Background and clinical expertise
Dr Martyn Pitman spent his career as a consultant obstetrician within the NHS. His specialism covers the management of high-risk pregnancies, fetal surveillance, and neonatal transition — precisely the clinical territory relevant to the majority of counts in the Letby indictment, which concerned premature infants whose antenatal course was already complicated. Following retirement he has spoken extensively on YouTube and in written analysis about what the antenatal and neonatal clinical records show, and about the extent to which those records were withheld from or inadequately presented to the jury.
Child C: reversed end-diastolic flow and antenatal timeline
Child C was born at extreme prematurity following a pregnancy complicated by reversed end-diastolic flow on Doppler ultrasound — a finding recorded in the antenatal notes approximately three weeks before delivery. Dr Pitman has analysed what that finding indicates about the fetal condition prior to birth and about the infant’s expected neonatal trajectory. His central argument is that the severity of the infant’s antenatal compromise was not adequately contextualised for the jury when assessing the subsequent deterioration. A baby with documented reversed end-diastolic flow in the weeks before delivery carries a substantially elevated risk profile that alters the baseline against which any postnatal clinical event must be measured.
Child D: antibiotic delay and chorioamnionitis
Child D’s mother had chorioamnionitis — uterine infection — at the time of delivery, a maternal condition that substantially elevates the risk of early-onset neonatal sepsis. Dr Pitman has drawn attention to clinical records indicating that antibiotic treatment for the infant was delayed by approximately sixty hours after delivery. His analysis contends that this delay constitutes a significant clinical management failure that precedes any alleged criminal act and provides an alternative explanation for the infant’s deterioration that was not fully put to the jury.
Child O: cannula placement during resuscitation
During the resuscitation of Child O, a paracentesis cannula was inserted into what Dr Pitman describes as a contraindicated anatomical location by members of the consultant-led team responding to the arrest. He has argued that this procedural decision, made by clinicians other than Letby, introduced a plausible mechanism for harm independent of the prosecution’s account. The significance of this observation is that it places an alternative clinical explanation on the record at the precise moment of the alleged offence — a matter, he argues, the defence should have pursued in evidence.
Child P: haemoglobin collapse
Child P experienced a haemoglobin reading collapse from 197 to 86 over a short period of hours. Dr Pitman has examined the clinical records around this event and identified documentation that, in his assessment, points to an alternative explanation for the trajectory rather than the deliberate harm the prosecution alleged. His reading of the timeline and the nursing and medical entries on the chart forms part of a broader argument that clinical records contain information inconsistent with the prosecution’s narrative that was either not retrieved during disclosure or not presented to the jury.
Read alongside
- Dr Dewi Evans — prosecution expert paediatrician
- Dr Sandie Bohin — defence expert paediatrician
- Prof. Shoo Lee — independent neonatal expert
- Evidence: air embolism
- Commentary library
Source
YouTube interviews and analysis videos by Dr Martyn Pitman; trial transcript references; Thirlwall Inquiry evidence bundles; NHS clinical-record documentation cited in Pitman’s public commentary.