If you were previously on the fence about Lucy Letby’s guilt, have the Thirlwall findings swayed you either way?

I'm not making up stories, it's just obvious that's what happened. What highly experienced barrister is going to go "nah lets not bother challenging the insulin test results, we'll just chance it and see" when no challenge basically meant it was guaranteed she'd be found guilty?

• hospital was shit
• docs were scapegoating
• medics’ evidence is hideously complex
• statistics are misleading.

Doesn’t make her innocent. But there’s not enough reliable evidence to convict her again now.

People who saw her in court are convinced she’s guilty.

Me neither.

That's very well explained

The three short films by Guy Rowland on the police investigation and trial are really excellent, for anyone interested: and sequels

You are making up stories again. They don't prove anything

For the umpteenth time, as has been explained over and over on multiple threads, group think is a real thing that can infect investigations / institutions.

This case was built around circumstantial evidence initially provided by the consultants, none of whom raised concerns of murder until the number of deaths had risen to an unacceptable level in their opinion. Nobody went to the pathologists or the coroner in a timely fashion. When no concerns were raised by the pathologists, it was only after the grievance issue was resolved that the police were approached, and initially the police didn't think there was a case. Whatever the consultants said to them when they had a further meeting seemed to spark it all. One has to wonder, if their suspicions were so strong, and the safeguarding of vulnerable babies was so uppermost in their minds, why theu didn't act sooner, hospital management be damned.

The case was conducted in a reverse manner starting with the identification of a suspect, and then with Dewi Evans God like input, he offered alternative theories for deaths that had been deemed natural by pathologists. By no stretch of the imagination should a case be built like this.

The argument that all these babies were "fine" and "stable" despite prematurity and other factors necessitating their presence on NICU falls apart when if that was the case it should have been a huge red flag to the pathologists at the very least, and highlighted by the senior medical staff every time it happened.

And we can go on and on in never ending circles, picking apart Lucy Letbys demeanour, her relationship with her parents, her texts, her post it notes etc etc, but it counts for diddly squat in the face of conflicting, and sometimes fabricated by Evans medical evidence plus all the "confusion" from the likes of Ravi Jayaram etc which needs to be objectively re-analysed to ensure this was a safe conviction.

But you know all this, don't you?

This case is a clusterfuck and an embarrassment to our justice system.

Either way at least one expert with decades of experience has misunderstood it though? Whether you think that's Shoo Lee or Dewi Evans, they can't both be right.

I originally thought LL may have been guilty but now I feel that the substandard care in the hospital means she is probably innocent. I have read the Thirlwell enquiry report yet.

@Oftenaddled Yeah they just wouldn't bother to challenge the insulin evidence would they? They probably searched the whole country to find an endocrinologist who could say this wasn't exogenous insulin. But there wasn't one who could say that, because it was.

There is no way in hell they didn't want to challenge that-they just couldn't!

The problem with believing in her innocence is it has to mean absolutely everyone involved in this case was incompetent. The consultants, the police, the experts etc. and it just doesn't ring true. Then you've got Shoo Lee whose only reply to criticism of his work is "they misunderstood it" as if what he's writing about is just so difficult for these experts with decades of experience to understand 🙄

More likely a failed strategy (to get much the expert evidence thrown out) in light of infelicitous circumstances (section of cases, RCPCH report, grievance etc excluded).

I suppose there is some mix of failed strategy and excluded or unknown information behind every miscarriage of justice.

Yes, His Majesty’s Counsel are generally known for being incompetent. People who got their legal training from TikTok are much more adept at dealing with such serious matters.

Honestly do the baby murderer apologists even hear themselves

Not evidence, but human nature.

I did wonder if they were going to pause the enquiry when it came out about Ravi Jayaram's email not having been disclosed by the prosecution.

No, that was more about the failings of the hospital than about her.

I have no idea whether or not Lucy Letby is guilty, only she knows, but there is a much doubt so hope investigations continue. It would be so wrong for someone to stay in prison for crimes they did not commit.

I'm aware of that, but I was replying to what the OP asked. My main concern about the conviction has always been the quality of the medical evidence used to convict her.

In light of the huge and rising number of highly qualified medical professionals who share my concerns, the inquiry was a complete waste of £18m. The answer to "How was a murderer allowed to operate for so long without challenge?" could very well turn out to be "they weren't because there were no murders".

The inquiry should have been paused, or the scope widened. If it had looked at things like how a unit was allowed to keep operating after multiple outside agencies flagged serious concerns, we might have learned something; ditto if it had looked at any of the other concerns, like how the unit could continue operating with raw sewage dripping from the ceiling and absent consultants, we might have learned something, but to only look at why a murderer was allowed to continue operating when it is becoming increasingly uncertain that there were any murders is a waste of taxpayers' money.

I think there's quite a few people who think that or at least don't rule it out.

It bemuses me how many people don't separate out possible guilt and the eventual outcome of the CCRC application actually. We seem to have a cohort of posters who have a strong belief she's guilty as sin and on the basis of that keep assuring everyone she'll be in prison forever, all the appeals will fail... but the one doesn't necessarily mean the other! Sometimes legal systems fuck something up badly enough that a guilty person is found not guilty or their conviction is found unsafe.

The purpose of the enquiry was not to challenge the conviction, it was to look at what went so catastrophically wrong in that particular NHS Trust that Letby was allowed to continue to murder and harm tiny babies without challenge.

Every day is another day that the babies she murdered didn’t get to live, that the parents of those babies will never get to see them again, that the babies she harmed will suffer from the effects of her actions.
Do you feel the same way about other mass murderers, or is it just the young pretty female ones you feel sorry for?

I don't think we will ever know whether she committed those murders.
I believe she will eventually win an appeal as the scientific evidence used to convict her is so shaky. The main factors of insulin poisoning and 'She was always there' can't prove her guilt.
The poor running of the unit muddies the waters.

I don’t know but she needs a retrial. Every day is another day her life has been taken from her

the NHS is a shit show

The list sounds relevant to an unsafe conviction and yes to that last line. There’s women whose demeanour has been judged, Lindy Chamberlain didn’t behave the right way.

The issue is if you’re guilty you might not, but if you’re innocent and know what you’re facing you’d be a bit off the usual too. Plus just generally judgements shouldn’t be based on demeanour.

I just don’t think they’ve proved beyond reasonable doubt . Part of he thinks they won’t exonerate her because of the loss of public confidence in the justice system

With reguard to the consultants.
They are a group of people that didn't fo their job correctly, and at least one has been caught lying about this case.
They have a lot to try and defend.

With reguard to letby, as I have posted many times, I don't know if she is guilty or innocent, but the evidence that put her away is weak and I believe resulted in an unsafe conviction.
The actions of the police from the start to the finish of the case is highly suspect in that they ran an investigation that was counter to their own regulations and then hired dewi "this is my type of case" evans, who approached them, and even a previous judge took the very unusual act of writting to the judge in this case to say that he had a reputation for making the evidence fit the crime.
A man that only put forward theories, that have no backing, and changed his mind not only in court but when interviewed afterwards.
To the test results that have been taken as gospel yet shouldn't be used as forensic evidence as they are not fit for that purpose.
Consultants that were so convinced of foul play that they never mentioned it to the coroner.
the stats thay make no sense, to the extent that they fired their own specialist for pointing this out.
And the door entry data that they not only got the wrong way round but was just wrong. Including a second door that was never monitored.
And there is even more than that.
So there is a lot wrong with this case.

Edited
Including the reporting of the case by two police paid for journalists, and at least one documentary that had to put in a correction about stats for intubation tubes and another that relied heavily on cgi footage implying that it was real.

In a way I hope she is guilty, because can you even begin to imagine the dystopian horror of being in her situation while innocent?
Same.

I'm in the relatively small group that thinks (a) she very likely committed the crimes of which she was convicted, but (b) her conviction was probably unsafe.

Or, to put it another way - I think she should be in prison but I also don't think she should be in prison 😅

The Thirwall enquiry didn't address any of my concerns around the evidence used to convict Letby, so it hasn't done anything to ease my concerns around the quality of the evidence used to convict Letby.

Overfeeding - Dewi himself has retracted this one.
Air down the NG tube - see above
Air embolism - diagnosed after Evans misinterpreted Lee and Tanswell's paper.
Insulin via feeding bags - an untested theory.
Firing an expert statistician.

I'm also deeply uncomfortable with this idea that someone's demeanour can be taken as evidence to sentence them to a whole-life term.