‘We don’t feel safe’: Inside Piddington’s migrant revolt

the telegraph residents of the tiny village of piddington are taking the law into their own hands and even having self-defense classes in the face of a migrant invasion we speak to the chairman of piddington parish council who tells us the village is laying out a blueprint for other towns to push back but will andy burnham take in an atis welcome to the daily tea with me camilla tommy and me jacob reese mogg the issue about this is it's not about a political issue it's about proportionality and security and for us it's about if it was you know 1258 priests and vicars uh it still wouldn't be right it's about proportionality in a simulation if it was proportional we should be having five or six ten piddington is represented by a lib dem counselor and a lib dem mp and the lib dems are in favor of mass migration are in favor of giving asylum to any old crook who comes into the country and therefore democracy has led to them being in this position if they voted conservative and we had a conservative government that was using the rwanda scheme we would not have this problem as it is well hang on a minute you didn't give it long enough you sent more um home secretaries to rwanda than you did migrants jacob have you heard the news oh the very exciting news about you interviewing bridget phillipson at the labour party conference stop the presses we must tell everybody about this when i go to bed at night i say this is exciting camilla is going to be interviewing la phillipson the terror of the class warfare indeed the class warrior herself and i will be going to head to head at the daily tea on the road at the labour party conference so do check out all of the details which are going to be in the show notes as to how to get involved i was actually talking about different kinds of things like the music of the gallagher brothers no i don't believe i am you know who i'm talking about liam and noel no not particularly oasis i know about noel edmunds nothing to do with him no what you can't possibly be telling me that you've never heard of oasis jacob rees-mogg well i thought it was a thing you put flowers in don't you put i think they also appear in deserts how about if i started singing to you um so sally can wait she knows it's too late as we're walking on by you're not familiar with that um i thought she wheeled a wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow seeing cockles and muscles alive alive are they the same people i know you live up to your double-breasted reputation but you cannot possibly be telling me as a father of six who has attended sporting fixtures i can't tell you i've never heard about sally in the alley or whatever your song you haven't heard wonderwall i've never heard wonder woman i mean i've watched wonder woman as a child what wonder she's a wonder wonder woman is that oasis wonderwall don't look back in anger i will confess i have heard of oasis ah i knew you were having me on one i didn't know the names of the people what noel and liam gallagher i didn't know they were called fans of this podcast apparently according to rachel johnson delighted to hear it and i wish them every success so you won't be registering for tickets for their their gig at nebworth as i have this no but i must get my for lords because lords for next year's cricket it's the ashes and the window for applying is open at the moment when's what's the last gig you went to i don't go around in a gig i go in a motor car have you ever been in a mosh pit come on be honest i'm afraid i don't know what you're talking about have you you must have gone to a concert quite recently you like music i went to of course well on that bombshell so two sets of tickets to be concerned about oasis gallagher brothers if you've heard of them i've heard of them i've heard of them i've heard of them sending me a pair that would be great and also bridget phillipson versus camilla tommy which will be box office one of us may be looking back in anger but that's enough hackney's references to that can we talk about piddington do you have sympathy with the good people of piddington who are facing the prospect of largely young men from overseas of working age being quotes dumped on their tiny village or at least to an mod base nearby as part of the government's attempt to stop the boats i mean they're not smashing the gangs or stopping the boats because they can't even stop a village like piddington being overrun by illegal immigrants i do have a certain sympathy for some of the residents but you've got to remember that piddington is represented by a lib dem counselor and a lib dem mp and the lib dems are in favor of mass migration are in favor of giving asylum to any old crook who comes into the country and therefore democracy has led to them being in this position if they'd voted conservative and we had a conservative government that was using the rwanda scheme we would not have this problem as it is and so i think they have to take responsibility for their actions so i'm sympathetic to the ones who voted reform and conservative but i'm afraid a majority of them voted in local elections in may yeah for a lib dem all right but hang on a minute homes of multiple occupancy did exist under the last government and the boris wave produced four million extra people into the country including dependents all this is true all this is and you did have migrant hotels on your watch and i appreciate the rwanda thing but whose fault is it that the first flight didn't take off rishi sunak announcing an election in the rain no it's not it's that kirsten were cancelled the policy since he got into office you should have proven the policy's effectiveness by having the policy run before he called that a jet election then you'd have it it was already working as a deterrent before the election people were going to the republic of ireland well hang on a minute i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry hang on a minute they weren't but you didn't give it you didn't give it long enough and also there was that famous you sent more um home secretaries to rwanda than you did migrants we were coming that's because the policy hadn't been implemented yes but we were we were coming to a general election within a very short space of time anyway and so there were a few weeks here although i wasn't going to make that much difference what was the real problem was the policy that was ready to go oven baked as you might say yeah somebody once said somebody once said that uh was abandoned the moment labor came into office and that has added an attraction to come into uk people know that they get here they have an over 90 chance of staying and the lib dems of labor are in favor of that yes and the good people of pittington have voted for that sorry i'm going to push back a little bit so i'm going to feel very sympathetic to people in lincolnshire who voted against all of this but people who have voted for lib dem policies must expect lib dem policies so the lesson is vote conservative all right or or nigel farage might say vote for reform he might but he's not here so i'm going to say vote conservative i'm going to just push back one more time because in australia they stopped the boats by the right-wing party the liberals coming up with a similar scheme to process migrants offshore in nairu and the reason why the labor government that came in afterwards kept the plan was because it was proven to be tried and tested and effective where the tories went wrong is they did not give the rwanda scheme enough time to be established so that it was then undeniable to labor that it was doing something to deter people from coming to this country yes keir starmer cancelled it out of a degree of kind of political vindictiveness but he might have been forced into the corner of just accepting it and carrying it on if rishi sunak hadn't panicked or got fed up or decided to call an election in the pouring rain because he was proving to be unpopular for the first time in his life you unfortunately bottled it and that's why we're in this mess i just don't think that's right unless you were to suspend the quinquennial act that an election was looming regardless the rwanda scheme would have been in its very earliest days even if we had had a general election at the very last minute which was technically could have gone to january but that always seemed very unlikely december of 2024 the labor party was deeply committed to abolishing this policy not only that but they changed the law so that people who arrive here illegally on small boats can now claim asylum whereas the conservative said they couldn't ever claim asylum they changed that law so they changed important laws and they changed the law and they changed the law so they changed the law so they changed the law so they changed the law that make coming here more attractive make it easier tens of thousands have come and then they've got to be put somewhere and it seems perfectly fair to put them in areas that have voted for these policies that's what they asked for and what's your response to those who accuse brexiteers of starting all this because we know that the small boat crossings were very low pre-2019 and then they escalated because of brexit some remainers claim well this is absolute nonsense people were using different methods they were coming through in lorries in large numbers it's not a brexit issue and the dublin agreement meant that we took more people in than we sent out because we accepted a very high percentage of the applications made to receive asylum seekers from the rest of the european union and only four percent of our applications to remove them back to where they'd come from were accepted and we've been through that on the daily t before we went through all the figures on one of my previous visits all right shall we speak to the leader of the local council in piddington a man called tim mcnally who can give us the latest on the saga going on in his tiny village jacob you grasp the neffelman because you're concerned that the good people of piddington might have brought this upon themselves well that does seem to me to be a problem that piddington is represented by a councillor and by a member of parliament the lib dems are notoriously weak on asylum and that therefore people have got what they've voted for and i quite understand that people in piddington a small which are furious that they're going to get 1,500 asylum seekers. But if people like the voters of Piddington had voted Conservative at the last election, there would have been the Romanda Scheme and people would have been removed. Well, Jacob, on that, thank you both of you for having me on. Very simply, Piddington is a tiny little village as part of a brand-new constituency that was set up specifically for 2024, which incorporated Vista and Woodstock. We have only potentially 190, 180 or so adults would be competing against basically a 9,000 majority. How could we have actually impacted against that? And in terms of, no, I don't have any affiliation to the Liberal Democrats, and even Callum Miller, who is the MP, has apologised to me for being associated in that way. But we've actually taken what I call an apolitical route to our campaign. We're not actually, because our village is full of everyone from all aspects, from all the far right to the far left. There is no one strong position here. And I think, really, the issue about this is it's not about a political issue. It's about proportionality and security. For us, it's about, if it was, you know, 1,258 priestesses and vicars, it still wouldn't be right. It's about proportionality and assimilation. What are we having to do as an environment to actually assimilate against the numbers of 1,250? If it was proportional, we should be having five or six, ten. We already have 600 Afghanis and Chobrisers who have been brought in through the exchange, processed locally in our communities. We're not, you know, totally pushing back on everything. But this is a problem because the government doesn't want to discuss security. And when it does, it uses words which are very deceiving, security vetting. And that's unacceptable for people because they know they're going to be using the likes of validating through biometric systems and databases. But these people aren't part of any system. They only become part of a biometric system when they're actually fingerprinted and photographed, when they're. When they arrive on the shores of the United Kingdoms. And the people who are going to be in the camp, they're free to roam, aren't they? That they are not kept enclosed. They are entitled to go wherever they like at any time. Correct. And, you know, I've personally gone to Wethersfield where such a site already exists. I've met with the residents there, and I'll perfectly, perfectly thank them. It was quite an upsetting experience for me, not because of Piddington, but because of the fact that these people have lived with this behaviour for the last four years. There's no press. There's no MPs. There's no Home Office representation. They are ignored. And they live in a hellhole. Men are walking through their properties at 4am in the morning. And so you're going to hold a referendum about this. I mean, the government won't be bound by that referendum. What else can you do? Can you hold pickets? I mean, I'm thinking perhaps of passport to Pimlico. Can you really ramp it up to stop people coming in if the government. Jacob, as you well know, it would be quite illegal to do such an act of blocking and controlling. We would do an absolute transparency and legality and everything we do is correct and proper. What we are doing is. Sorry to interrupt. You can't picket, can't you? I mean, the trade union laws don't apply to private pickets. You could stand outside the base and tell the bus drivers not to go through. Yes, we could do that. It's just not in our nature. You know, we're experienced professionals. We're professional people. We'd go ahead and get things done. We could have done protests all this time, but we've chosen actually to go for what I call the political jugular. And the reason why I'm going for the political jugular is because politics is broken to the constituents of our society. The very fact that we elect MPs who go into Parliament and the minute they go into Parliament, they're then told you cannot talk about certain subjects. They lose their brain and lose their tongue. And as far as I'm concerned, that's not democracy. That's a form of dictatorship. And I'm fed up with that. I want that fixed. Yeah, well, I mean, I agree with you. And it is the job of a constituency MP to stand up for villages like Piddington. And it's not proper, in my view, for an MP to sit on his hands and weep crocodile tears. He should be joining you and doing everything he can and using every parliamentary mechanism to disrupt business in Parliament to make the point and embarrass the government. There are lots of things you can do as an MP, that don't change the law, but are annoying to the government of the day if you feel strongly about something. And I'm with you on that, Jacob. So one of the things, you know, we do keep into account, and although we have differing views, I cannot say that he's not doing his job. Basically, there's been two counts on the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, in Prime Minister's question time on the question of Piddington. And then again, several days later, he called the Speaker of the House at the Dispatch, to call the government to account and to ensure that they deliver a message back at the Dispatch Box, of which nothing has happened still. He spent half an hour, was only given half an hour at the Home Office to ask four questions about a 10-year proposal and 1,258 men. That's just a disgrace, right? So the whole process, as far as I'm concerned, who would want to be part of a country that does this to its people? That's the question here. The other thing, Tim, is that you're saying, that you're trying to hit them in the political jugular, but villagers are also taking matters into their own hands. So talk to us about the plans you've got for CCTV emergency alerts. Well, the CCTV isn't a political piece in any emergency training, you know, in terms of defence, and we'll go through those things. The political jugular one is this. The very fact that we hold a vote that records the sentiment of this village is a national piece of work. Everyone knows that. And that is what the sentiment is today, here. But I will tell you now, that's the sentiment across this entire country. The number of people who are now following our blueprint and want to be part of what we have done has exceeded a huge number. I've had, I'd say, 1,000 emails asking us to teach them and give them the blueprint of what we've done so they can go and do the same and become and grow the grassroots of politics, make it interesting, make it effective, make it deliverable, make politicians understand what's expected, what's expected of them if they go into politics. What's in the blueprint? How can others learn from Piddington's experience? Because what I'm saying is, yes, you're taking the fight politically, but you're also coming out with some practical measures to ensure that the local community there feels safe. Correct, so the practical measures we're doing is we're doing CCTV across, in terms of we're building out a wide area network of CCTVs. We're doing self-defence classes for anyone who wishes to be involved and be part of that process. We've consulted with the police. We're trying to engage and trying to set what we call a security audit for the village and work out ways we can best manage the village and manage the people within it to ensure we're kept safe at all times. We don't anticipate everyone to be a bad egg, but all it takes is one. And unfortunately, one is more than it needs to be. So as I say, this blueprint we've got, the blueprint is more about spreading the word to other parish councils that they need to step up and that their communities need representation. Because half our problem in our politics is engagement. There is no engagement. There's not enough engagement. And that's how we get this disproportionate, from time to time, of the wrong governments in play because people are just complacent and actually not attending and doing their part to vote. Sure, but there is a problem here, isn't there, in that you obviously identify and you've found kinship with other areas that are also fearful of a so-called migrant invasion. But if they don't end up down the road in Piddington, they're in somebody else's back. They're in somebody else's backyard. I mean, the core problem here is the government doesn't seem to have an ability, despite all of the rhetoric, to smash the gangs or stop the boats. And therefore, these guys have to be housed somewhere. And this is a problem. You could have some in northern, less advantaged towns saying, "Well, listen, we've had our fill of these people for months." Even Andy Burnham has advocated the idea of these migrants being moved into middle-class areas, even though it might be more expensive in some kind of attempt to spread the misery across the UK. Don't rural areas like yours, despite the contrary demographics, have to take their fair share of the burden? And that's the word I like, fair share. Fair share. Define fair share for me. 350 residents, fair share, all right? That's what you've got to focus on, not on an absolute dumping of people. That doesn't suit anyone, and the impact of it on this community, people are now entrapped. They're locked in their properties. They can't sell, can't move. There are pensioners who won't be able to get their pension value out of their property. So there's a whole myriad of impacts upon financial security and attitude towards life. And it's not we want ill harm on anyone. It's the issue of the fact that why isn't the government honest with us about the security implications so that we can actually take the appropriate measures to protect ourselves as we see fit? The aspect about other communities about fearing this, it's not just this. There are massive planning proposals going through for 370,000 houses across from here up to Milton Keynes. People are not being heard. They're agitated. They want to be heard. And so the mechanisms which we're doing here is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just about asylum, but there's going to be other triggers, catalysts that will happen, which will basically bite the ass of this government. It's very interesting what you're saying, because the government's very keen keen on devolution until local communities say no, at which point devolution seems much less popular. Yeah, I mean, it's devolution, but it's devolution without control, without consultation and without accountability, without anything. It's a bit like saying, oh, we'll give the mayors 2% tax to go and spend, but I'll tell you what, we'll tax you 2% more to be able to spend 2%. It's a joke. Councillor Tim McNally, thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Daily Tea. We'll be following developments in Piddington on the Telegraph website. Thank you both very much. It does strike me as absolutely ludicrous that you've got a community needing to take the law into their own hands. I mean, we've seen this to an extent in Dover and in Portsmouth, haven't we? And then we've had legitimate protest almost overrun by people in balaclavas and things. Here, this is perfectly respectable residents from different political parties, all making the point that if we feel the need to get safe self-defence classes, then something has gone very wrong. It's classic government mistake, misunderstanding. You've got a disused armed forces base. It's big. It's got housing. Let's put lots of migrants there. But what they forget is that those migrants can then wander anywhere that they like, that they're not kept confined. If they were confined in this base, the problem would be much, much lower because they wouldn't be going into it. They wouldn't be walking through people's gardens. There wouldn't be the risk of crime. But because they're free to go, they are utterly disproportionate to a village of a few hundred people. So what should the government be doing then, saying that if we have accommodation like this, it needs to be in some form of lockdown with curfews and things? You've got to say that people have to be in unless they have permission to be out. Why wouldn't they say that? Because then you get lawfare and people claiming that the human rights are being. Because they have the right to wander around the countryside. Because they're persecuted and they're escaping persecution and they're asylum seekers. Well, not all of them, I suppose. 99% we've heard from, I think it was exclusive. Well, 99% of them do, and yet 90% of the claims get granted. Yes. So because the left will say, well, if 90% of the claims are being granted, they must be legitimate. But that's not true. They've played the system. And what we've got to do is remove them. We need a scheme like Rwanda. We just don't want these people staying here. And then you get rid of them. We need to get rid of the problem. But if they are here, they shouldn't be free to move around the countryside. Telegraph readers have been responding to this story in their droves. Some aren't sympathetic, saying, as you have earlier, listen, you get what you vote for. You brought in the Lib Dems. You've now got a Liberal Democrat MP who, to be fair, let's quote Callum Miller, because he has previously said the plans have been veiled in secrecy and the process did not guarantee public participation beyond a narrow list of statutory bodies. So part of this is cock up. And part of it is conspiracy, because the people of Piddington feel that things have been hidden from them and there hasn't been transparency. Of course they've been hidden. But the government's not going to tell people any more than it absolutely has to, because it doesn't want protests, obviously. But a point's been made. So previously on the podcast, we. Sorry, can I just add, the government's very dodgy about this, because I went to this migrant place in North Somerset. Yes. And the government won't say anything about that. The man on the gate said, oh, we're closing down soon. But the government. The government would neither confirm nor deny that. The government wants to keep all this secret. It pretends it's to safeguard the people who are there, but it's actually to cover up its embarrassment and its shame at a failing policy. Sure. So that's what's happening in Piddington. No wonder the MP didn't know. Also, you'd be rightly cheesed off if you felt that your own government was prioritising the safety of the migrants over the safety of the local community. You would, but it does. This was an interesting. I'm in touch with a lady called. I'm in touch with a lady called Gaia Cooper. Not her real name. She wrote a book about being the victim of a grooming gang in the Buckinghamshire area back in the late 90s and early noughties. Now, she's concerned about this plan for Bicester, which is quite near to where she lives. I don't want to sort of betray any confidences, and I want her to preserve her anonymity. But she's basically written to the authorities. And I just think out of all of the comments that have been received, this is really quite chilling. Because imagine if you go about. Your daily life, worried that you might bump into the people that attacked you as a teenager. And I'm talking about gang rape here. This is very, very serious. And a number of her perpetrators did go to prison, but some have been released. She says, As a survivor of multiple male perpetrators when I was a looked-after child in Aylesbury during that period, I spent many years providing lived experience consultation work, both paid and unpaid. So she's been on the panel of survivors. She's spoken to other survivors. She's put her testimony forward so that lessons can actually be. learned and mistakes aren't made. I write to you requesting that you look very carefully at the options before you and seriously consider the long-term consequences of housing mostly male working-aid migrants here. We're a tiny community with limited infrastructure. To place this ratio of unknown males into the local area is disproportionate and inappropriate. It's also frightening to our community, and especially to me and survivors like me. I cannot understate the daily fear of running into perpetrators or one of their associates. She basically opted for a safer area to raise her sons, and now it's nearby to this MOD base. She's also made the point that not only do these people have no background checks at all, and often they come without documentation. And she points out that the Home Office actually had to produce a guide on why you shouldn't be raping women in the UK, which was hugely disturbing, to remind migrants of their responsibilities. She also makes the point that the government has been very secretive about the crimes actually carried out by these migrants, and that they're often treated as no fixed abode, and then washed up with other statistics, so that we actually don't know how many crimes they've been responsible for. People like Professor Matt Goodwin have said they're obviously overrepresented in the violence and sexual violence statistics. The left then say, oh no, he's fudged the figures. So it's the opaqueness that worries people about all this, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. The government doesn't want to admit the figures. It's made it very difficult for people to get the figures about offenders. Fences committed by asylum seekers, or to get the breakdown of figures by nationality, because it doesn't fit in with its image of a multicultural Britain where we're all rubbing along happily, because actually such figures as we get seem to indicate that these migrants, who are by and large young men, are committing more crimes than the bulk of the population. Indeed, they're committing a crime in the first place by coming here. So I go back to my point of saying that these camps should be secured. They should be detained. They should be sent within them, rather than free to go wherever they want. They should be free within the camps. I'm not saying put them in prison cells, but they should be controlled about whether they're allowed in. And if they have outings, they should be escorted or something like that. Yes, and I'm not very much in favour of giving jolly outings in a shower bang to the seaside for illegal migrants. I don't think that's a good use of taxpayers' money. Well, it does happen. I know it does, but I don't think you should. Just on another note while we're together, because I know you're very anti-banning things. I am. We mentioned protesters in Britain. I was in masks and balaclavas earlier. Nottingham City Centre has officially banned face coverings. Anyone who refuses to comply could face a £60 fixed penalty notice or be prosecuted with courts able to impose a maximum fine of £1,000. Now, obviously, this doesn't just apply to balaclavas and face masks, but one assumes burqas. Well, I think that people ought to be allowed to wear the burqa under all normal circumstances, but I think if you're taking part in a protest, your face ought to be visible. I think that's perfectly reasonable, partly because a masked protest looks much more sinister than an unmarked protest. Even if it's doing exactly the same thing, even if it's otherwise completely law-abiding, the mask is there to intimidate. So, I'm not against banning people from wearing face coverings when they're on a protest. I see that somebody on one of these protests, a man who was. who was probably my height, was wearing a burqa and the police have arrested him, so I think the police are probably clever enough to work out. He was saying, "There's nothing wrong here, it's just a religious covering." They were like, "Hmm, I'm not sure." In a very deep voice, they probably gave it away. Well, I mean, you know, in this new age of being able to self-identify as any gender you like, Jacob. Yes, but we don't believe in that sort of nonsense. And also, one final note, because you are a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party, how worried are you about this talk of separatism now that we have independents in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and indeed John Swinney up in Scotland making merry hell with our union because of his sympathies for Scottish independence? They've got together, they basically said, "Right, we're going to go at this hammer and tongs." Andy Burnham said things like, "Oh, well, we don't want any more constitutional referenda," but he hasn't been particularly punchy on it. Well, first of all, Plaid doesn't really want Welsh independence. Why do you say that? Because it doesn't, because it de-emphasised it at the local elections. It's terrified of independence. So they're just the "anyone but Labour" vote? They're just the "anyone but Labour" vote. I wouldn't take them too seriously. The Scots Nats do, they want to all drive off in their campervans away from us. And they lost their last vote on it, and I expect they would lose it again. When they last had their vote, there was an easy option for them, that they would leave the United Kingdom and join the European Union, now they'd have to apply to join the European Union as an entirely new member. It would be a much more complicated issue, and we'd have to have border controls between Scotland and England if they did. So what about the Shinners? They've now got Donald Trump's support. Well, aren't you in favour of United Ireland under the Crown? The Republic could say we got it frightfully wrong in 1924. We'd like to come back. I see. So you mean a United Ireland with the UK. Go back to the 1801 United Kingdom. Can't see that happening. Isn't that what Trump meant? Michael Portillo, if only he had looked at it that deeply. Actually, Michael Portillo made a very good point that does the rest of Ireland really want thousands of disgruntled unionists aligned with them making trouble? That was Philip Johnson's point in his excellent column today saying that. Telegraph columnist Philip Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. Very distinguished Telegraph columnist. Indeed. Rights leaders. Watch his crickets. A little bit scary actually. And he was saying that he thought the Republic might vote not to take on Northern Ireland because of the cost and everything that went with it. The security problem and the angst. So it's not as likely as all that I don't think. The union is safe Jacob. The union is as safe as it will ever be. I think it is pretty safe before I become a Wessex separatist. No, please don't. Breaking news on the Lucy Letby case. Lady Justice Thirlwall has today published her report into the failings by all those responsible for the safety of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital. And the headline of the report is that the hospital could have saved three more babies. I'm joined now by Mark MacDonald who is the barrister for Lucy Letby. Lovely to see you again, Mark. Thank you very much for joining me on the Daily Tea. Basically, we've got this report finding that there was a failure of management, governments and safeguarding. That the collapse and deaths of some babies could have been avoided had safeguarding practices been followed. Lady Justice Thirlwall paid tribute to the dignity and courage of the parents, thanked them for sharing their experiences with the inquiry. The report calls for urgent changes to protect babies. As the chair says, this must never happen again. First of all, where does this leave Lucy Letby's appeal or quest for an appeal? The case is currently being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Does this help or hinder that application? Totally neutral. They're going to take no notice of it. The expert reports that are before the CCRC paint a very different picture and have a very different narrative. One where no crimes were in fact committed. So all the recommendations and all the findings of fact made by Thirlwall, if the experts are correct, are totally undermined and indeed redundant. And that's the problem with the whole of this inquiry. It was set up too soon after the convictions. And I know that in CapNet there was a discussion about whether or not it was too soon. But the then Secretary of State for Health I think it was under Richard Sunak who was Prime Minister at the time felt that there was an urgent need to do it and did it. The previous Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt who was in charge of health when Letby was in fact meant to have been committing these crimes, has publicly said that he has real concerns about these convictions because he knows what was going on in the National Health Service. And I think that's the problem here. It was too quick in setting up. The terms of reference were too rigid. Another thing that Lady Justice Thirlwall said is that it's not her job to re-look at the convictions of guilt. And that, I'm afraid, meant that the holding crime was polluted with one narrative, one from the prosecution at the trial. Yes. And so, you know, if no crimes were committed, and I remember you being at the press conference that we had with Professor Hsu Lee, and you will remember, I think he went for about an hour going through all the evidence and all the cases and concluding that no crimes have been committed. I just wish that the inquiry had reached out and said, look, you know, can we just look at this? Can we look at that evidence? Yes. But they didn't. So, Mark, let's just be clear about this. The inquiry never sought to confirm, clarify, re-litigate the case. The case against Lucy Lepby and, indeed, her guilt, what it was commissioned to do was to look at the Countess of Chester Hospital and try and determine whether there were failures across the board which led to Lucy Lepby killing these babies. And we have to say that because she's still been convicted of being a serial baby killer. So they took those convictions. They treated it as read that she was a mass murderer of babies and then took that forward to basically ask the central question, how was this allowed to happen? Yes. Now, Lady Justice Thirlwall has pointed to the sort of personal relationships at the heart of that particular neonatal unit. Let's be honest, it was under huge pressure. It was looking after gravely ill babies for an extended period with few resources and a staffing problem. Yes. She makes the point. She makes the point that some people actually defended Lucy Lepby at the time, perhaps putting the personal ahead of the professional. What's your reaction to that? The question that was asked by everybody, apart from those pointing the finger, was where is the evidence? Where's the evidence here? Just give us one piece of evidence. Not, well, she's there when things go wrong. Give us one piece of evidence that she has done something wrong. That's the question that every senior nurse, that every manager, that every trustee were asking. And there was no evidence. You see, the whole of the trial was based upon a hypothesis, a hypothesis that was started by a retired pediatrician, Dr. Darry Evans. That said, there's no direct evidence here. We previously explored some of the flaws in the data. There's a big piece on the Telegraph website that I urge people to read. And it's basically saying serial killer or victim of a miscarriage of justice. And it takes the reader through some of the problems around some of the data analysis, that famous chart with black dots, every time Lucy Lepby was on duty, when, funnily enough, a baby died. But as some statisticians have pointed out, babies kept on dying after Lucy Lepby was removed from the unit. There's also concerns about some of this tampering with insulin. There are concerns about the interpretation of some of the discoloration on the baby's chests. And you mentioned Professor Xu Li earlier, who says that basically, his medical research was taken out of context during the trial. So we know all that, but I suppose moving forward, Lucy Lepby had offered to appear at this inquiry to be questioned by Lady Justice Thirlwall. Why was that turned down? I applied for her to be a core participant in the inquiry, and that was rejected. But if I was able to be there, I would have brought all that evidence with me and presented it to Thirlwall. And so, you know, and indeed questioned some of the witnesses that were called and put an alternative narrative, one that we now know is more likely, as said by the international experts. And so, anyway, it was rejected. It was earlier on of the inquiry, I think the words used was that it would be too disruptive. Also distressing to the families of the victims, perhaps, Mark. Yeah. Well, yes, it would have been. But that's not my-- you know, my job is to represent my client. And so, you know, the thing is, I don't know if you know this, but when I was a kid, I grew up in Birmingham. And I remember hearing the bombs go off in Birmingham, the Birmingham bombs, the two IRA bombs. And I remember the fallout and the victims that happened after that. And I remember my school, the windows were smashed in, as a result, it was a Catholic school. And all those victims that died-- and were seriously injured, and all the families. But then six men were caught on trial for that crime. And then later, they were found to be innocent. That doesn't stop the people being victims. It doesn't stop the relatives. But what they're going to get, and what they now have, is the truth. Yes. And the same is with every miscarriage of justice. There's going to be a victim, of course, there is. But that doesn't mean we all shut up shop, and don't do anything. That doesn't mean that we don't expose faults in the case. bring in fresh evidence. But if your case is that Lucy Letby didn't kill these babies, they were killed as a result of a multitude of factors, including the failure of the Countess of Chester Hospital on many levels. So you're almost saying Lucy Letby didn't kill these babies, the NHS did. Then don't some of these findings help you? Because they speak to a degree of mismanagement, don't they? Well, yeah, but, you know, fingers have been pointed because the accepted narrative of the prosecution case and some of the people who were court participants in the inquiry has been accepted by Lady Justice Thirlwall. But have the fingers been pointed at the right people? That's the question mark here. Did the managers do anything wrong? That's the question. See, if we're wrong, we fall right back and Lucy Letby is innocent and no crime was in fact committed. Because what they did is say, well, just show me the evidence. Yes. And there wasn't any evidence. I mean, of these list of recommendations, all cots and incubators in all neonatal units should be fitted with baby monitors. There should be in-cot cameras with live stream streaming video. There should be CCTV cameras directed towards fridges and other units storing insulin. I mean, actually, I'm sure you'll be arguing if only this was all in place, then if you're saying that Lucy Letby is innocent, then these measures would have proved her innocence. Yes. You would never have heard the name Mark McDonald. We would not be here. There would be no trial. There would have been no conviction because if these international experts are correct, no crime was committed, then they wouldn't have seen anything done wrong by Lucy Letby. Without going too granular, Mark, just briefly, why have these two experts left your legal team? So there's two lots of experts on the insulin, two teams. Both the teams say the evidence of insulin is unreliable, and they think that the jury are misled and there's possibility that Lucy Letby is innocent. One of the team doesn't agree with the other team. So this team that thinks Lucy is innocent has withdrawn. This team has stayed and this team continues with the CCRC. And so, you know, I can't control that. That is, that is what's happened. What I do know is that the seven international experts that remain um, give very compelling reasons why the insulin is unreliable. And I think the CCRC will take it seriously. And here's the interesting thing. You know, their report is before the CCRC. Their evidence, the ones that were withdrawn, is before the CCRC. CCRC are just not going to say, "Well, you've withdrawn. We're going to ignore your evidence that she's innocent." Their job is to think, is to decide whether or not these convictions are unsafe. It doesn't matter if they're withdrawn. CCRC are still going to continue. What's the timetable on this, Mark? When are we expecting a decision from them? They don't give a running commentary. They don't tell you. You know, I wish they did. And I can tell you, I've asked more than once, and they said, "We're not going to tell you. We're not going to let you know a timetable." Um, but I, in my view, I think months. I think, within six months, we're going to know. Okay. And finally, have you discussed this report with Lucy Letby yet? No. Um, I have a call with her in about two hours' time, and I'll discuss it with her. Mark McDonald, thank you very much indeed, as ever, for joining us on The Daily Tee. It was good to speak to you. ♪♪♪