The head of investigations at the miscarriage of justice watchdog has been forced to step down from the Lucy Letby review over concerns of bias. Yesterday, The Sun revealed that Shaun Edwards, who leads investigations for the Criminal Cases Review Commission, had praised Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes from Cheshire Police for his role in leading the controversial Operation Hummingbird on X.

According to the news report, Edwards was attending an awards ceremony some months after Lucy Letby’s second trial when Cheshire police won the investigation team of the year. ‘Very well deserved,’ he posted. ‘… Has successfully led an extremely significant high profile complex investigation into the murders/attempted murders carried out by Lucy Letby at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Has the admiration and respect of all his SIO peers from across the country.’

The Sun described this revelation as a ‘bombshell’ and acknowledges that it wasn’t aware Edwards had any involvement with the review of the case. A CCRC spokesman said: ‘Anything said in 2024 by Mr Edwards about a conference before he joined the CCRC has no bearing on our review. He has helped to take forward the CCRC’s enquiries in this case and, in the interests of transparency, will play no further part in it.’ Last month the watchdog took the unprecedented step of publishing an application timeline to, in its words, ‘limit possible misunderstandings about the time spent so far reviewing Ms Letby’s convictions’.