Lucy Letby (2)

The most damning evidence towards Lucy in the Thirwall report, was that she had once shouted at her manager, and "sometimes appeared callous".
Lucy Letby is innocent, and we are witnessing one of the worst miscarriages of justice in history.

whether people would be so quick to doubt the conviction if it hadn’t been a young, white, vaguely attractive woman

Healthcare serial killers of any appearance are ultra-rare, compared to alternatives like bad care and missed diagnoses. That's what drives basic skepticism and the need for very clear proof.

Also, the many defects that have been pointed out in the prosecution's case would not go away if the accused had looked like some stereotypical villain.

A scary and depressing thought.

The appearance and demeanour of a defendant is utterly irrelevant if evidence for their crimes does not meet the threshold of beyond reasonable doubt, as opposed to the balance of probabilities, which applies in civil / family courts but not in criminal courts for very good reason.

It is tedious and lazy when this trope gets trotted out. The only reason this case is where it is, is because medical practitioners and experts, who probably thought, like many of us here, that the case wouldn't have come to court without very solid medical evidence, started hearing about air down NG tubes and splinting of diaphragms, violence committed to livers in frankly improbable circumstances leaving no other trace, dubious methods of introducing insulin into babies etc etc and went "hang on a minute, by no stretch does this chime with our years of practise and experience nor precedents from other similar cases." And they started making "noise" as Lady T put it because if these things are allowed to stand without rigorous scrutiny, it makes a mockery of both science and justice.

As the management of the whole case was also scrutinised it began to look like a really shit episode of Life on Mars, a return to policing practise that had been identified as central to other MoJs.

If anything, partly based on personal experience, Lucy's status as middle class white female might even have counted against her in terms of a subconscious effort to emphasise that these things are no guarantee of innocence - nice middle class people can be monsters too. Women who fight back against the system strongly are often doubled down on, the first line of attack is often to cast doubt on their mental health, or their morals. I've said before,the lack of any psychological reports or people who knew her coming forward with salacious reminiscences to the tabloids is extremely unusual in such a high profile case as this.

But the bottom line is that a vast number of people from all walks of life approached this case believing it must have merit until the reporting of the medical evidence made them go hang on, that's not possible. For me that's where it stops and starts.

There is new opinion from another expert today about the validity of the air embolism theory, based on what was NOT observed at post mortem. Very interesting indeed, and it has certainly upset Dewi Evans.

Thank you @Oftenaddled x

I find it so odd that people can't see how very unusual this case is in every way. It was presented in such a "shock and awe" manner to the public in the most emotive way possible, absolutely designed with apparently paid media help in some quarters to emphasise every aspect of the circumstantial over solid evidence. That in itself suggests they knew they were on shaky ground. The insulin cases were framed as incontrovertible; now we know there are multiple reasons why their inclusion doesn't support the case. If those cases hadn't been flagged what did they really have? An "odd" nurse with a careless attitude to the disposal of paperwork.

Incidentally, has any investigation been done into whether the failure to flag the insulin results at the time impacted the outcomes for those children? I believe it's a potential multiple "failings" can of worms, and that they both survived, but I believe one has ongoing severe issues. Has it been fully established what precisely that is down to if deliberate insulin administration is off the table down the line? Those parents must be in absolute turmoil given all the recent developments. It beggars belief that the potential long term well being of their child has become caught up in all of this due to apparent mishandling of the medical evidence throughout. And that goes for all the families involved, especially the bereaved. If Lucy Letby does end up being exonerated, I hope they sue every institution involved in bringing this case in the first place. And possibly any individual found to have behaved unethically.

I believe Shoo Lee touched on the insulin cases in his press conference. He believes the symptoms were caused by a combination of infection and medical mismanagement.

I haven't read anything beyond that, or whether it's possible the medical mismanagement caused further harm.

I imagine it won't be investigated until/if Letby is exonerated.

There is also an appearance from an anonymous consultant who worked at Chester during the indictment period who believes the conviction was unsafe.

Didn't even have the guts to go public eh?

I think the picture painted by Thirlwall is going to shatter very fast.

Yeah years of painstaking testimony and implementing ways to improve safeguarding and you think a channel 5 sensationalist documentary is going to undo all that, sure.

Maybe they're afraid of all the abuse and death threats from the guilty side....

There are plenty of medical experts commenting on Thirlwall’s recommendations who think they are bunk and unimplementable, for a variety of reasons.

Oh that’s reminded me, @Firefly1987 you made claims upthread that pro-verdict people have been getting death threats from probable-MoJ people.

Can you substantiate that please? It would be appalling if true.

@EyeLevelStick it came from the Criminologist David Wilson on his recent podcast with Chris Morris. I trust he's a credible source...

I haven’t listened to the podcast. What exactly does he say?

@EyeLevelStick "The problem about people who are convinced of her guilt is that they are silenced by the online, noisy, social media, there are people who believe in her guilt who get death threats now"

It's about 30 mins in-

That's exactly how the people who had concerns about the evidence were treated, and initially some were anonymous but people kept speaking up anyway because they were brave and believed in what they were saying and felt it was too important to stay quiet.

But of course some still are nervous and scared to speak out.

Rather a giant leap from the potential use of a metaphor to " obviously all serial killers can spotted at 100 paces" 🤔🙄Take it you've never heard of John Wayne Gacy then? Lovely chap, pillar of the community...... Harold Shipman, his patients loved him, especially the old ladies.....

Evil hides in plain sight, that's how it works - if it was always obvious life would be a lot simpler!

And by the by, LL was the only, the only nurse an assessor ever failed for lack of empathy during her training.

The giant leap here is from what I wrote to "obviously all serial killers can spotted at 100 paces"... where did I say that?

Letby wasn't failed for "lack of empathy"; according to the assessment at the time

Lucy does display more confident communication skills with children and families and does show increased knowledge when answering some questions and reassuring parents. This does need to be more consistent as Lucy can also display limited communication skills when dealing with unexpected situations. She needs more experience at observing at picking up on non-verbal signs of anxiety/distress from parents and recognising when to change her approach. E.g. child with developmental delay and Sa02 monitoring. Lucy did recognise the importance of obtaining a baseline Sa02 but a member of staff had to step in as child and family were increasingly distressed. Lucy should have initiated distraction techniques and involved the play specialist to help alleviate the anxiety.

It sounds like at that point she did not yet fully get the hang of the job, which is unremarkable. When I volunteered for the Samaritans I initially failed some tests, then improved and passed, and volunteered successfully for years after that. I didn't lack empathy (or I wouldn't have volunteered), but it took some time to learn to convey it.

And by the by, LL was the only, the only nurse an assessor ever failed for lack of empathy during her training.

This is quite a claim. Can you substantiate any of it?

I remember as a trainee healthcare professional (pharmacist) being given feedback that I’d focus too much on the technical info and not sufficiently on the patient- I saw the same in lots of us, it takes a while to develop the ability to multitask as a HCP and its particularly difficult in stressful/high risk situations. Experience and time made all the difference for me. I’d be amazed if Lucy was the only nurse the assessor had encountered who struggled with this.

Being on the other side (kids who’ve required a lot of medical intervention), it really is a mixed bag- some are amazing at it (both consultants and nurses), and others are disinterested and display little empathy/interest in the patient. It didn’t cross my mind that they were in it to murder people.

One of the most shocking things to me was the statistical evidence presented to the jury, which showed Lucy Letby had been on duty when all the deaths occurred. Yet that had deliberately excluded all other deaths from the data where it didn’t fit the narrative that Leby had done it.

i believe that alone renders the conviction unsafe.

I think she is guilty. Murder in a medical setting is different fron 'usual' murders. Patients are at the mercy of their killers and are vulnerable and usually sick or frail. That's why Shipman got away with hundreds of crimes for such a long time. I know circumstances were different as he operated alone.

Genuine question. What evidence convinces you of her guilt?

The reason people are concerned that Dewi didn't ask to see the maternity notes is that you cannot make a diagnosis by exclusion without first ruling out everything, including birth complications or genetic/hereditary conditions.

DD was 18 when she was diagnosed with POTS by exclusion. The investigation into what was causing her sudden fainting started when she was 16, it took two years, dozens of tests, and multiple consultants and specialists to exclude all other causes- not 10 minutes over a cup of coffee.

Even though she was 16 when they started investigating, they still asked about her family history and birth, at one point, they asked her permission to view her dad's medical records. They wanted to see the coroner's report on his death to check whether any missing pieces could be explained by DD's condition or vice versa.

It's the bigger picture. Everything considered. Her own team didnt even call any witnesses for her defence. Why not. Why did she do the things she did. Macabre hoarding of notes and googling the parents. Babies suddenly dying. Other deaths at another hospital she worked at. But not enough evidence to prosecute.