LUCY LETBY CASE: SWIPE-CARD ERROR AND NEW JAYARAM MATERIAL PUT EVIDENCE UNDER FRESH SCRUTINY

A renewed dispute over the evidence used against Lucy Letby is drawing attention to one of the most important pieces of the case: the neonatal unit’s door-swipe records.

Former minister Sir David Davis has repeatedly questioned how investigators and prosecutors handled the evidence, while newly circulated material relating to Dr. Ravi Jayaram has prompted further debate online.

But one distinction is crucial:

There is currently no established evidence proving that police and Dr. Jayaram colluded to deliberately manipulate the data to secure Letby’s conviction.THE SWIPE-CARD DATA REALLY WAS WRONG

This part is not speculation.

The Crown Prosecution Service acknowledged in 2024 that door-swipe evidence presented during Letby’s first trial was incorrect.

The problem involved one door in the neonatal intensive care unit, where entry and exit information had been mislabelled. The error was corrected before the retrial concerning Baby K.

The mistake mattered because prosecutors had originally used the records to help establish who was inside the unit at particular times.

During the first trial, prosecutors said a designated nurse had left the unit at around 3:47 a.m.

The corrected information showed that she had actually returned at that time.

That changed the picture surrounding the events involving Baby K.

WHERE DOES DR. JAYARAM COME IN?

Dr. Ravi Jayaram was a key prosecution witness in the Baby K retrial.

His evidence concerned the moment he said he entered the nursery and saw Letby beside the baby’s incubator while the infant’s condition was deteriorating.

Publicly available material shows that investigators questioned Jayaram about his recollection of the timing and about how his account fitted with documentary evidence.

Newly circulated excerpts of an alleged police interview have now generated further discussion online.

However, the existence of an interview or differences between accounts does not establish that investigators secretly instructed Jayaram to alter his evidence.

DAVID DAVIS HAS RAISED MUCH BROADER CONCERNS

Davis has gone far beyond the swipe-card issue.

In Parliament, he has argued that there were serious failures in the investigation and has questioned the way expert evidence, statistical analysis and alternative explanations were handled.

In March 2026, Davis again raised concerns about the conduct of Cheshire Police and cited criticisms from former senior investigators.

He has also publicly argued that Letby’s convictions may represent a miscarriage of justice.

But those are his conclusions and criticisms, not a court finding that the convictions are unsafe.

 THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS

The most important issue is therefore not whether the swipe-card mistake existed.

It did.

The harder question is:

How much did that error affect the reconstruction of events presented to the first jury?

And a second question follows:

Were all relevant corrections, limitations and alternative interpretations properly disclosed and understood?

Those are legitimate issues for scrutiny.

But jumping from those questions to a proven claim of police-witness collusion goes beyond the evidence currently available.

 LETBY’S CONVICTIONS STILL STAND

Letby remains imprisoned after being convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder others.

She was also convicted at the 2024 retrial of attempting to murder Baby K.

Meanwhile, criticism of the case continues through parliamentary debate, documentary investigations and scrutiny of evidence submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

That means the controversy is far from finished.

THE SWIPE DATA WAS INCORRECT.

IT WAS CORRECTED FOR THE RETRIAL.

DR. JAYARAM’S EVIDENCE REMAINS UNDER PUBLIC SCRUTINY.

 SIR DAVID DAVIS CONTINUES TO QUESTION THE INVESTIGATION. BUT NO PUBLIC EVIDENCE HAS ESTABLISHED A SECRET POLICE–WITNESS CONSPIRACY.

The real story may ultimately depend on what further evidence emerges about how the original timelines were constructed, challenged and corrected.

Independent commentary based on publicly available court, CPS and parliamentary material. Allegations of deliberate manipulation or collusion are not presented as established facts.