The judicial summing-up — what the jury were directed on, and what they were not
Prosecution claim
Mr Justice Goss's summing-up at the original trial was a fair judicial exposition of the evidence and a proper direction on the applicable law. The jury retired to deliberate with an adequate understanding of what each side had presented.
Counter-evidence
A judicial summing-up in a case of this structure had specific directions that should have been given and specific limits on the evidence that should have been flagged for the jury. On the Crown's lead causation expert, the jury should have been alerted to Dr Dewi Evans's self-referral to police, his decade out of routine NICU practice, and the forensic-not-diagnostic character of his methodology. On the shift-rota chart, the jury should have been walked through the post-Sally-Clark RSS framework on selection effects. On the Post-it notes, the jury should have been walked through the distinction between private self-blame writing and forensic confession. Independent legal commentary — including the Bar Council letter signatories, Rob Rinder KC, Lord Sumption, and the October 2025 CCRC application — argues these directions were either absent or inadequate. This is not a personal criticism of Mr Justice Goss, who did not have the post-conviction independent expert evidence available when directing the jury; it is a structural feature of the record that the CCRC must now weigh.
A summing-up is the last sustained exposition the jury hears before deliberation. If it did not alert them to the methodological limitations of the Crown's causation expert, the selection-effect problem in the shift chart, and the private-self-blame alternative reading of the notes, it did not equip them to weigh the case as a 2026 reader now can.
What the jury heard
The jury heard the summing-up as delivered. They did not have the Panel report, the Joint Insulin Report, the clinical-psychology expert reports, or the Thirlwall Inquiry evidence that would have informed a 2026-adequate direction.
What the Panel says
The Panel addresses the medical evidence, not the judicial direction on it. Its finding that the medical evidence does not support deliberate harm is independent of any view on the summing-up.
What independent experts add
- The Royal Statistical Society's post-Sally-Clark framework is the canonical UK reference for statistical directions in criminal cases.
- Modern UK expert-evidence directions are expected to address methodology, instruction history, and limitations of expert opinion.
- The Private Eye M.D. column and the April 2025 Bar Council letter have both raised specific concerns about the summing-up directions.
- The October 2025 CCRC application materials include detailed submissions on specific directions.
- A Court of Appeal on referral can consider the adequacy of the summing-up as one ground on which a conviction is unsafe, alongside new evidence and procedural irregularity.