Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Lucy Letby (2)

644 replies

Oftenaddled · 30/07/2026 10:01

Not only the second thread of course, but maybe with them filling so fast it is time to start numbering them?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
12
Glowingup · 15/09/2026 18:50

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 18:45

The conspiracy tin foil madness is that she actually done it,

There is not, was not, and probably never will be any evidence.

As soon as we see some evidence we will be silent, what was it 250 witnesses and no one seen anything on a busy ward. It is actually absurd it even made it to court but i suppose we have all now seen operation hummingbird and know why and where it went so wrong for Lucy.

And yeah you’re defending a baby-murderer. Someone who killed the most vulnerable poor little defenceless humans you could imagine. For kicks. Took pleasure in their suffering and ended their little lives. They’d done nothing to her and they couldn’t defend themselves at all. You’re standing up for someone who did that, wanting her to be released into society. Absolute shame on you.

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 18:57

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 18:42

Do you genuinely think that a leading KC was so incompetent that he forgot to call expert witnesses? Why do you gloss over the fact that she DID have experts lined up but did not call them? Why might that be do you think? Do you genuinely think that someone who has 25 years experience running complex murder trials just thinks oh fuck it let’s not call the expert, too much hassle, let’s just call the plumber?

Im not scared of a retrial. She’s had one already and was found guilty. However there is no reason to give her one. There were no deficiencies in her defence in the first trial at all. Quite the opposite. If you look at the questions her barrister put to the experts you will see that he tried his very best to cast doubt on the prosecution evidence. The court of appeal have also said there are no grounds for appeal.

You would have to ask him about what happened but he prefers not to speak about it and i doubt he is a leading KC.

Every single one of you is terrified of another trial.

Give us some evidence someone is guilty it should be easy. 20m quid spent countless hours going over and over everything and the best anyone can come up with is that she spends a lot of time on facebook and goes to work.

How did she do it ? why did she do it ? why does she have no previous ? why does she not just admit it ? why do so many risk their reputation to help her ?

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 18:58

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 18:57

You would have to ask him about what happened but he prefers not to speak about it and i doubt he is a leading KC.

Every single one of you is terrified of another trial.

Give us some evidence someone is guilty it should be easy. 20m quid spent countless hours going over and over everything and the best anyone can come up with is that she spends a lot of time on facebook and goes to work.

How did she do it ? why did she do it ? why does she have no previous ? why does she not just admit it ? why do so many risk their reputation to help her ?

You. Are. Defending. A. Baby-killer.

EasternStandard · 15/09/2026 19:04

Some hyperbolic posts aside this came up when looking up the current process

Why the Experts Withdrew
On 14 September 2026, chemical engineering expert Helen Shannon and bioengineering professor Geoff Chase withdrew from Letby's defense team. Their decision came down to two major issues: 1]

  • Inaccurate & Inconsistent Arguments: In a letter sent directly to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the pair stated they could not "with integrity, support arguments which are inconsistent with the available evidence, science and established physiology". They warned that other parts of the defense's appeal strategy contained "demonstrably inaccurate" claims with "fundamental unresolvable problems".1, 2]
  • Professional and Ethical Risks: Both experts expressed that continuing to be associated with unscientific legal claims posed a severe ethical issue under professional engineering codes in the UK and New Zealand, leaving them exposed to professional sanctions. They explicitly warned that the current legal strategy was "placing the long-term interests of Ms Letby at serious, unnecessary and unacceptable risk".
ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 19:07

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 18:50

And yeah you’re defending a baby-murderer. Someone who killed the most vulnerable poor little defenceless humans you could imagine. For kicks. Took pleasure in their suffering and ended their little lives. They’d done nothing to her and they couldn’t defend themselves at all. You’re standing up for someone who did that, wanting her to be released into society. Absolute shame on you.

If she harmed anyone i would totally agree but i do not believe any of it is true.

And there is a hell of a lot of people in the UK that totally agree with me.

Not everyone will be fooled by Lady T and government tv/news.

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 19:12

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 19:07

If she harmed anyone i would totally agree but i do not believe any of it is true.

And there is a hell of a lot of people in the UK that totally agree with me.

Not everyone will be fooled by Lady T and government tv/news.

It is true though and you defended her. You picked your side and decided to go with that of a baby killer. Potentially just to seem edgy. Good lord I’m glad I never did that.

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 19:25

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 19:12

It is true though and you defended her. You picked your side and decided to go with that of a baby killer. Potentially just to seem edgy. Good lord I’m glad I never did that.

Loads of people in the UK defend her ask anywhere you like and plenty will say she is completely innocent.

I understand it is upsetting and people get emotional about the subject it is not my aim to annoy or wind anyone up.

You say edgy i just call it being fair i do not blame her for NHS issues or the dishonesty involved in this case over a very long period of time. I feel deeply sorry for her and find it incredible she is still being punished.

Dolphin37 · 15/09/2026 20:02

EasternStandard · 15/09/2026 19:04

Some hyperbolic posts aside this came up when looking up the current process

Why the Experts Withdrew
On 14 September 2026, chemical engineering expert Helen Shannon and bioengineering professor Geoff Chase withdrew from Letby's defense team. Their decision came down to two major issues: 1]

  • Inaccurate & Inconsistent Arguments: In a letter sent directly to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the pair stated they could not "with integrity, support arguments which are inconsistent with the available evidence, science and established physiology". They warned that other parts of the defense's appeal strategy contained "demonstrably inaccurate" claims with "fundamental unresolvable problems".1, 2]
  • Professional and Ethical Risks: Both experts expressed that continuing to be associated with unscientific legal claims posed a severe ethical issue under professional engineering codes in the UK and New Zealand, leaving them exposed to professional sanctions. They explicitly warned that the current legal strategy was "placing the long-term interests of Ms Letby at serious, unnecessary and unacceptable risk".

the pair stated they could not "with integrity, support arguments which are inconsistent with the available evidence, science and established physiology". They warned that other parts of the defense's appeal strategy contained "demonstrably inaccurate" claims with "fundamental unresolvable problems"

They also wrote

"Our recently published research in Diabetes Science and Technology and Frontiers in Pediatrics (Neonatology) has important implications for the insulin evidence relied on at trial. They support a scientific challenge to the prosecution interpretation of the trial evidence, and its claims insulin assay values had no possible non-malicious cause. Our scientific conclusions remain unchanged."

So they withdraw their submission (which they still say is correct) because the lawyer won't withdraw another submission (which they think is wrong). They say that to do otherwise is to "support" a submission they disagree with.

For comparison, by that logic, every expert who testified for the prosecution thereby "supported" every claim Dewi Evans made, including things he himself has since disavowed. I think many of them would be surprised to find that out.

EyeLevelStick · 15/09/2026 21:13

Sunnibee · 15/09/2026 13:09

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

When I said that I was replying to Dolphin.

When I was responding to you I spoke about the tension between scientific opinion and how the law works in an adversarial system. The scientists have a different world view, which explains their stance. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are morally correct in the ordinary sense.

To be clear, I think they may have done more harm than good, at least temporarily, but the explanation they have (reportedly) given is far from word salad, as a pp said.

EyeLevelStick · 15/09/2026 21:25

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 18:20

Medics who have offered their opinions from their armchairs and have not had their evidence robustly challenged in court. A lot of the things that other medics have raised were considered and discounted at trial, eg that one of the babies died of infection due to mum not being given antibiotics.

A court comprising judges and jury with no requirement for any scientific knowledge or qualification is not competent to examine and judge complex medical and scientific evidence.

Firefly1987 · 15/09/2026 21:26

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 18:45

The conspiracy tin foil madness is that she actually done it,

There is not, was not, and probably never will be any evidence.

As soon as we see some evidence we will be silent, what was it 250 witnesses and no one seen anything on a busy ward. It is actually absurd it even made it to court but i suppose we have all now seen operation hummingbird and know why and where it went so wrong for Lucy.

How could there possibly be 250 witnesses? One minute it's busy the next they didn't have enough staff and the consultants were never there 🙄

She was seen doing something twice-by baby E's mum and Dr Ravi Jayaram. Plus the nurse who testified you couldn't see anything wrong with a baby from the doorway because it wasn't light enough yet LL apparently knew the baby was at deaths door with her psychic powers.

There was also a non-indictment baby where the mum saw her acting suspiciously. But none of that matters because you don't need to have seen a serial killer in action for circumstantial evidence to prove they're guilty.

kkloo · 15/09/2026 21:43

Gibbs interviewed here, says he still believes she's guilty, but that he does also accept that some of the concerns about a possible miscarriage of justice raised by expert neonatologists, statisticians, scientists with an interest in insulin do need to be looked at very carefully.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2OfqJyWv0E

FrippEnos · 15/09/2026 22:10

Seems that quite a few of the guilty group have forgotten that this is a discussion forum.

ByAzureMentor · 15/09/2026 22:58

Firefly1987 · 15/09/2026 21:26

How could there possibly be 250 witnesses? One minute it's busy the next they didn't have enough staff and the consultants were never there 🙄

She was seen doing something twice-by baby E's mum and Dr Ravi Jayaram. Plus the nurse who testified you couldn't see anything wrong with a baby from the doorway because it wasn't light enough yet LL apparently knew the baby was at deaths door with her psychic powers.

There was also a non-indictment baby where the mum saw her acting suspiciously. But none of that matters because you don't need to have seen a serial killer in action for circumstantial evidence to prove they're guilty.

She was seen doing something twice, something, what could that be maybe her job.....

Are you the only person left that trusts anything Ravi says ?

I think when people are in such a difficult or upsetting situation they might say someone seemed strange this is just more garbage.

I think it is interesting you steer clear of facts or evidence and just focus on whatever they just told you on government telly. Well lady T says.

Oftenaddled · 15/09/2026 23:19

Firefly1987 · 15/09/2026 21:26

How could there possibly be 250 witnesses? One minute it's busy the next they didn't have enough staff and the consultants were never there 🙄

She was seen doing something twice-by baby E's mum and Dr Ravi Jayaram. Plus the nurse who testified you couldn't see anything wrong with a baby from the doorway because it wasn't light enough yet LL apparently knew the baby was at deaths door with her psychic powers.

There was also a non-indictment baby where the mum saw her acting suspiciously. But none of that matters because you don't need to have seen a serial killer in action for circumstantial evidence to prove they're guilty.

Police referred to working with 250 witnesses - some appeared in court, others not.

OP posts:
Oftenaddled · 15/09/2026 23:22

Mark McDonald confirming - just before the twelve minute mark - that the Chase / Shannon report is still with the CCRC, who should still use it. It is Lucy Letby's property, I believe, and it's not as if Chase and Shannon don't stand by it. So that makes sense.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/fWtill3ZqrI

OP posts:
Oftenaddled · 15/09/2026 23:34

Mixed feelings about Thirlwall. Glad to see the recommendation on multidisciplinary panels. Why do they include four managers?! I go back and forth on CCTV or cotcams. Will they really capture everything? I wonder what nurses think of them.

Thirlwall conclusions are pretty much what you would conclude if you thought Lucy Letby was guilty: doctors were right, nurses and managers were wrong, people should have responded urgently after seven deaths in four months. Unit dysfunctional, management failings, communications awful. Doesn't touch on new expert evidence, as you'd expect. Lots of details is contest. Nothing new if you have been following the Inquiry. Certainly no new proofs or indicators of guilt.

The best perspective I've seen on it has been from the Guardian:

>So during two years and £18m spent on so much legal inquiry, the question has not been answered, nor was it allowed to be asked: how and why did Cheshire constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service, and the doctors they recruited as expert witnesses, come to so wholly different a conclusion about the causes of death, from all the experts that had looked at the same medical evidence before?

If the inquiry can't answer that question, how is it expecting future experts to spot future Letbys? A failure of conviction that it never asked this question at all.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/sep/15/thirlwall-inquiry-left-biggest-questions-lucy-letby-case-unanswered

OP posts:
Daygloboo · 16/09/2026 00:38

Glowingup · 15/09/2026 17:54

I followed the trial closely at the time. There are lots of things pointing to her guilt which, taken together, are overwhelming and two juries agreed. These are just some of the factors that convinced me:

  • the deliberate doctoring of notes to distance herself from events, eg changing the time on the notes of when one of the mums walked in on her with one of the babies
  • shockingly self serving evidence both in police interviews and on the stand where she can remember precise details when it helps her but has forgotten quite major things like a baby collapsing and dying on her shift when she was in the room
  • calling no expert witnesses but having instructed some (and the only reason for that is that it didn’t help her to call them)
  • hoarding of handover notes - NOT normal
  • repeated searches of family members of the victims
  • repeated odd behaviour that was reported by colleagues including behaving inappropriately around family members, seeming to take delight in the drama, needing to be asked to return to her own designated baby on several occasions
  • text messages suggesting a pathological need to be at the centre of the drama and reacting very differently to her colleagues to the numerous deaths
  • there were multiple experts, not just Dewi Evans, and they presented evidence that was not refuted by the defence (despite having an expert) that the babies were deliberately harmed
I won’t comment on some of the other evidence as the accusation is always that the prosecution are relying on statistics which has never been the case.

The defence team now and the expert panel are honestly jokers. Mark McDonald is not respected in the legal profession whatsoever and I cannot stress that enough. I have many thoughts about Dr Shoo Lee, none of them positive. A lot of her supporters also seem to overlap with right wing Covid-deniers and anti vax conspiracy theorists.

The main arguments that her supporters seem to put forward revolve around her being under stress and acting oddly because of that. For me, the one thing that seems genuinely suspicious above everything else is the notes. I am not convinced that you would take loads of notes home by accident in your pocket, then stash them under your bed and dont ever get rid of them.... even though you've got a shredder. It just doesnt make sense. Also there was the fact of her having that doctor ' boyfriend' . Didnt she get attention from him whenever there was drama. That would be a motive.

Oftenaddled · 16/09/2026 00:43

Daygloboo · 16/09/2026 00:38

The main arguments that her supporters seem to put forward revolve around her being under stress and acting oddly because of that. For me, the one thing that seems genuinely suspicious above everything else is the notes. I am not convinced that you would take loads of notes home by accident in your pocket, then stash them under your bed and dont ever get rid of them.... even though you've got a shredder. It just doesnt make sense. Also there was the fact of her having that doctor ' boyfriend' . Didnt she get attention from him whenever there was drama. That would be a motive.

The alleged boyfriend has died now. He only joined the hospital after 5/7 babies Lucy Letby was accused of killing were dead. He was only on duty for 2 of the 6 incidents she's convicted of after that. So it doesn't really work as a motivation.

OP posts:
kkloo · 16/09/2026 02:48

New documentary on Channel 5 on Mon 21st of September at 10pm.

Lucy Letby: Scapegoat?

A new investigation by the Sun in partnership with 5 puts the prosecution's case against the former neonatal nurse under the microscope like never before. Shocking, fresh revelations uncover a hospital in crisis and a system in freefall and asks whether those institutional failures were misinterpreted as murder. Through new testimony, expert analysis and an anonymous insider, investigative journalist Rob Pattinson examines whether important alternative explanations were overlooked during and explores the possibility that the focus on one individual may have obscured wider problems within the hospital

EasternStandard · 16/09/2026 06:22

Daygloboo · 16/09/2026 00:38

The main arguments that her supporters seem to put forward revolve around her being under stress and acting oddly because of that. For me, the one thing that seems genuinely suspicious above everything else is the notes. I am not convinced that you would take loads of notes home by accident in your pocket, then stash them under your bed and dont ever get rid of them.... even though you've got a shredder. It just doesnt make sense. Also there was the fact of her having that doctor ' boyfriend' . Didnt she get attention from him whenever there was drama. That would be a motive.

Supporters seems odd as a way to view this. If two of the defence team have acted as they have it’s because they are concerned about the safeness of the conviction.

They haven’t become LL ‘supporters’. It’s a legal issue that is being looked at rn.

EasternStandard · 16/09/2026 06:25

Oftenaddled · 15/09/2026 23:34

Mixed feelings about Thirlwall. Glad to see the recommendation on multidisciplinary panels. Why do they include four managers?! I go back and forth on CCTV or cotcams. Will they really capture everything? I wonder what nurses think of them.

Thirlwall conclusions are pretty much what you would conclude if you thought Lucy Letby was guilty: doctors were right, nurses and managers were wrong, people should have responded urgently after seven deaths in four months. Unit dysfunctional, management failings, communications awful. Doesn't touch on new expert evidence, as you'd expect. Lots of details is contest. Nothing new if you have been following the Inquiry. Certainly no new proofs or indicators of guilt.

The best perspective I've seen on it has been from the Guardian:

>So during two years and £18m spent on so much legal inquiry, the question has not been answered, nor was it allowed to be asked: how and why did Cheshire constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service, and the doctors they recruited as expert witnesses, come to so wholly different a conclusion about the causes of death, from all the experts that had looked at the same medical evidence before?

If the inquiry can't answer that question, how is it expecting future experts to spot future Letbys? A failure of conviction that it never asked this question at all.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/sep/15/thirlwall-inquiry-left-biggest-questions-lucy-letby-case-unanswered

Yes it was a very slam dunk outcome. It wholey assumes guilt and all recommendations come from that. I suppose it’s the court info they had. Although maybe the Guardian raises a good point there.,

Daygloboo · 16/09/2026 07:27

EasternStandard · 16/09/2026 06:22

Supporters seems odd as a way to view this. If two of the defence team have acted as they have it’s because they are concerned about the safeness of the conviction.

They haven’t become LL ‘supporters’. It’s a legal issue that is being looked at rn.

Well, by saying ' supporters' I was actually using the exact word they used on the BBC six o'clock news.

CheeseNPickle3 · 16/09/2026 10:24

Apart from the expense (and there's always other ways to spend money in the NHS) I think cameras could be a good idea so parents who have other children to look after would be able to still see their baby in the NICU remotely as well as visit in person. Potentially fewer people around the babies could cut down on the possibility of infection spreading too - and just more space without extra people there. Depending on who has access to the recordings, it could also be useful to check the times when cares/medication were done if the notes are being done retrospectively. Whether it's any use for detecting wrongdoing is another thing.

I think whistleblowers in general should be protected. It's always going to be a judgement call when to suspect foul play.

FrippEnos · 16/09/2026 10:57

Daygloboo · 16/09/2026 07:27

Well, by saying ' supporters' I was actually using the exact word they used on the BBC six o'clock news.

The issue with only putting this forward as having sides ignores that many on here have said that they don't know if letby is guilty or innocent.

Its that we have no confidence that the conviction is sound.