Lucy Letby guilty - part 2

[twoandcooplease]

Thread 1 Lucy Letby guilty www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4875009-lucy-letby-guilty

Just in case anyone wants to keep the conversation going

@Parseley They were the "toxic" culture for that hospital/trust? Who is above the CEO? (COS was one of the first foundation trusts)

It seems that the senior managers in this case were all doctors and nurses tho

People also talking about mental illness - you do realise that crimes are formed not only of the act but the mental element required too? Therefore, her mental state will have been extensively examined as it is for all murder accused. It’s an essential part of the crime. It’s not like it’s something the prosecution won’t have covered.

If there’s more to come out about it, I’m sure we’ll hear in sentencing.

@Parseley The medical director would have practised as senior doctor and the lead for all medical/clinical matters in the hospital - he should have listened much more to the senior consultants who raised the concerns. How is he a "non-clinician"?

The person I was responding to was talking collectively about 'the evidence' so I was responding on those terms. Interestingly juries are far more likely to return guilty verdicts when someone is trialled on multiple counts. If each case was taken in isolation in separate trials, the chances of conviction are much lower. So, there is an element of the trial as an 'overall' thing because it influences the decision making.

Anyway - all very interesting! I suppose what I am finding most interesting is the huge faith in our legal system everyone here has, I just don't have it myself that's all :)

I thought that came from her to her friend though, I wouldn’t believe a word that LL said unless there was other verification.

@ArcticSkewer

I do know that it costs a lot of money, apart from anything else, and she earned less than £30k a year. Her parents aren't well educated. Who would do this research? Who pays these expert witnesses? Who even thinks to call them?

She was represented by a prestigious, "exceptionally gifted" KC.

King's Counsel (KC) are barristers or solicitor advocates who have been recognised for excellence in advocacy. They're often seen as leaders in their area of law and generally take on more complex cases that require a higher level of legal expertise.

www.exchangechambers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Benjamin-Myers-KC-Criminal-CV.pdf

in this case all of them were previous nurses apart from one who was a doctor. all with a clinical background. Did you not read this?

Maybe educate yourself a bit more on what is actually involved in investigating, prosecuting, and achieving a conviction in a case of this magnitude and complexity then?

There’s a doctrine in criminal evidence law of similar fact evidence which I’m sure you could look into if you wanted. But I’m sure you prefer to think that unlike you we’re all just gullible fools with blind faith in the criminal justice system. I assure you, I don’t have that blind faith at all. But sometimes hard and hugely evidentially complex cases can still end up in fair convictions and I do think that’s what’s happened here.

Maybe my mistake then, and it was a non verdict which doesn't surprise me at all.

I suspect if she keeps her head down and behaves she may well find a niche that at least helps to pass the time, though she will probably never really be safe.

A pp speculated whether LL's father knew any of the senior managers personally and if that's why he accompanied his daughter to the hearing but I doubt this. It sounds more like her parents believed she could do no wrong

Yes I wondered about this too, but agree that it's probably more likely they just can't believe this of their little girl - after all who could?

I can imagine visits might be difficult though, if they continue to insidt she's innocent and whine that she's a victim and !doesn't belong in here

This:

And there is a huge, huge difference between having a mental illness/disorder and not being criminally or morally responsible for your behaviour or actions.

I'm very curious to hear what her sentence will be. I understand that for infanticide the minimum term is 35 years. Can she receive multiple life sentences as she has killed 7 babies? I can't imagine she will ever be released.

I did read something to the effect that they used to sign in for each other, but I don't know whether that was an argument used on her behalf, i.e. that the rota showed she was there when she wasn't.

I would imagine she will get a whole life order. These are incredibly rare but there are a combination of individual aggravating factors at play that could together mean a whole life order - there being multiple victims, the victims being vulnerable and her being in a position of trust which she abused in order to offend.

But there wasn't sufficient evidence. There's a reason this case took 10 months, and many many days of jury deliberations.

I don't understand the logic of this. A lack of sufficient evidence doesn't make a trial longer, rather the reverse. The evidence is the evidence, it takes the same amount of time to present either way.

@monsteramunch had a quick look at whole life sentences, the likes of rose west, Myra hindley and Brady, Jeremy bamber, I know he killed 2 children. So yes I imagine that you're right. Well I hope so. I can't imagine her life is worth living in or out of prison ever.

Life sentence is mandatory for murder. So she will get 7 life sentences plus whatever sentences she gets for the attempted murders. As others have said, a whole life tariff appears likely.

I have nothing but admiration for the 7 consultants who pushed and pushed for the police investigation and for the thorough investigation the police conducted

No one will have been privy to all the evidence over the very long course of the trial except the jury and I feel certain justice was done ,

12 independent jurors heard all the evidence for and against and concluded that let y is guilty

I also think there will be further convictions as the investigation is now ongoing into other baby deaths at other hospitals where let y was working.

I agree. I'll be surprised if she doesn't receive a whole life tariff.

I don't think LL is innocent, my debate is about whether the evidence was guilty beyond reasonable doubt given the evidence, and the returned not-guilty and majority verdicts on most charges show that it was not absolutely overwhelming. I do wish CCTV had been installed (not everywhere on neonatal wards but where there is a statistical pattern of too many deaths) because relying on statistics and hoards of handwritten notes is not utterly beyond doubt convincing and now there will be room for appeal, but mainly because it might have stopped her killing more babies, although she's so arrogant (I mean even if she wasn't a killer, making a complaint and taking your dad along to challenge 7 consultants when there were unexplained deaths and your conduct wasn't A1) that she probably would have continued.

There is no useful DNA evidence here, no witness that saw something incontrovertibly bad (the one witness that did saw he standing with a baby desaturating and her not doing anything which is explicable), no video of her collecting the insulin. It IS hard to get convictions on that basis not because she's innocent (I don't think she is) but because the evidence is just not as compelling as it might be, similar cases have fallen or been overturned later on statistics for example (such as the Sally Clark case). In the Ben Field case I mentioned earlier they almost didn't get a conviction out of even worse circumstantial evidence (diaries of hate, plans, DNA on glass), and it was only some detective showing that a statement made by him could not have been true that eventually clinched it.

I just don't think that affects juries.

When I was on jury service, one of the cases involved someone who was, pretty obviously, a career criminal in a family of criminals who had certainly been up to something. The trouble was, there just wasn't anything approaching adequate evidence that he'd done what he was charged with. We were quite troubled by the fact that he was going to be let out to commit more crime. We were well aware and not happy about the fact that he and his family were going to be laughing their socks off at the police, and that the barrister and CPS weren't going to look great. But we obviously could not find him guilty.

I must say, though, if looks could kill the foreman would have keeled over on the spot from the reactions of the barrister and officers ...

@Orangebadger She will receive a life sentence with a tariff or a whole life order (most likely)