Lucy Letby pictured laughing and dancing at wedding while on bail for murdering babies

A childhood friend of Lucy Letby made a shocking revelation after showing off pictures of the baby killer at her wedding – while she was on police bail.

Letby was first arrested in July of 2018 on suspicion of murdering eight babies. She was officially charged in November 2020 before being found guilty across two trials of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more. Dawn Howe, who went to Aylestone Secondary School in Hereford with Letby, brought out a stash of photos during a new ITV documentary called Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt?

And some pictures showed Letby smiling and dancing at Dawn's wedding, which took place while Cheshire Police investigated whether the neonatal nurse at Countess of Chester Hospital was possibly Britain’s most prolific child killer.

Speaking on the documentary, Dawn said: "Definitely got some holiday snaps, birthdays, holidays I’ve forgotten we even had. The wedding photos are definitely my favourite.”

Laughing, she added: “There is Lucy at my wedding. I am just so glad she could be there because it was while she was on bail, she had to get special permission to be allowed to come from the police.”

The shocking photo shows Letby, wearing a red top and grey skirt, beaming while others alongside her clap on the dance floor.

Another image shows a just-married Dawn walking past Letby, who is throwing confetti in the air.

Dawn and Lucy met as teenagers and reflecting on the wedding snaps, she said: “Shortly after this she was held in custody so… I don’t think Lucy has seen these.”

Speaking about how she reacted when her friend was arrested before her big day, she said: “I watched it all unfold every step of the way. I just couldn’t believe it. It was beyond belief that this could be happening.”

And later in the programme, Dawn features once again. She is seen driving to Letby’s former school, where they spent most of their adolescence together.

Out of their friendship group, she said Letby was the only one who had a clear career path, and during her A-levels, she was eager to one day “be a nurse and deal with really poorly babies”.

And speaking on camera, she said: “We were here and then university and then a few years after university is when she is supposed to have gone off on this killing spree…”

Dawn was working when Letby's guilty verdict was announced in August 2023 and she described being “dumbfounded” when she heard the news.

Her immediate thought was what happened next. She remembered thinking: “She can’t just spend the rest of her life in prison.”

Letby lost two attempts last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeals. Her legal team meanwhile, led by barrister Mark McDonald, also submitted evidence from a panel of international experts to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in April, in an attempt to have her convictions overturned.

Dawn supported Letby throughout the trial and is continuing to do so now, but she said she felt guilt for being free while her friend was serving 15 whole-life sentences.

She concluded: “I am living a life Lucy should be living beside me in parallel. We should both be having families and we both bought our houses and we were looking forward to the next chapter of our lives and then all this happened.

“It is just… there is so much guilt that I am sort of living a life that Lucy should also be living.”

Cheshire Police were contacted regarding claims made in this story but they chose not to comment.

Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? will air on ITV1 at 10.20pm on Sunday August 3.