Netflix Faces Backlash Over Lucy Letby Documentary

Netflix’s latest true-crime documentary, The Investigation of Lucy Letby, has ignited a firestorm of controversy and soul-searching since its release on February 4, 2026. The film delves into the notorious case of Lucy Letby, the former neonatal nurse convicted in 2023 and 2024 of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Letby, now serving multiple whole life sentences, remains one of the most infamous figures in modern British criminal history. Yet, the documentary’s arrival has prompted as many questions about its own methods and motives as about Letby’s guilt or innocence.

For many, the Letby case is all too familiar—a media spectacle that has played out in excruciating detail over the past several years. As The Guardian and The Telegraph have pointed out, the public has been inundated with coverage, from the initial spike in infant deaths on the hospital’s neonatal ward between 2015 and 2016, to Letby’s arrest and the dramatic courtroom proceedings. The Netflix documentary, then, enters a crowded field, joining several other productions, including ITV’s Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, which aired in the summer of 2025. But what sets this new film apart—and at the center of its swirling debate—is its use of artificial intelligence to digitally anonymize interviewees, and its approach to the still-raw wounds left by the case.

From the outset, the documentary signals its controversial choices. A disclaimer in the opening credits explains that "some contributors have been digitally disguised to maintain anonymity," with their "names, appearances, and voices altered" accordingly. Among these is "Sarah," the mother of one of Letby’s victims, and "Maisie," a university friend of Letby’s. Their emotional testimonies are delivered through AI-generated faces, which blink, cry, and move, but remain eerily detached from the anguish in their voices. The effect, as viewers on social media and platforms like Reddit have noted, is "unsettling," "disturbing," and even "grotesque." One X user wrote, "This digital anonymising on the Netflix Lucy Letby doc is incredibly unsettling. I’m assuming they used AI. Just go back to using voice of an actor." Another viewer lamented, "The manipulated photos of Lucy and a computer generated image felt particularly grotesque. This was an abysmal judgement call by the producers."

Criticism hasn’t been limited to the audience. The parents of Lucy Letby have publicly condemned the documentary, telling LADbible that it is a "complete invasion of privacy" and stating, "It would likely kill us if we did" watch it. The film’s inclusion of previously unseen footage—most notably the arrest of Letby at her parents’ home—has only heightened the sense of exploitation for some. Letby’s mother can be heard howling in distress as her daughter is led away by police, a moment so raw that it prompted some reviewers, like those at The Guardian, to question its value beyond sensationalism.

Yet, for all its flaws, the documentary does provide a window into the police investigation and the prosecution’s case. The first hour meticulously lays out the sequence of events: the spike in infant deaths and catastrophic collapses in the neonatal unit, the correlation with Letby’s presence, and the cessation of such events after she was removed from duty. Confidential handover sheets found in Letby’s home and a series of Post-it notes—on which she had written phrases like "I am Evil, I did this"—feature prominently as evidence. Letby herself, in police interviews shown in the film, insists these notes were not confessions but the result of overwhelming stress and accusations. "I just wrote it because everything had got on top of me. I felt like I’d only ever done my best for those babies and then people were trying to say that my practice wasn’t good, or that I’d done something and I just couldn’t cope," she tells investigators.

The documentary also exposes the deep divides among those closest to the case. Dr. John Gibbs, a consultant on the ward, acknowledges a "kernel of truth" in reports blaming the unit’s chronic understaffing, even admitting to a "tiny, tiny, tiny" sense of guilt and wondering, "Did we get the wrong person?" Still, he remains convinced of Letby’s guilt, echoing the stance of Dewi Evans, the prosecution’s consulting paediatrician. However, Evans himself was criticized by a Court of Appeal judge for making "no effort to provide a balanced opinion," a detail the documentary touches on but does not fully explore.

In its final half-hour, The Investigation of Lucy Letby attempts to unpick the case against Letby, giving airtime to her current lawyer, Mark McDonald, and Dr. Shoo Lee, whose research has cast doubt on the prosecution’s medical theories. McDonald points out that a Court of Appeal judge took the rare step of warning the trial judge about Evans’ reliability as an expert witness. Meanwhile, Lee and a panel of independent experts have reviewed the clinical notes, finding alternative explanations for the babies’ deaths and concluding there were "no murders." The film also notes that the drop in mortality rates after Letby’s removal coincided with the unit being downgraded and treating fewer sick children—a fact that complicates the prosecution’s narrative.

The documentary’s broad-brush, emotive storytelling has drawn criticism for prioritizing drama over detail. As The Guardian observed, the inclusion of anonymised, AI-generated interviewees and harrowing arrest footage may tug at viewers’ emotions but risks "emotional interference between them and a rational appraisal of the facts." The debate over Letby’s guilt or innocence is far from settled. A growing body of experts argue her conviction may be "unsafe," suggesting she was scapegoated for the failings of an overstretched and mismanaged hospital unit. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is currently considering the case, with a decision expected in the autumn.

For all its controversy, The Investigation of Lucy Letby is just the latest chapter in a saga that continues to grip—and divide—the British public. Whether it brings clarity or simply reopens old wounds, it has undoubtedly forced viewers to confront uncomfortable questions about justice, privacy, and the ethics of true-crime storytelling in the age of AI.