... none. So, on the basis of what evidence was she convicted?
Statistics!
Hard though that may be to believe, the only accusatory evidence pointing at nurse Letby was statistics. In this talk we review the supposed statistical evidence against nurse Letby. Any data analyst, epidemiologist or statistician can see how hopelessly flawed this evidence is. We show that the so-called statistical evidence can be used to frame almost any nurse we wish. This kind of evidence follows a blueprint that has been used successfully by prosecutions to convict nurses and doctors in many countries and not just the U.K.