Lucy Letby Court Case

[Pebble21uk]

Today has been the first day of the trial, which is expected to last for six months. One thread has already been pulled on the subject. Upon deletion MNHQ said that a thread about the case is fine but please read the rules around contempt of court before posting... these are copied and pasted here:
Publicly commenting on a court case:

You might be in contempt of court if you speak publicly or post on social media.
For example, you should not:
say whether you think a person is guilty or innocent
refer to someone’s previous convictions
name someone the judge has allowed to be anonymous, even if you did not know this
name victims, witnesses and offenders under 18
name sex crime victims
share any evidence or facts about a case that the judge has said cannot be made public

If any of the above take place then new threads will also be pulled. Let's please try and keep it going!

Or if someone else did the jobs and she wrote them up when she came off her break, then we can't rely on the names of the nurses on the notes as being the actual nurse who gave the medication (or whatever) to the baby.

And the prosecution are saying things like , at 1.30 am Lucy letby signs for something, at 1.40 the baby collapses. If the times and the names don't reflect reality then I don't know how they can ask the jury to rely on them.

Any livestream today?

There is on twitter: Monday 7th November live link

Just search 'Letby' on Twitter, there's a thread by a Dan Donoghue.

I don't have Twitter so, unfortunately, I can only see a couple of tweets before i'm asked to log in or register. Hopefully the Chester Standard will post live updates tomorrow.

I strongly disagree that the case is “messy, vague and weak”. Whoever also claimed other nurses were just covering their backs by giving evidence in this trial is disgraceful. The hugely unusual/ out of the ordinary/ sudden influx of babies sadly dying as well as the fact one particular nurse was on duty or connected to every single one of these cases, and the cause of death were all incredibly similar, all happened in a short space of time out of the blue but all are pretty rare in usual circumstances is not a weak or vague case at all. And it’s just getting started.

I personally wouldn't call any of those things a solid 'case' for anything.....yet. Certainly not evidence (thus far) exceeding the threshold beyond that of reasonable doubt.

However it certainly is early days and we'll see what further evidence emerges.

To be clear, I am not declaring innocence or guilt. Simply remarking on what has been read and heard thus far.

I don't think it's enough to say that there was increase in deaths, something unusual happened and this person was around. They have to prove in each case that there couldn't be a natural cause for the death and that LL was the only one who could have done it.

I remember cases where parents were accused of breaking their babies bones or punishing them by feeding them salt and it then turned out that actually, this was down to an unusual medical condition.

I wonder whether the prosecution will come back to give any further evidence about babies A to C?

The cases with insulin might be more clear cut.

They have to prove in each case that there couldn't be a natural cause for the death and that LL was the only one who could have done it.

That’s what is lacking thus far.

It’s not just ‘something unusual’ happening to them though is it? It’s something extraordinarily, rare, hardly ever seen before at all even by experienced paediatricians working there. Suddenly an influx of baby deaths all took place with this same cause, far FAR more deaths than usual/ ever before in that time frame and one person has been directly linked and in evidence heard acting highly suspiciously and bizarrely at a lot of these incidents.

Naming the incidents where one baby in a family was found to have passed through a very rare illness/ cause compared to seven babies dying and further attempts through these means on another 10!! It’s so vastly different.

And it's also not enough to say "this number of deaths MUST HAVE been murder". That was Sir Roy Meadows' argument, the one that led to a colossal miscarriage of justice and killed an innócent woman. Random clusters are normal; they will have to prevent skilled statistical evidence to prove that this cluster couldn't possibly have been a natural phenomenon, and then on top of that prove that malicious action by LL was involved.

I ain't heard it yet. I have a lot of doubt.

*present not prevent.

whatausername I don't have Twitter either, but can see the whole thread on my tablet!

Can I ask about this article on the Sky News app? news.sky.com/story/lucy-letby-trial-completely-unclear-why-child-ds-condition-got-worse-court-hears-12741065

I've attached a screenshot. Surely it's a mistake to say a "feed was stopped through a breathing tube"?!. Why would a feed be given through a breathing tube? Surely this is an editorial error on Sky News' part?

Sorry, thought I'd attached it!

Although the spike in deaths - and serious non-fatal collapses, let's not forget those - was striking, for me the most significant things were the difficulty in resuscitation and also in explaining why these incidents took place. I was an NNU nurse for over 30 years and I can tell you that is highly unusual. I have no idea if Lucy Letby is culpable or not, but I feel something was very wrong. As did the medical staff, hence the investigation.

I don't think they've clearly proven the one cause, or mechanism either, given that they said air collects in the belly through the cpap machine if it isn't suctioned out thoroughly enough. The initial post mortem reports did not define a cause of death, and until recently one of the experts was saying the death may always be unexplained.

Then on top of that you've got the conflicting memories, incomplete or inaccurate medical notes. And the evidence about the poor standards of care at the hospital.

Thankyou NNUJan for insight from somebody who truly knows what they’re talking about here! We have eye witness accounts, medical evidence, huge stacks of circumstantial evidence, her own written note…
before anybody attempts to dismiss circumstantial evidence: “Another instance that will greatly increase the reliability of circumstantial evidence is when there is an abundance of it in a case. One circumstance is easy to push aside, but when they begin to pile up, it is much harder to accept that everything is circumstantial.”
www.johngreenjr.com

In English law the prosecution have the prove that the defendant did it and the jury have to be convinced of this.
This is different to the law of other countries - here the burden of proof is on the prosecution and the defendant doesn't have to prove they didn't do it.

I am interpreting previous posters' posts in that light.
The prosecution have to prove that:

1. These deaths were caused by air / insulin and not poor care and / or other conditions.
2. If the jury are convinced by 1. they have to also be convinced that LL was responsible. Not someone else. Not by accident.

From what I've seen so far even whether she was there or not seems to have had doubt thrown on it due to the witness statements where some have changed their mind years later and the record keeping where staff are signing for each other and writing times retrospectively. Whilst this may be normal in the NHS it does throw doubt on the evidence and how reliable it is.

It will be interesting to hear the judges ending summary when it comes. I was on a complicated case (although not as complicated as this one by any means) and the judge did signal to the jury that is you think evidence ABC is unreliable you must return a not guilty verdict and also explained the points of law very clearly.

“Dr Evans said the circumstances of Child A's collapse led him to the conclusion that "air had somehow got into his circulation".
He ruled out other conditions such as sepsis, a lack of fluids or hypoxia as causes, or contributing factors to the collapse.
He said he had "only one" conclusion, that Child A had received an air embolism through an intravenous line.
He said with the systems in place, and the medical equipment and staff being "obsessive" about making sure patients were not injected with air, "there was no way this could have been done by accident".”

I think this statement definitely proves point 1 of yours PearWhere and the stack of circumstantial evidence, eye witness accounts as well as Letby’s own written notes and behaviour number 2.

But then you've got the evidence of staff being the opposite of obsessive and some extremely poor care especially for poor baby D, as well as conflicting medical evidence from different experts. Some of the medical evidence isn't in the public domain as it is outing and not allowed to be in the press. We only get a few updates for every 6 hours of court - the jury will be seeing and hearing a lot more.
As we are only a month into a 6 month+ trial I wouldn't personally conclude anything yet. Which we shouldn't anyway or the thread will be quite rightfully pulled.

PearWhere I’m actually providing much needed balance to the people on here saying the case against her is “weak and messy” and attempting to blame other nurses for giving evidence against her. In my opinion the case already appears strong for the prosecution.

LL's note proves nothing. It's undated and internally contradictory. All it proves is that at some point between the babies dying and the note being collected, she was in a distressed and agitated emotional state.

Can you point to key pieces of evidence that prove beyond reasonable doubt that the baby deaths heard thus far were a. Murder and b. That LL was responsible.