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Lucy Letby’s Lifelong Friends Speak Out on Why They Believe in Her Innocence
Even after Lucy Letby’s conviction, two of her closest friends have remained unwavering in their support, publicly sharing why they are convinced she did not commit the crimes for which she was found guilty.
Dawn Howe, who has known Letby since childhood, spoke candidly in the August 2025 ITV documentary Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? She described the emotional weight of living a life she believes Letby should be sharing with her.
“I’m living the life Lucy should be living right alongside me,” Dawn told the Mirror. “We were both buying homes, planning families, looking ahead to the next chapter—and then everything changed.”
She admitted to feeling deep guilt: “There’s so much guilt that I’m living a life Lucy should also be living.”
Dawn also addressed the controversial “confession notes” presented during the trial, offering context often overlooked. She explained that during their college years, she and Letby underwent peer support counseling training, where they were taught to write down overwhelming or distressing thoughts as a coping mechanism.
“When we were in college, Lucy and I did all our peer support counselling training together,” she said. “We were told that if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you should write down everything troubling you—your darkest thoughts—to process them.”
“I understand how people can take that note out of context and make it seem sinister,” Dawn added. “But knowing Lucy, I believe she wrote it as a way to cope with the stress and anxiety she was under.”
Though shocked by the verdict, Dawn initially considered the possibility that Letby might have made tragic errors in a high-pressure environment. “I thought maybe she’d forgotten parts of procedure or made mistakes,” she said. “There were moments I wondered if she’d inadvertently caused harm because she was so new and under such pressure—that’s why I thought she was being targeted.”
But when the guilty verdict was announced, she was stunned. “I was at work when it came through. I just sat there, dumbfounded. My first thought was, ‘This can’t be it. She can’t spend her whole life in prison.’ We were supposed to be building our futures together.”
Another steadfast supporter is Janet Cox, a former colleague who regularly attended court alongside Letby’s parents throughout the trial. When asked by reporters in August 2023 whether she believed Letby was innocent, Cox simply replied, “Yes.” She is among a small group of hospital staff who continue to stand by Letby.
Karen Rees, 62, a retired head of urgent care nursing at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Letby’s former senior manager, also defended her. Karen recalled being instructed to remove Letby from the neonatal ward after concerns arose about unusual infant deaths and “red flags” suggesting possible intentional harm.
Yet Karen emphasized that many colleagues insisted Letby always followed protocol meticulously. After being reassigned to a desk role, Letby expressed a strong desire to return to patient care—until her arrest.
“She was broken,” Karen said. “She cried regularly in my office. Her constant plea to me was, ‘Why are they doing this to me? I’ve done nothing wrong, Karen.’”
In the ITV documentary, Karen became visibly emotional recalling a pivotal moment: “Lucy once said to me, ‘Karen, you’re the only person who hasn’t asked me: Have I purposely harmed anybody?’ And I told her I never asked because I never believed she had. I just… I don’t believe it.”
A third voice comes from a woman identified only as “Maisie” in a Netflix documentary, her identity concealed for privacy. A fellow nurse and university classmate of Letby’s, Maisie described their close bond: “After four days at uni, we were basically inseparable. Lectures together, dinners at each other’s places—she had this quirky sense of humor. It was always fun.”
She painted a picture of Letby as a devoted only child, deeply cherished by her parents, who were immensely proud of her nursing ambitions.
Their first clinical placement together was at the Countess of Chester Hospital—an experience Maisie found immediately hostile. “The nurses were cliquey. We went to the staff room for lunch, and Lucy tried to join the conversation, but they just ignored her,” she recalled.
“There was a sense that neither the nursing staff nor the medical team wanted us there. I started to feel like some people were deliberately making things difficult for Lucy—just because she was shy and quiet.”
While Maisie chose not to stay at the hospital, Letby applied for a permanent role in the neonatal unit—a decision that puzzled her friend. “I didn’t understand why she wanted to stay, given how she’d been treated.”
Graduation was bittersweet. “Our families had dinner together. Lucy’s parents put an announcement in the local paper—they were so proud. But I was worried about how she was coping.”
Letby is currently serving 15 whole-life sentences for the murder of seven infants and the attempted murder of seven others between June 2015 and June 2016. In a letter shown in the documentary, Letby writes to Maisie from prison, vowing not to give up and describing her daily conditions with quiet resilience.
