Lucy Letby (2)

It’s not a good look for the credibility of Letby’s defence. The experts might well stand by their assessment, but they feel forced to remove themselves because the defence lawyer is seeking to progress lines of argument which are not credible. After 18 months of communicating this, the defence barrister is undeterred in progressing arguments which are scientifically unsound.

As scientists, they may not be able in all conscience to take part in the “throw all sorts and hope something sticks” approach. They believe the approach uses incorrect information, and they think the fact of using incorrect information undermines Letby’s case. To be clear, they think this harms her long term safety.

They may well be wrong about how the law works, but they have probably taken advice about their own professional responsibilities.

Sure, but that's how the legal system works, so a critique of it would be a question for legal reform, not a reason for criticising the defence. The experts are implying to the press that the defence team are doing something inappropriate and unethical, but from this information alone (maybe there is something else) there isn't anything to suggest other than they are representing their client's best interests as they should.

The experts don't have to agree with all the defence theories, they just have to stand behind their own expert evidence - which they say they do?

If they stand by their work and still think it’s unlikely she murdered the babies I don’t get why they would withdraw, even if they don’t agree with some of the other experts.

Their full statement is quoted here. They write: "More importantly, after disclosing these concerns, continued association with arguments we believe are demonstrably inaccurate creates a serious ethical issue". In other words: simply telling the lawyer that they think some of his other experts are wrong is not enough. They must take their own (scientifically correct) report hostage and threaten to withdraw it unless the lawyer drops the other report. Because if they could have done that and didn't, that would mean they "support" the other report, which would violate their scientific integrity and ethics.

What they miss is that withdrawing a report will make people and courts think the report is wrong, which they themselves say is not the scientifically correct view. How does that promote scientific integrity? If all experts did that, courts would be deprived of much valid expert opinion.

They also write this non-sequitor: "In our professional engineering assessment of the insulin evidence, we believe the current defence strategy is placing the long-term interests of Ms Letby at serious, unnecessary, and unacceptable risk.". But defense strategy is not a matter for "engineering assessment"; it's simply not their professional area. Neither is ethics. In these areas they're amateurs, and their reasoning there seems amateurish (to me as an amateur).

Also, one of their specific objections to the other experts ("Random assay interference is not a credible explanation for the extreme insulin results of Babies F and L. Using conservative assumptions, the odds against it exceed one million to one") seems to conflate the odds on one specific test being wrong with the odds of one of many reviewed tests being wrong, and then conflate those odds with the odds of Letby being innocent (which depend on the very high prior odds).

And if "Perinatal transient hyperinsulinism cannot provide a scientifically credible explanation for the extreme assay concentrations or inverted insulin-to-C-peptide ratios.", then what explains Child Y (who had the most extreme concentrations)? Letby wasn't charged in that case: not initially, not on retrial, not in the recent attempts to bring more charges. Surely she'd have been charged if there was any way to blame it on her? But she wasn't, which means the case on that charge would be weaker than the weakest cases they did bring, some of which not even the jurors who otherwise thought her a killer would accept, and others of which were very weak as post-trial discussions showed. It must be something like, the sample was taken before she ever saw the child. Which means that Judge Goss's statement to the jury that extreme values "undoubtedly" mean external insulin can't be right.

You have to view this from the perspective of scientists with professional standards to uphold. The machinations of the legal system are artifice to them.

This is a fundamental clash between scientific truth and legal truth. Let’s hope the actual truth - the reasons for the deaths and collapses of those babies - is not a casualty of this conflict.

Edited to add, I mean scientists’ view of truth and lawyers’ interest in truth - clearly there’s only one truth here.

he knew about these issues but decided they were too rare to mention

This is the part that, frustratingly, keeps getting missed. The chance that a specific rare anomaly occurred in a specific instance is small. But there are many different possible rare anomalies (including not-yet-studied ones), and the investigation looked at many tests of many types in many much-tested babies. The chance of some anomaly occurring in some of these many tests is much higher, and to be confidently dismissed it must be proved to be much smaller than the chance that a nurse is a serial killer with Nostradamus abilities. But Hindmarsh and now Chase just focus on "what's the chance that this rare anomaly just happened to occur in this case" and dismiss that.

You have to view this from the perspective of scientists with professional standards to uphold

What they are upholding is their own subjective interpretation of the standards, which seems quite odd. The standards require them to speak up when they see something they consider scientically incorrect. The standards don't require avoiding every thinkable "association" with claims they don't support. The standards certainly don't require withdrawing their own claims that they still think are correct. The standards may require them to draw attention to incorrect claims being submitted, but there are ways to do that without withdrawing valid claims. Chase/Shannon could insist on including, in their own report, their critiques of other theories being put forward: just as Shoo Lee insisted on publishing his panel's findings whether or not they help Letby.

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I don’t disagree. However others are saying this
a) is incomprehensible
b) evidence that they have no faith in their own work
which are not accurate.

I still believe she is innocent and so do the two experts who have stated that they cannot agree with the hypothesis put forwards.

The experts who have quit have not said they believe she is innocent. Why would you say they stated that?

It's good that they took the opportunity to say they stand by their work and think it's unlikely Lucy Letby harmed the children.

Do you have a link to where they said this?

I thought they said it was very unlikely two of the babies were poisoned with insulin?

If all the experts think the babies weren't murdered how come Letby got found guilty of seven murders and 7 attemped murders. It doesn't make sense.

Well, they said it was ‘very unlikely the babies were poisoned’.

That’s a long and complex question, isn’t it?

But you responded to me and I don't think either a) or b)?

Interested in this as listening to the Thirlwall outcome.

The suggestions on cctv coverage would have ensured we’d know if LL did do it or the doubts are real.

No (and yes.) The problem is that in some cases CCTV would in all likelihood show a nurse standing over a baby or administering something which would be well within their remit, so I’m not convinced it would show deliberate harm.

Maybe. I listened to someone who has doubts over the conviction who put that forward. He made some good points. I hope her case is looked at still. Ik there’s something still going.

That's not saying they believe she is innocent. Even a court of law doesn't find people 'innocent'.

They are saying they don’t believe the babies were poisoned @nomas , so what, are they saying they think she murdered then by another method? I’m not being facetious; I genuinely don’t understand what you’re trying to drive at, sorry,

I'm saying that saying the experts believe she is innocent is misleading and not what they said. The experts are there to get justice for all, including the parents of the babies, who they have mentioned in their statement, so I think language matters.

They don’t believe the babies were poisoned; she was accused (and convicted) of poisoning them so I think it is fair to say they do not believe she committed the crimes she was convicted of.