Channel 4 has commissioned a new two-part documentary, The Trial of Lucy Letby (w/t), directed by Emmy award-winning and BAFTA-nominated director Daniel Bogado (9/11: One Day in America, Killer Ratings) and produced by Blast Films (Jade: The Reality Star Who Changed Britain, Jeremy Kyle: Death on Daytime).
The documentary will examine the case of Lucy Letby, a 34-year-old former neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital who in August 2023 was convicted of murdering seven babies in her care and attempting to murder six others.
Her trial, which ran for ten months from October 2022 to August 2023, was one of the longest murder trials in British legal history. In July 2024, a retrial found her guilty of attempting to murder a seventh infant. She is currently serving fifteen whole-life terms for the offences.
Currently in pre-production, the documentary will air on Channel 4 in two parts and also have a feature-length theatrical release. A release date has not been set.
Danny Horan and Tanya Winston are the executive producers for Blast Films. It was commissioned by Alisa Pomeroy, head of documentaries and factual entertainment, and Sacha Mirzoeff, commissioning editor.
Daniel Bogado is an award-winning British-Paraguayan documentary maker who covers unique and extraordinary stories from across the world. His documentaries have won awards including an Emmy and a Rory Peck. He’s also the former series editor of Unreported World, Channel 4’s critically-acclaimed series and Britain’s longest running foreign affairs strand.
Bogado directed the multi-award winning six-part National Geographic series 9/11: One Day in America, made to mark 20 years since the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Produced in official collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial Museum, the series uses archival footage – some of which has never been seen before – and new, original interviews with eyewitnesses who have now had almost two decades to reflect on the events they lived through.
The series was a critical hit, described by the Wall Street Journal as “a tour de force”, by the Chicago Tribune as “Riveting“, and by the Telegraph “A grand act of witness told in forensic detail“. It won two Emmys, a Broadcast Award, a Royal Television Society Award, the Buzzies Award, and was nominated for a BAFTA and a Grierson Award.
Daniel also directed the seven-part true crime series “Killer Ratings,” the first original documentary series commissioned by Netflix in a foreign language. It tells the bizarre story of Wallace Souza, a Brazilian television presenter who was accused of orchestrating the murders he reported on his show in order to boost ratings.
“Killer Ratings” was described by the Guardian as “a shocking story… compellingly told”, became one of the most watched documentaries in Brazil in 2019 and was nominated by the Academy Awards of Motion Pictures of Brazil for Best Documentary Series 2020.
In 2014, Daniel shot the documentary “Nigeria’s Hidden War” for Channel 4 and PBS (Hunt for Boko Haram) which revealed that in its fight against Boko Haram the government of Nigeria was engaged in a brutal campaign of retaliatory and indiscriminate violence towards civilians – abuses which may constitute war crimes. The documentary won an Emmy for Best Investigative Journalism and a Broadcast Award for Best Current Affairs Programme.
(Image: Dennis Turner / Countess of Chester)
