Lucy Letby appeal

[GonnaGetGoingReturns]

Sorry if not allowed to discuss here but just seem that this vile creature plans to appeal against her original sentence as per yesterday’s news. Her defence team is leading this potential appeal.

WTAF?!

They haven’t reached a verdict on is it 6 or 7 poor other little babies who died and she’s suspected, I thought?

So sad for the poor parents and babies still.

Won’t the appeal process decide on that ?

Please don’t imagine that this information isn’t now in the hands of the defence team. This evidence is peer reviewed by biochemists, biomedical scientists, doctors and neonatologists. However since this information is also easily accessible in the public domain I don’t see any problem in making it publicly available. I’m interested that you seem to think the defence team should have had this information. I agree with you. Why they didn’t is a question worth asking.

I didn’t say you couldn’t say it. I just think it’s odd.

I mean accusing a well respected KC who has seen all of the mountains of evidence and got medical experts to review it of not doing his job properly when you haven’t seen all the evidence is strange.

I think that because Letby and her 'brilliant' defence team agreed that insulin was used, but not by Letby, the insulin question cannot be raised in an appeal.

I think we're all willing to listen to cogent arguments for Letby's innocence. But not nonsense copy-pasted from random internet sites as it's disrespectful to people taking part in the discussion.

It can be if there's fresh evidence. Otherwise, you're correct.

CoCH did not investigate these insulin readings for 2 years. On the basis of this test it is an unjustified assumption that there is that much insulin at all. And this is exactly the issue. The presence of external insulin based on the wrong test is an assumption only. Also a seriously flawed assumption given that there are much more likely and reasonable reasons for the test reading other than attempted murder. There is grave doubt here and this is not clutching at straws, it is undermining the single element of physical evidence for these charges.

Absolutely.

You might want to go back and read the witness statements. It was looked into at the time. It was raised in evidence and it was a question about why they did nothing on the trial threads on here at the time.

It’s only the wrong test if it was external insulin. If not it’s the right test. And there are no reasons why baby F should have had any external insulin in his system at the time the blood test was taken.

Sorry, but that is wrong. The test cannot be used to detect for externally administered insulin. I understand why you would think so from the evidence presented. But this isn’t my opinion - it is the warning on the RLH laboratory test site by their clinical director and senior endocrinologist. Someone has just posted the full warning text. Do take a look.

Sorry, but that is wrong. The test cannot be used to detect for externally administered insulin. I understand why you would think so from the evidence presented. But this isn’t my opinion - it is the warning on the RLH laboratory test site by their clinical director and senior endocrinologist. Someone has just posted the full warning text. Do take a look.

I have looked at it. See my earlier post about it.

Assuming you are right, are you saying that baby F had exogenous insulin in his system so the test is an unreliable measure of how much or that the insulin was endogenous? What is your explanation for either of these?

The proof that the insulin was exogenous was the lack of raised C peptides.

When was this tested though, whilst the neonate was in CoCH or two years later.

If the former, then the police should have been called immediately.

The day his blood sugars fell and they couldn’t get them back up with dextrose. The results came back a week later with a suggestion that a further blood test was needed because RLH queried whether he was on exogenous insulin so it needed to be sent to Guildford. Staff did look into it at the time but failed massively in duty of care.

What exactly is it that you claim the defence did wrong, by reference to the information they had from the hospital records and the expert advice they received? I take it you have seen all that paperwork and the experts' reports, and were privy to all their discussions with the experts? Otherwise criticising them might look a bit, er, ill-informed and even crass.

You rightly quote the levels of insulin that you as a 6’2 man could tolerate. If you had that amount of insulin in your system you would be dead - twice over.

It appears likely that this baby survived because the insulin was introduced through a drip, i.e. slowly and over a long period of time rather than in one hit; also that it was counteracted by the dextrose that the baby was receiving.

By which time the baby had recovered. It certainly is a failure of duty of care. One also wonders did they send the correct blood samples.

The slow drip of insulin was queried and all agreed that this application was highly unlikely.

One also wonders did they send the correct blood samples.

That is the very essence of clutching at straws. If there was any evidence to suggest that might have been the case, it would have been brought out and made much of during the trial - indeed, it's likely that that case wouldn't have featured on the charge sheet.

It's certainly a pity that the samples weren't sent off to Guildford because that might have led to LL being stopped that much sooner. However, that doesn't help her case.

Other grounds for appeal could include that the expert witnesses were not impartial and not experts in the field of pre-term neonates.

I was born a healthy 7lb at term baby. Within 24 hours I developed severe breathing difficulties, baptised in the ward and sent for transfer to a new NICU unit where I stayed for six weeks until the breathing difficulties were resolved - obviously I recovered well!

"What exactly is it that you claim the defence did wrong"

Your aggressive manner asides, the defence failed to defend her, that's what they did wrong.
As for the hospital, it withheld the RLHU report stating that the RHLU had no facility to test for the below, and certainly not at over 2 years degradation, not even at Guildford.

Please note that the insulin assay performed at RLUH is not suitable for the investigation of factitious hypoglycaemia. If exogenous insulin administration is suspected as the cause of hypoglycaemia, please inform the laboratory so that the sample can be referred externally for analysis.

When? It seems to be generally accepted that the feed bag was by far the most likely means of administration. How else do you suggest the artificial insulin that everyone accepted was in the baby's system would have got there?

You know none of this. You are simply speculating. The hospital handed everything over. As you can't say what you claim the defence could have done, you really cannot claim this gives any possibility of appeal grounds.

How else do you suggest the artificial insulin that everyone accepted was in the baby's system would have got there?

Did the test at Liverpool confirm this or was it suggested that it should be sent to Guildford for further analysis?