To wonder what would happen if LL were ever released?

I have also fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole with this the last couple of days.

To me it is interesting that people don't want to change their minds. Because I completely thought she was guilty at the beginning and I think that has led to me feeling duped now. For me that has made me want to look into it more but it isn't a comfortable feeling.

I read the initial press coverage and was totally convinced of her guilt (though interestingly some usually sensible friends who worked in health care were not). I thought it was strange that she had close friends from childhood who were prepared to defend her, because most serial killers don't have friends especially not close ones they have maintained for years. However that just made me think what an awful case it was, do you really ever know someone etc?

Then like others I read that a statistician had taken issue with the evidence. I realised that she hadn't been on duty for all the babies deaths just those that had been classed as suspicious and that it had been circular. They had identified those deaths as suspicious because she was there. But I thought well why did the deaths drop then when she was suspended, I am sure she is still guilty.

Then I had a chat with a friend who told me the unit had stopped looking after the really sick babies after Lucy was suspended. I thought then that the information about the case had been really misrepresented in the press at least if not the court and I said to my husband that even if she was guilty her conviction might not be safe.

Then I thought no more about it until the press conference the other day which I read a Guardian article about. I then watched the press conference and honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing. That there was no real evidence at all that the babies had been murdered and plenty that they had died as a result of natural causes and medical negligence.

Then I started reading about this odd procescution expert witness and how he had decided in ten minutes that it was murder and that his opinion overruled the autopsy and other investigations done up until that point.

I now think she is probably completely innocent.

Just because the medical experts say they cant prove her actions caused the deaths doesn’t mean she didnt attack or attempt to murder them.

A lot of the evidence from the press release was about how they weren’t being given the correct treatment from the off - making them potentially unstable, or not able to correct a decline as giving the wrong treatment.

So yes potentially some of these babies maybe would have declined anyway.

This doesn’t necessarily mean LL wasn’t attacking them. Some had physical traumas that were unexplained.

Interestingly she didnt have initials for all the babies she was tried for. And only a portion of the babies sheets were in her most special box. So perhaps some were natural.

I just dont get a good vibe off of it and I am not saying she is guilty. I dont know. But I dont think those who are saying she’s innocent without any doubt can be rational people either.

I agree. If zero babies were murdered or harmed, then any behaviour that seems odd is entirely irrelevant.

It all sounds like the kind of random ‘dirt’ someone would dig up to conduct a character assassination than anything else. It certainly isn’t covering any personality traits that have been researched and found to often be part of the psychological profile of serial killers.

I live in the same town as someone already mentioned on this thread.

AFAIK she still works with children in some capacity (or at least did when I crossed paths with her), and as far as I hear she gets on with everyone just fine.

It's probably important that nearly everyone believes the person I'm talking about is innocent, I'm sure it would be different if people had doubts.

If the babies weren't killed then why is her odd behaviour relevant?

It does remind me a bit of Amanda Know and how everyone was hung up on her odd behaviour where her flatmate had clearly been murdered by someone else, Rudy Guede.

Last night I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole with this.

First I really looked at this was the 2 hr press release of the experts earlier this week. It’s pretty damning these children weren’t given the correct treatments from the off; and a lot of these deaths could not be proven to be directly linked to murder.

However I then went on a rabbit hole. Her behaviour was so strange! She had special boxes under her bed with handover notes from the suspect cases.

She also had a paper towel which was used to write down the medications during an arrest which was then handed to a doctor to write up, then to a nurse who binned it. And yet it ended up also in her special little stashes. It’s super off.

She also had initials of the babies she attacked in her diary on the dates.

Apparently those in the trial also witnessed a number of slip ups and lies which resulted in audible gasps in the gallery.

And as for motive she seemed a deeply unhappy person. Apparently (according to internet chat so can’t confirm) she herself was a very premature and poorly baby. Perhaps she wishes she didnt survive.

I do think we need to trust the jury on this. Perhaps they need to recall the jury to ask what was the weighting of medical, statistical to circumstantial evidence in their reasoning and whether they think they should retry.

Genuine question: Do you mean 'prosecution "expert"' rather than 'defence "expert"' there? I sort of assume you're referring to Dewi Evans, but maybe LL also had a not very competent expert on her side. 🙏

Everything about this case is back to front.

They are looking at why a serial killer was able to kill babies without being caught and suggesting this happened because the ward rounds were only twice a week.

Where as in reality it is just more evidence that the babies weren't given suitable medical care and that's why so many died.

The consultants said that it was suspicious that stable babies suddenly deteriorated and died when Lucy was on shift. But they might not have even seen the baby for several days given their infrequent ward rounds and the medical evidence from the team of world experts in neonatology was that these babies were very ill and not at all stable.

you've got to be smart enough to know what you don't know, where the limits of your knowledge and understanding are. It really looks to me like that defence "expert" might have been running on hubris and arrogance when so many actual experts, with no skin in the game, disagree with him.

It was the statisticians speaking out that first got me interested - I worked in STEM, I have stats training up to MSc level, what they were saying about the misapplication of probability theory to small numbers really struck home. We were taught again and again that you can't work with small numbers in the same way you can with large data sets. Bad science cherry picks the data it wants to fit the theory - which looks like what happened here.

The report done by the neonatologists is the final piece in the puzzle. No murders, so she cannot be a murderer.

Will never happen. Even if there’s unequivocal evidence that it wasn’t her and she gets released with a grovelling apology and a lot of compensations the frothers will continue to froth and she’ll be hounded.

There will always be some people who either don’t have the mental flexibility to change their view even in the face of evidence, or just enjoy hating too much.
I don’t think we can judge how many people that will be from posts on here though. It’s early days and it’s clear some people aren’t aware of the full facts (eg they think she was seen harming babies, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.)

If she is found to be not guilty and released, I would hope the UK is a mature enough society to accept that, and allow her to try and get on with her life in peace.

Some of the posts on threads about her suggest not, unfortunately.

My son was a very poorly Nicu baby almost 20 years ago and the consultants and doctors has rounds twice a day every day! Twice a week cannot be seen as good enough by anyone’s standards.

Regarding Lucy. I hope that when this so found to have been a massive miscarriage of justice she gets enough compensation to allow her to move away and start afresh. Personally I’d change my name and move to south east Asia which could be a lovely life, albeit not the life she’d planned. There’s absolutely no way she’ll ever have any peace living in the UK, or likely Europe/the US/ Australia

Amanda Knox is, arguably, in a different position from LL. She returned to the US where she had enjoyed huge public support and criticism of the Italian judicial system.
SM exchanges would suggest that many cannot accept that LL may not have caused the baby deaths. Life in the UK might prove difficult for her if she remained in the UK.

Released not realised

If she is realised, I think she will die by suicide within 5 years. She was clearly not a mentally well woman BEFORE, so imagine the wreck she is now

You would need to know whether they genuinely thought this at the time or if it’s just in retrospect.

Why? I have been a juror, twice. And they were both unanimous convictions - one for gang related crime and one for CSA. It’s a little different when you have physical evidence in front of you and can make a fully informed decision, along with the judge’s directions which are based on the law, as opposed to hearing things here and there and trying to piece it together like the rest of the entire country.

People on MN can be so bloody rude, nobody wants to have a healthy debate, just throw personal shots at anything they don’t like the look of.

Absolutely, especially in neonatal care where babies are very fragile. I do recall watching the panorama episode where they stated colleagues in different hospitals were suspicious and wary of her and that ‘mistakes’ were made by her specifically.

They don’t do it on our whim or for fun or to prove a point. It’s a lengthy and incredibly costly process 🤦🏻‍♀️ The CPS don’t bring about a trial just to shut people up. Not to mention the impact on the victims and their families and the time given up by the jury.

Not just a lack of consultants - from the Guardian article about the Thirwall enquiry above there was sometimes less than 50% of junior doctors on duty [3 instead of 8] too

In addition to around 50% of nursing staff too [3 or 4 instead of 5 or6]

Really shocked -not seen the actual numbers before - just 'understaffing'

Amazing that the unit functioned at all - let alone safely

I don't think it should ever have made it to trial TBH.

I think the jury didn't ask enough questions.

Most likely nobody in either the CPS or the Police wanted to take the flak for not prosecuting her, and people were desperate for someone to blame. I think "let the jury decide" was the most convenient way of "sorting it out".

You weren’t in the jury room and you don’t know what they thought about what was presented. Juries are known to frequently misunderstand stats and evidence.

I have wondered whether this might end up being another push towards privatisation for the NHS. We all know how flawed the NHS is and how badly it is functioning these days. If it turns out this is a miscarriage of justice then surely there needs to be a huge reckoning in underperforming hospitals.

It was also in the BBC radio documentary a few months back. A senior doctor from Addenbrokes said he was shocked by the two a week as in his hospital at that level of sickness it would be three a DAY.