To think that Lucy Letby will get a new trial?

Well just the idea that she had an inadequate or incompetent defence and why didn't they do xyz instead of realising it was most likely done for strategic reasons to stop her coming off more guilty than she already did. You can't really read anything more into it than that when people say they didn't bother to call any medical experts.

@Firefly1987I definitely don’t think I could do a better job: I’m not a criminal lawyer. But I think the case has not been made out to the required standard of proof - which plenty of folk don’t understand. They don’t even understand with whom the burden of proof lies.

Can you point me to some instances of people actually saying they don't think the defence bothered? Because that's a very different point to people who think they got the tactics wrong, or even that they made potentially justifiable decisions that didn't pan out, both of which I've seen argued.

Endocrinology is a very different area of medicine from neonatology - neonatal physiology is very different from adult and even children’s physiology. Your standard paediatric endocrinologist would be out of their depth, if needing to comment on neonatal test results

Your standard endocrinologist would definitely not be able to comment on the accuracy of laboratory tests, they look at the results - and you are taught to always repeat any unusual/unexpected result, as lab results can be wrong for multiple reasons

They genuinely do. And think they could've done a better job! Easy to come to that conclusion when you're blinkered by her innocence I guess. I imagine the scales would fall pretty quickly from their eyes if they actually did have to defend her. Hardest job on the planet!

Depends who you believe. I've heard she was there for I think 10, and had not long left her shift for two. One she never met as they died before they ever went on her unit. Collapses might be a different thing.

Obviously the innocence side have claimed she wasn't there for many many deaths.

I assure you, I am quite sensible. I just have a healthy degree of scepticism and don’t assume legal professionals representing defendants in high profile criminal cases are always wonderful. There’s something seriously off about Dewi Evans, too. He’s not even a neonatologist: he’s a retired consultant paediatrician and he volunteered his services rather than the prosecution casting its net far and wide to find a proper neonatal expert witness.

Dodgy AF.

The trouble with that line of thinking from an innocence perspective is if you agree they all thought they were doing a good thing and that she was guilty you have to ask if maybe they actually were right. Especially when, as evidenced from this thread it's very hard to believe a nurse could do that. It'd be exceptionally hard to convince 7 consultants (or for them to all come to that conclusion independently) of that being the case unless it really was.

I’d understood there were quite a few other deaths in respect of which she was NOT on shift.

I can't imagine anyone sensible thinks her defence barristers just couldn't be arsed that day!

Most of the documentaries heavily favoured her innocence and left out lots of evidence.

I think the fact her defence team seems not to have adequately challenged that chart the prosecution relied on (showing her being on shift for every one of the baby death cases in respect of which she was being tried) is a facet of lawyers being shit at maths - so not immediately looking for the holes in the stats. The challenge for that was to ask for disclosure of the other baby deaths she wasn’t on shift for and wasn’t being blamed for. But nobody seems to have bothered doing that.

You don't see why they wouldn't want to bring up any other deaths? What if she was on for those too? That wouldn't look good...I never understand this argument anyway. The claim wasn't that she killed every single baby that was ever on the unit. The chart was simply to show she was there for all the ones they'd charged her with. Her defence team more than likely know she's guilty (even if she didn't tell them it's blatantly obvious) they're not going to risk introducing any other babies she might've harmed into the mix. If she didn't harm them then they're irrelevant anyway as they obviously collapsed from natural causes which means there was no crime. It's expected on a unit like that, occasionally. How does that somehow prove she's innocent of the suspicious ones they charged her with?

There's no "nobody bothered to do that"-she had the best defence she could have, one of the best barristers in the country.

Do they? Evidence please.

@Namingbaba and @redcars The word scapegoating can be used whether it was intentional or not. It doesn't have to mean that it was a group of conspirators plotting. Sometimes people can be scapegoated unintentionally.

I think a lot of people believe scapegoating must always be intentional so when they hear that someone says that LL was scapegoated they assume that that person is implying a conscious conspiracy which is definitely not always the case.

That's nice. It was still a poisoning. I guess you're persisting in your ignorance that all the endocrinologists must be wrong. The vast majority agree with Hindmarsh. But you don't like to go with the obvious explanation or consensus do you.

Well it can give a pretty good idea of the consensus. You keep believing all these "rare" events are perfectly plausible around one nurse. Maybe one time I could believe the insulin test was an anomaly, but not twice AND along with everything else "rare" happening around her. You could find an anomaly for absolutely anything if you looked hard enough but that's way less than a 1% chance rather than it 99% pointing towards her guilt. It's really not as complicated as people are desperate to make it. She poisoned them which is why the test showed that and why the babies had symptoms of exactly that, no need for obscure unbelievable theories.

I think some people find it hard to accept that bad things can happen to people without a group of conspirators plotting out what will happen.
I think it’s completely possible and likely that everyone involved in her conviction thought she was guilty and that they were doing a good thing.

Now this I have a problem with. I think the notes aren’t proof other than she was mentally ill when she wrote them , she could have been innocent and pushed to that. But a group of people or authorities getting together and deciding to scape goat her . Nope I don’t believe it.

I am convinced she is guilty. Baby after baby dying on her watch. And all those gruesome notes and her weird behaviour round the deaths of the babies. She should have been suspended long before she was.

She's a scapegoat. Maybe the names of all the others will come out if there is a new trial.

Don't feel bad about it, plenty of people believe things like that. I know of someone who's actually done jury service and claims to think no case would get to court if the system didn't already know the person was guilty. Head in hands! There are pros and cons to the jury system, and one of the definite downsides is that lots of people have very odd ideas.

Sadly criminal law in the UK is littered with wrongful cases that take decades to come back around. If you’ve got any interest in the subject I’d highly recommend memoirs of a radical lawyer written by Michael Mansfield. Will leave you shocked and appalled.

Agree with the snowball effect, however the police and CPS should have done better, it shouldn't have mattered to them what the consultants thought. Of course they gave them a theory and pointed them in that direction, but I'm sure the police encounter that all the time but on a smaller and less complicated crime, they still have to do their job properly.

Another thinks she is guilty because the CPS and police only bring cases in the first place if they have lots of good evidence.

Yes, if I'd been a juror for a case held in 2022/2023 I would have believed that this evidence must be robust and tested, I would never in a million years have thought that they could have or would have put forward a case that was so amateur and misleading. I obviously realise now that that is very naive but it just wouldn't have occurred to me that they would have ever done otherwise. I

They all think with the documentaries a fair retrial is v v hard to achieve. They also think quashing it is also v difficult aswel because of the families wanting "justice". All we know is the conviction is not safe.

The judge also bears a lot of responsibilty for what happened in the case as quite a lot of the issues are down to decisions he made. He probably decided she was guilty and didn't want such a terrible serial killer to get off.

I think a snowball effect starts with everyone thinking she must be guilty because a previous group of people they respect did.

Consultants -> Police -> CPS -> Judge -> Jury

This is why some of my friends think she is guilty. It isn't based on any actual evidence. One (a doctor) thinks the consultants wouldn't have got it wrong.
Another thinks she is guilty because the CPS and police only bring cases in the first place if they have lots of good evidence.