Dewi Evans

Dewi Evans MRCP FRCP FRCPCH
Medical career
Profession	Consultant paediatrician (retired) (1980 - 2009), Independent Medical Witness (2010 - 2024)
Field	Paediatrics
Institutions	Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Morriston Hospital Swansea, Singleton Hospital Swansea

Dewi Richard Evans (born July 1949) is a retired British consultant paediatrician and Independent medical expert witness. He holds an MB,BCh from Cardiff University, a diploma from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, a fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, and a fellowship of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Within the medical community he is known for his role as Clinical Director of Paediatrics and Neonatology at the Singleton Hospital in Swansea, and his role in the development of neonatal intensive care services and maternity services during the 1980s and 1990s in Wales.^[1]. He is an author of numerous medical papers in the field of neonatology, particularly in his areas of special interest paediatric endocrinology and childhood diabetes^[2].

Throughout his career and public life he has campaigned for better funding and improvement of pediatric, neonatal, and maternity services in Swansea and across Wales^[3][4][5], inclding public support for a Welsh registry of child abuse victims^[6].

In 2022, his role as lead Independent Expert Medical Witness for the prosecution in the Lucy Letby trial bought him to mainstream public attention.

Evans attended Carmarthen Grammar School (1960–1966), Cardiff Medical School (1966–1971), graduating with a bachelor's degree (MB,BCh). He was awarded a diploma by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1973. In 1975 he graduated and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP), becoming a fellow (FRCP) in 1992. In 1997 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (FRCPCH).^[2]

After graduation 1973, Evans began working as a junior doctor in Cardiff, his training took him to Alder Hey Children's Hospital as a registrar (1974–1976), and back to Cardiff from 1977 to 1979, as a senior registrar, to complete his training.^[7][8]

From 1980 to 2009, he held the post of full-time clinical consultant paediatrician at the Morriston and Singleton Hospitals in Swansea, where he led the development of neonatal intensive care services and maternity services.^[9]

Evans served two spells as Clinical Director of Paediatrics and Neonatology at the Singleton Hospital (1992–1997) and (2004–2008). His areas of special interest included paediatric endocrinology and childhood diabetes, he has contributed numerous scientific papers in these areas to the body of medical literature.

His clinical practice provided wide experience of the hospital based management of acute illnesses in children. As a result of his role as a senior consultant, he was often closely involved in child safeguarding issues, prepared more than 500 medico-legal reports^[10], gave evidence to a number of public enquiries including the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths^[11], and in the civil and criminal courts.

Evans retired from Bwrdd lechyd Prifyshgol Bae Aberawe and GIG Cymru in 2009 after 29 years as a consultant, and 36 years as a doctor.

Following his 2009 retirement from Bwrdd lechyd Prifyshgol Bae Aberawe and GIG Cymru Evans continued to appear in various legal settings across the UK and Northern Ireland as an Independent Medical Witness. Many of his cases, as they had during his medical career, involved child abuse^[12], clinical negligence, and professional negligence^[13].

During the police investigation which into the Lucy Letby case, Evans was instructed to review clinical records of the babies in the unit who had died or collapsed suddenly and unexpectedly - in total 61 cases. Evans produced numerous reports for Cheshire Police including a general statement dated 17 April 2019, a review of published literature regarding air embolus in newborn infants dated 3 July 2019 and a series of reports concerning the events surrounding the deaths and unexpected collapses of babies.^[7]

Letby's trial opened on 10 October 2022 and Evans remained lead expert witness during the ten month proceedings, which are thought to be the longest criminal trial in British history^[14][15]. Supporting expert testimony was delivered by Consultant Pathologist Andreas Marnerides, Professors of Radiology Owen Arthurs and Stavros Stivaros, Professor of Haematology Sally Kinsey, Professor of Endocrinology Peter Hindmarsh, and Consultant Paediatrician Simon Kenney^[16].

Evans conclusions were peer-reviewed by Sandie Bohin a practising consultant neonatologist from Guernsey, at the request of Cheshire Police. Her role, was to "to provide a robust clinical review of Evans’ opinions, setting out whether she agreed or disagreed with him and, as appropriate, to provide an alternative causation for the collapse"^[17]. Bohin also appeared as a witness for the prosecution at the trial. An additional peer-reviewer, consultant neonatologist Martin Ward Platt, had been part of the early case but died three years before the trial commenced^[18].

The case, Evan's written evidence, and his role as a key expert witness has generated considerable public controversy. Notable critics include retired General Practitioner, comedian, and opinion columnist Phil Hammond, retired neonatologist Shoo Lee, Sir David Davis, and many amateur podcasters^[19].

Evans was an expert witness in the 2018 murder trial of Doulton Phillips and Alannah Skinner^[20][21]. Medical experts, including Evans, were able to identify 53 separate injuries to the young child along with a pattern of abuse in the days leading up to the boy's death. Evans told the court "he thought the injuries pointed to Reggie being “hurled by the leg” and his head “smashed against a hard surface” shortly before dying." Phillips was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 15 years for murder, and Skinner 30 months for neglect^[22][23].

The widely reported case led to a review of child safeguarding practices in Southampton^[24].

In 2009, Lindsay Angela Alvarez from Dundonald, County Down was admitted to hospital with brain swelling. She later died from the complications of salt poisoning. An Inquest into the death was held in 2014. Evans was called as an expert witness and stated to the inquest that it was unusual for a child to get fractured ribs and that he couldn't rule out that she might have been thrown down the stairs. The inquest had previously been told that the child had fallen down carpeted stairs in her uncle's flat two weeks prior to her death. The inquest was halted and a report was sent to Public Prosecution Service.^[25] The Public Prosecution Service ruled out prosecution in 2015 and the inquest was brought to a close.^[26]

In 2015, the High Court of Appeal, Northern Ireland heard an appeal relating to the Family Court where two children had been judged to have been the subject of non-accidental injury in Care Proceedings and removed from the care of their parents. Evans had been one of the expert witnesses. The appeal was upheld.^[27][28][29]

Evans was an expert witness in the 2021 murder trial of a man later convicted of killing his five-month-old daughter,^[30] being able to rule out pneumonia as a potential cause of death in favour of a blunt force brain injury.^[31]

On April 12, 2000 17-month-old Lucy Crawford was admitted to Erne Hospital with vomiting and dehydration, after being placed on a drip she suffered a seizure, was placed in intensive care, and then transfered to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where she subsequently died from Hyponatraemia ^[32][33].

An inquest^[34] subsequently found her death was caused by the mismanagement of the drip she had been placed on by consultant paediatrician Jarlath O'Donohoe, and had been his responsibility to manage. Nine years later in 2009 Evans appeared as a witness to a General Medical Council hearing regarding 'fitness to practice' of O'Donohoe^[35]

Lucy's case became one of five cases at the centre of a public inquiry into Hyponatraemia related deaths in Northern Ireland, to which Evans was called upon to provide expert evidence^[36][37]

Due to the highly controversial nature of the Lucy Letby conviction and Evans role in the trial, a number of controversial cases and actions have received media and/or social media attention.

In December 2024, after the final appeal had been issued and the judicial case permanently closed, Lucy Letby's barrister Mark McDonald, while conducting a press conference, claimed that "Remarkably, Evans has now changed his mind on the cause of death of three of the babies: Baby C, Baby I and Baby P." further claiming that this was contained in a report delivered to police, and "despite numerous requests" [that the prosecution had] "yet to give this report to the defence". He went on to claim he would seek to appeal Letby's convictions on the grounds that the expert evidence was flawed; no application to the Court of Appeal was forthcoming, and no document has emerged^[38].

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the Court of Appeal had previously rejected Letby's argument that expert witness evidence presented by the prosecution had been "flawed". Evans described the allegation as "remarkable, baseless, and incorrect"^[39].

In 2022, Evans wrote a letter to the firm of solicitors involved in a civil appeal being heard before Lord Justice Jackson. While not being a formal expert report or witness statement, the solicitors offered the text as evidence in an application for permission to appeal without Evans "knowledge or consent"^[40].

The Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Jackson rejected the appeal on grounds that what he believed to be a report by Evans' was "worthless" and that he made "no effort to provide a balanced opinion".^[41][42].

It was noted in the Final Appeal Judgement of the Letby case that Evans' purported evidence in the case overseen by Lord Justice Jackson had been misrepresented. "We should note finally, that after the judge’s ruling of 10 January 2023, Evans was asked about the observations of Jackson LJ in cross-examination. The effect of Evans’s evidence, and we summarise, was that the criticisms made in the decision were based on a false premise. The report was not an expert report prepared for the court or a witness statement; rather, it was a letter to the solicitors in the care case, and had been used by the solicitors (for the purposes of the application for permission to appeal) without his knowledge or consent. Further, he had not known of the decision before it was brought to his attention by the prosecution. Everyone in this trial (i.e. that of the applicant) had seen the decision before he did."^[43].

In a November 2024 podcast interview with John Sweeney, Evans stated that he disagreed with Lord Justice Jackson's comments and thought he was wrong to have made them.^[44][45]

Following the media attention surrounding the Letby case and a long-running campaign by his parents^[46], Evan's brief involvement in the case of Robbie Powell received fresh attention from Podcasters^[47] and mainstream media outlets.

Robbie (Robert Darren Powell), a nine-year-old boy, was admitted to Morriston Hospital in December 1989 with excessive weight loss, abdominal pain, vomiting, dehydration, and dark pigmentation of the skin. He died the following year from Addison's Disease, a treatable illness. Although one of the three senior paediatricians at the hospital, Bill Forbes, suspected Addison's a key ACTH test was not performed, by either the hospital or the family's practice, Ystradgynlais Health Centre; even though the practice was told the test was required. It was subsequently found that the practice attempted to cover up their failures by typing a referral letter after the fact. After the full facts were uncovered by the police investigation Operation Radiance, 35 charges were recommended against 5 General Practitioners and a practice administrator.

Dewi Evans was briefly involved with the case on the day Robbie was admitted to hospital as an emergency in 1989^[48], but had no further involvement in the medical case or Robbie's treatment afterwards^[49]. In 1996 he wrote a letter to one of the GP's which suggested there were conditions that were hard to diagnose in children before it is too late. When challenged over this letter in 2024, Evans responded "It’s a long time ago but I think that my comment related to the difficulties of recognising the features of a rare condition like Addison’s. I don’t think I got involved with any allegations regarding altering notes. I’d never endorse that."^[50].

Evans is a longstanding member of Plaid Cymru, described in Welsh national media as a 'stalwart' supporter^[51].

He was one of a number of candidates for national chair of Plaid Cymru in 2019^[52]. He also represented the party for Senedd Cymru in Swansea East in 2003^[53], and at the 1991 Neath Parliamentary By-Election.

• Was There Ever A Crime: The Trials of Lucy Letby - podcast interview of Evans by John Sweeney