The murder convictions of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby have been branded by her supporters as a gross miscarriage of justice, one of the worst in UK legal history 

The claim still comes as a shock. At the time the sentences were handed down for killing seven babies under her care, the condemnation seemed almost universal; the only questions being speculation as to her motivations.

“She has thrown open the door to Hell and the stench of evil overwhelms us all,” a columnist in the Daily Mail wrote with typical tabloid frenzy.

But this year 14 leading paediatric and neonatal specialists collated a 700-page report arguing there was no clinical evidence of deliberate harm to any of the babies – the deaths were the result of poor medical care and missed diagnoses.