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!

Mirabi, read my previous post where I quote Dr Evans testimony.

An opinion, even an expert one, is not proof.

Mirabai a trial, especially one taking half a year takes into account circumstantial evidences, eye witness accounts, independent expert analysis etc etc. surely you must know this. Very few murder cases have one core peice of “proof”! This is a very simplistic way of analysing it.

But it is possible to accidentally introduce air, isn't it? It's a known risk that nurses are meant to take steps to avoid.

I assume there is some big event coming later which really made them suspect LL, rather than anyone else present.

It really is as clear as mud. I see evidence for and against LL washing in and out.

I think part 1 looks reasonably strong. And I’m not sure the defence have got far in showing that poor care was responsible. Although I assume the defence will bring in their own experts at some point.

I’m not sure they’ve proved part 2 that LL and only LL could have been responsible. I’m guessing they have something and plenty of time to show it.

No shit Sherlock.

My point is simply that, thus far, there has not been any incontrovertible proof.

There won't be any for this case. There's no smoking gun and I think both sides accept that. The jury will have a difficult task. They need to weigh up a large amount of circumstantial evidence and medical theory and consider if it adds up to murder.

We don’t actually know that yet, it’s feasible for the sake of argument that one or more of the deaths to come are demonstrably not from natural causes.

But murder conviction/s need more than circumstantial evidence + medical theory otherwise you may end up with Sally Clark.

Obviously still early in the case, but there seems to be an imbalance of dismissing each piece of evidence as it is presented.
Great efforts taken not to introduce a tiny air bubble then we are hearing about 5mls, which is a lot.
Statistical clusters are different from a pattern following a member of staff across 22 incidents from their move to night to day shift and stopping when they are moved away from the clinical area to clerical duties.
Examples - good to keep an open mind but not to be so quick to diminish and dismiss evidence

The pattern could have been created simply by selecting the deaths that LL had some presence around and ignoring the ones she didn’t. You could potentially create similar patterns with others members of staff.

It's also possible that LL happened to be around a lot more than other staff. I read one report which said that the unit was lucky to have some very senior staff. But did they all work full time? After many years in a high stress work environment most of the senior staff in my workplace work very reduced hours. There are some very enthusiastic and energetic staff with no other commitments who work full time hours and plenty of overtime as extra. Obviously if you're present for a lot more shifts you're involved in the care of a lot more babies, with potential for more adverse events.

Also she was one of the more experienced nurses, wasn't she? So more likely to be involved in caring for the most vulnerable babies.

Completely agree Blueink.

Mirabai it’s not “ignoring” the cases she wasn’t present at. As only the ones she was resulted in these babies dying, or nearly dying from air bubbles, which is incredibly rare. So the much fewer babies who passed without her on shift didn’t from the same cause.

Good point.

There were other babies that died though and some of them may have died unexpectedly.

The incidences is just one example, that’s kind of what I mean by being quick to jump on, diminish and dismiss individual pieces of evidence - the most any other staff member was present was 7 out of the 22 incidences (correct me if I’ve misremembered).

Just seen a media article saying Lucy went out salsa dancing and then went on to buy a house the day after the salsa.

It does seem as some others have said here that LL is a scapegoat for other wider issues.

What's that supposed to indicate, though?! Some vague suggestion that only a monster could dance "at such a time"? God, I hate the gutter press.

That's exactly what I was trying to say the press seem to vilify her for dancing, buying a house etc at the same time as she's supposedly murdered the babies.

I haven't followed the case that closely but am aware that often in these cases it's not just one person (could be totally wrong here) and they do make a scapegoat of one.

What has her Salsa dancing got to do with anything?

And buying a house. Doesn't she know that murderers should rent? Sigh. A lot of people will just swallow it, as well.

I think the evidence for child F shows absolutely that there was foul play (not saying LL is guilty by the way) but there is no way the insulin/glucose levels would be as they were without artificial insulin administered. No other child on the neo natal unit was receiving insulin treatment.

But I do think the association with dancing and buying a house is total bullshit and is really not relevant to anything.

I think the prosecution are trying to show that after the deaths of the first few babies, Lucy was texting her parents & colleagues about how sad and devastated she was. But after baby Es death she isn't bothered at all and is talking about going to Salsa. Inferring that her feelings about the first babies are fake, perhaps?

Personally, I don't think Salsa dancing or viewing a house that she ended up buying, is particularly incriminating!

But newspapers do love to sensationalise.

I can think of half a dozen reasonable explanations for that whether she's guilty or innocent. I think a legal team is on thin ice if they're trying to make anything of that either way. And the press are just scraping the fucking barrel, as usual.