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

I have to say, the clinicians who were barely doing ward rounds and in one case misled the court have come out of this pretty well. Regardless of whether Letby is a murderer or not, really.

Yes but she is doing life imprisonment and if there is a concerted effort to pass it on to one person that has been achieved.

No one else is on trial or pinpointed.

To add I am uncertain either way on her guilt.

I'm a fence sitter because I wasn't on the jury and haven't read reams and reams of evidence. However, I trust the jury more than I do some random people who don't have all the information. The Thirlwall enquiry doesn't change anything for me as it wasn't considering her guilt or otherwise.

I have no idea if LL is guilty but the conviction looks unsafe. The department she worked in seems to have had many issues, and other experts have challenged the expert opinions at trial. Also, her defence was completely inadeqate. She needs a new trial as the evidence looks shaky from the first one.

I agree. If she is guilty (and I believe she is) some of the deaths could have been prevented. I believe she took advantage of poor management, unclean conditions and lack of communication between teams and individuals.

I don’t not trust the jury, and see no reason to think they didn't do their best in good faith. Unfortunately though they didn't have all the information either. So like you I'm a fence sitter in that I don't know whether she's guilty.

I have always wondered where we'd be now if she had been taken off duty after the first few "suspicious" deaths and deaths had still continued at a "suspicious" rate. Would the next nurse or HCP with high attendance rates have been in the frame?

I agree, immunoassays can give false positives due to error/interference but it’s extremely rare and the manufacturer would consider it a major problem especially in an insulin assay.
When you factor in the same result from two unrelated babies months apart it becomes even less likely that it was an issue with the assay. This also makes a clerical error or contamination unlikely.
The NHS categorically do not use shoddy error prone immunoassays, they will be using high quality ones from a reputable manufacturer.
They should have followed up on that result asap with repeat testing and forensic analysis for exogenous v endogenous insulin. It should always be a red flag when you get that kind of insulin/c-peptide result and it’s shocking that it wasn’t followed up.

It sounds like this is what the experts are saying too, there could be rare biological reasons causing high insulin in premature babies (and if I read something convincing enough I would accept that), an error with the tests I just cannot believe.

I said we can agree to differ, but still you feel you must have the last word……

Obviously it hasn’t occurred to you that people can observe behaviour in another human that gives them concerns, and makes them more watchful about that person’s actions, but isn’t concrete evidence?

When nothing is recorded, then that’s that.

You are determined to stick with your view, and that’s fine, but don’t bother to further insult me by suggesting I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Are you saying you have personal knowledge of concerns that there's no evidence trail for? I'm a bit confused about what's being said here.

Always thought she isn’t guilty. Still think she isn’t guilty. No idea how they managed to convict her on the evidence presented.

The context of that was that she approached a therapist to deal with feeling terrible about the deaths & being told to write down the worst things she was thinking.

Possibly if that nurse had previously fallen out with one of the doctors…

DH did jury service at the Old Bailey. One case was the sexual assault of a child by a relative. He had no faith in some of his fellow jurors and never has had in juries ever since.

Yes, that's the point - you present all of the possible problems and their probabilies so far as known, rather than assert that there aren't any. Alongside, you present arguments around the children's symptoms and the logistics of poisoning them. You don't just choose one possible issue, but you can certainly attempt to rank by probability.

I believe she is guilty (subject to any further evidence or information that may come to light from the CCRC), but the Review didn't really impact on my views because it proceeded on the basis that her conviction was sound. I think the recommendations arising from it are sensible ones regardless of Letby's conviction - there's no downside to making vulnerable babies safer in hospitals.

If you are saying people had concerns which they haven't made public, and you have private knowledge of this, that's interesting but obviously far far beyond the realms of verification. It contradicts the statements made at the Thirlwall Inquiry (which was perfectly comfortable publishing people's accounts of vague discomforts and fears).

It would be better to state upfront if you are speaking from private personal knowledge, because it's not possible to agree to disagree on whether this is in the Thirlwall evidence. It just isn't.

I’ve always been on the fence on this one and would have hated to have had to serve as a juror on this case.

But I wonder what legal help people in Lucy Letby’s situation are entitled to? After all, she’s unable to work (except on prison duties for pocket money), so she can’t earn money to pay her legal team. Her ability to speak to people and gather evidence in her own defence is also very restricted.

nope, still believe she’s guilty as sin.

So you have some personal knowledge of the case that hasn’t been recorded in any evidence? I guess that changes things somewhat.

If you're accused of murder in the UK and you don't have the means to fund your defence yourself, then you are entitled to legal aid. Lucy Letby has to date received around £1.8 million in legal aid. Her trial barrister: Benjamin Myers KC, is an incredibly experienced silk who has acted on some of the most high profile murder trials in history. She is now represented by Mark McDonald, a veteran human rights and criminal appeals barrister with extensive experience handling miscarriage of justice cases and long-term prisoners.

It would never be the role of the accused person to speak to witnesses, gather evidence etc. Doing so would be highly irregular and inappropriate. It is/ was the job of her legal team to do this.

The report hasn't changed my mind at all. She was innocent to begin with. The fact is, the consultants were made to apologize to her, and how this must have rankled. A consultant made to apologize to a mere nurse ! I think they wanted their revenge, although I doubt that they had any idea of the consequences that would come to pass.

Well, two things can be true at once: the hospital was sub par AND Letby is a murderer. It's not either/or

What evidence are you basing this on?

None of what you have said here is correct.

There was no therapist; she was supported by the Trust’s Head of Occ Health and Wellbeing who was asked by trust management to support her (Letby didn’t approach them); it wasn’t about her feeling terrible about the deaths but related to the process that was going on (ie her removal from the ward etc); and there is zero evidence that anyone had ever suggested to her that she should write down the worst thing she was thinking (or anything about her thoughts). Letby said herself when asked about it that it was just something she had always done.