I was (thankfully) abroad when the verdicts were returned. Other than news alerts bubbling up on my phone, I managed to avoid reading the more sensationalist accounts and have said little on any Letby thread.
I listened to some of the later podcasts out of curiosity about the minutae of the case for her defence, rather than the published snippets, and to hear what she had to say in the witness stand. I have to wonder how hard her counsel tried to persuade her that testifying in her own defence was a really bad idea. And surely they must have known that calling only one other witness - a plumber - said a great deal by omission. They would have been better not presenting a case at all: the onus was not on them to prove her innocence, but on the prosecution to prove her guilt.
Her answers on the stand were nothing short of extraordinary. They basically amounted to 'wasn't me, guv' and 'they're all out to get me!' (with what motive, she couldn't say). But it was the between the lines stuff that intruiged me. Everyone else was lying but her. No one else seemed to have any difficulty in recalling specific events, whereas her stock reply was 'I don't recall that'. She doesn't even profess to recall some of the babies she's convinced of killing. But it was the 'commando' thing that was most revealing. Insisting she was ignorant of that term was clearly a blatant and unnecessary lie which incriminated her further. A criminal lawyer and ex PC I know once talked to me about this - said sometimes a suspect can't stop talking in order to prove they're 'clever' and can pull the wool over everyone's eyes (Letby apparently cooperated with the police interviews throughout). When in the witness box they often incriminate themselves by continuing to lie when the truth would have done them no harm. From what I heard, Letby did this too.
As a serial killer she's an anomaly, that's for sure. To me, aside from the crimes themselves the breathtaking part about all of it were her calculated, premediated attempts to cover her tracks. She later behaved precisely as an innocent person would have behaved, by challenging the 7 consultants in a grievance and claiming she was being bullied (IME, crying 'bullied!' does sometimes seem to put people automatically in the right). And that worked. The best form of offence was attack, and they were forced to apologise.
Worst of all was the way in which she falsified records to try to incriminate her colleagues. I felt particularly for the nurse Mary Griffith(?), who was present at the collapse of one of the twins, L or M. Their parents claimed she was crying and repeating over and over again: 'I didn't do anything'. They knew something was wrong and were already concerned about the high instances of deaths in that unit - she must have been terrified that blame would be apportioned to her. There are so many secondary victims of this woman.
Aside from the parents, my heart went out particularly to the consultant paediatrician, John Gibbs, whose interview had me in tears. He was thorough, meticulous, competent, but is questioning himself over and over: 'could I have done more to stop it?' His bullying hospital executives were the barrier to doing this, but he appears to accept some of the blame and feels the parents are justified in apportioning it to him. I felt so awful for the poor guy, having to live with that on his conscience. One person alone was responsible: the person who decided to abuse, torture and murder vulnerable babies.
As for her 'innocence' being proved at a later stage: this is only possible if the judge or counsel are found not to have done their jobs properly, or if further evidence comes to light. There would have to be a glut of that in order even to marginally refute any of the masses of information presented to that court. The odds of that are so vanishingly unlikely as to be nigh-on impossible.
She is never coming out of prison. Good.