Lucy Letby denied leave to appeal

[Viviennemary]

Just heard on the news Lucy Letby the convicted serial killer has been denied leave to appeal. Good decision I think. She should stay behind bars for the rest of her life.

Surely you'd not consider a huge coincidence? I'd suspect the poor performance in one or more of those 24 areas for improvement to contribute to the high rate of stillbirths.

I think that’s the point they are making. There were absolutely problems with the running and maintenance of the hospital in general.

Ah, I read that literally and not figuratively.

That’s a very DailyMailesque version of the article. The quote about the NHS being “the closest thing the English have to a religion” came from a politician.

Why the interest in this case - it’s because a serial baby killing nurse is very, very rare - it would be extraordinary in any country - and because the whole thing may be bollocks - which makes it even more extraordinary.

The New Yorker has not accused the NHS of having death panels or of orchestrating a conspiracy. You shouldn’t conflate the American right wing press with publications that are literally smeared as commie rags by the American right. Saying that the NHS is the closest thing we have to a religion is not an unfair thing to say. It is true. We all love the NHS and many of us owe our lives to it. this is one very good reason why we need to hold it to high account and not simply look the other way any time there are issues, particularly if those issues are a result of years of underfunding and cuts.

Even if The New Yorker did accuse the NHS of having death panels etc (which again, it did not) the points presented in the article are still important and should alarm all of us. They are either true or they are not. If they are true facts they should be explored. If they aren’t true then it’s truly extraordinary that the New Yorker, which is a solidly leftist publication with a world renowned reputation for rigorous fact checking, is willing to sacrifice its century long standing for this case. Either way, simply looking the other way isn’t the answer here.

But the big bad NHS has engaged a cover-up to hang this young, beautiful nurse out to dry to save its reputation.

Again, the obsession with LL’s looks. She in fact looks like a pretty average young white woman. It’s almost like some people have a problem with that

Yes important to note that she was found not guilty of 2 of the charges and there was no verdict on several more.

Also initially Letby was being investigated for killing or harming a lot more than she went on trial for...so either they didn't have enough evidence or any evidence to possibly link her to those deaths/injuries or else it seemed more likely that other failings at the hospital were to blame.

Convictions rarely happen with 100% proof. Convictions happen when it is seen to be " beyond reasonable doubt " Those babies didn't die of negligence, they died because their ivs were tampered with. And the common denominator in all the deaths was LL. Doctors had voiced concerns earlier and been silenced because she cried " bullying"

Those babies didn't die of negligence, they died because their ivs were tampered with.

And what evidence is there of “tampering”?

It is not actually certain that their “lives were tampered with”. For the third time in this thread I’ll reiterate that the doctor who wrote the actual paper on which the air embolism idea was based, the paper that was used in court as the sole basis for that accusation, has stated that the presentation of the babies in this case does not match air embolism as per the research.

Further, with the two insulin cases, the lab that returned the results used in the case explicitly stated that that particular test should not be used as forensic proof as it’s prone to returning false positives. There is a further test you should undertake to establish for sure if the insulin was introduced artificially to the blood.

In addition, there was a third baby whose sample also returned the same result from the same lab but that case was not included or probed further because LL could not have been responsible for that one. All of this throws tremendous doubt on the verdict unless you’re emotionally attached to believing she’s guilty, which I fear unfortunately many people are.

All this speculation is pointless and possibly harmful. There will be far more presented at trial than any of us are aware of. Posters who think they know better than the jury are being ridiculous.

The jury had access to everything- all the documents and the witnesses. It lasted 10 months, and Lucy Letby was very well represented by qualified experienced lawyers. If she was found guilty, it's because she's guilty.

At least one juror was only convinced about her guilt on 3 of the charges because only 3 of them had a unanimous guilty verdict. It's possible that there was a mix of jurors holding out but I would guess that it was just one, probably a stickler for the rules type who felt that the prosecution had to prove each case beyond doubt and for that juror they didn't feel the prosecution did that.

So if at least one juror wasn't convinced for most after hearing the case presented then of course some outsiders won't be convinced either.

Also 2 of the unanimous guilty verdicts were for the attempted murders by insulin, but it seems that those 2 are some of the most disputed for various reasons.

The 3rd unanimous guilty verdict was for the baby who had suffered a traumatic liver injury. And I wonder if the juror hadn't already been convinced she had been guilty of the attempted murders by insulin then would they have been convinced of her guilt of the murder of that baby?

Wasn't that also religious fundamentalism though?

That's really not how I read and understood the article

There is a vast and monetised US conservative movement to undermine the NHS. Some are conservative from a religious and right to life perspective. Others are just waiting like carrion crows to pull apart a national health service, to monetize every part of it.

I am a New Yorker subscriber. I am American. I have watched colleagues basically spend their days ticking health care boxes with CNBC tickers on in the corner of the office calculating their share prices and how much they will have to bank for retirement.

I trust the UK judicial system. If or when the time is right for appeal the appeal will happen.

I haven’t seen anyone claim they know better than the jury. The claim is that not everything was presented to the jury, and it looks like that is indeed the case. Miscarriages of justice do happen. The UK has several very high profile examples within living memory. The public, who all live under the justice system and health service in question here, have every right to ask questions. If you’re not interested in that discussion you’re free to keep scrolling.

You can’t prove either of these things happened. The science doesn’t support it. These are hypothetical accusations.

Some people find it very difficult to accept that there are evil people out there, especially in our health care system, who can kill babies. So they read about conspiracy theories and convince themselves a nurse could never do that, she must be innocent. It must be a mass cover up for hospital failings.

Unfortunately, there are just some evil psychopathic people out there

There are evil psychopathic people out there and at the same time miscarriages of justice can and do occur.

What is it with all the people posting logical fallacies on this thread?

Sigh. We are all well aware that there are evil people out there. We are not children and that comment doesn’t reflect the actual content of the thread at all. If there weren’t genuine issues being raised in this particular instance none of us would be having this discussion.

So when the defence called him as a witness that would have been likely to sway the jury to not convicting her. However, that didn't happen Why not?

Some people find it difficult to read and evaluate scientific data. And some don’t even bother - some commenters haven’t actually read the details of the cases.

The excitement of a psychopath has a great allure for people - far more than boring nitty gritty of weak theories, wild speculation, absence of evidence, over-stretched units etc.

Why would they not investigate the third baby ? Regardless of whether it was possibly or not that Lucy letby was responsible- even if it was a day she wasn’t on shift - surely it’s an unfair trial if only cases where she was there are investigated.

There could have been some other Issue going on and to not investigate those cases wont then give a full and accurate picture?

I know! Over and over again we have:

”I can’t believe you love baby killers” 🙄

”You just think she’s pretty and therefore incapable of wrongdoing” 🙄

”The New Yorker is making it all up” (either because it’s a tabloid rag or because they hate socialised medicine) 🙄

”Some people just can’t cope with the idea that there are bad people out there” 🙄

Never any actual recognition of, let alone engagement with, the points we are actually trying to discuss. Just ad hominems and deflection over and over.

God give me strength.

In my opinion it’s more likely that a badly run unit that’s understaffed and the staff it does have are overworked and more likely to cause harm than a one in a billion evil psychopath that is so unique they present as totally normal, don’t search anything incriminating and admit themselves that harm was done by someone but it wasn’t them ? Not intentionally by the unit and not in an evil way but nevertheless still possibly responsible by negligence and then desperate to cover up after a report ?