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.

Yes - nobody saw her do anything, not all cases were the same , no incriminating search history (only snippets of information regarding searches totally out of context eg not disclosing that she seemingly searched a lot of people not just parents of babies at the unit), no real defence and given the high rate of stillbirth at the same time and the info re air embolism by an expert I find it extremely unusual that her team only called a plumber ??

I followed the case as closely as you did, and I disagree with you.

I suspect they couldn't find an expert who supported her case when they looked at the evidence.

I think the nub of all this is that you have to look at all the evidence as a whole. It's easy to pick at little aspects of it, but it's when you put it all together that the case against LL becomes overwhelming.

It is overwhelming. But still surely circumstantial

So even if however unlikely we're talking, an innocent person could be put away and branded worse than the West couple if the circumstances go against you all at once, again, no matter how unlikely

Makes me shiver

And for what it's worth, I 'personally' think she's guilty and did do this! But the above still stands

They just needed an expert to report on all of the potential bacteria and the risk to the babies if they came into contact with any of them. Were all of these tested for? At least one of the babies didn't have a post mortem so I don't know what that means, do they at least test for infections in the blood if there is no post mortem?

Maybe some who worked on one of these wards will be able to explain whether those things are always tested for.

If the babies were all clear from those bacterial infections then of course an expert testifying for the defence would have been pointless but it doesn't seem like that was the case. Correct me if I'm wrong?

The prosecution would have known the plumber was going to be called so they would have addressed that earlier on with one of their witnesses and made it clear that no bacterial infections potentially associated with sewerage were present in any of the babies.

Those experts would exist, but maybe it's possible that they refused to act as witnesses for the defence? Is that possible? I'm not sure about the law on this. If that's the case then she can't be seen to have a fair trial either!

Couldn’t find or couldn’t afford? Let’s not pretend the prosecution and defence had equal resources.

They just needed an expert to report on all of the potential bacteria and the risk to the babies if they came into contact with any of them. Were all of these tested for?

This is a great question and has me wondering whether LL herself was tested to see if she was an asymptomatic carrier for an infection and could have unintentionally and unknowingly infected babies just by caring for them?

She was awarded £1.5 million in legal aid but don't let the facts get in the way of your assumptions

Ok my take is a bit biased. But all the evidence against eg the Wests eg those who knew them along with their looks wasn’t good. Whereas LL has the total opposite.

The prosecution and defence did not have equal resources.
What I stated was a fact.

“The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) can confirm that as of 29 August 2023 the total prosecution costs stand at £2,504,245.06.”
https://www.cps.gov.uk/foi/2023/prosecution-costs-august-2023-lucy-letby-trial

Lucy Letby did not have £1.5m in legal aid that was not a fact

”Representatives for the serial killer received at least £980,133.92 in legal aid, the Ministry of Justice confirmed in response to a Freedom of Information request.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12483479/Lucy-Letbys-legal-aid-cost.html

I will assume you have the maths skills to understand that £2.5 million is significantly less than £980k.

That’s precisely the opposite of how you should ever approach a trial with multiple charges. From a legal pov you take each case individually, look closely at the evidence, to see if each charge is proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Standing back and saying oo lots of evidence - without paying attention to the detail - is how miscarriages of justice happen.

Evidence is only evidence if it actually supports individual charges. In this case it’s principally theory and gossip. It really amounts to a bunch of medics saying LL did it. That is all. That can be convincing to people who don’t have enough scientific education to evaluate the data on which these claims are made - but otherwise - it falls apart.

It got increased to £1.5 million. Yes less than the prosecution but they have a lot more work to do proving their case rather than just demonstrating there's reasonable doubt

Yes and the post you resounded to is one of the many good reasons why I do not have blind faith in juries.

But the entire £ she had from start to the end of the trial was £980k.
She did not have £1.5m for the trial as you implied. You haven’t even evidenced this figure at all btw.

There is just as much work and btw the £2.5m isn’t the full prosecution cost as it does not include the salaries of the CPS lawyers, paralegals and administrative staff. The £2.5m is only for outside legal counsel, experts and presentational fees.

That’s a misunderstanding of the role of an expert witness - they’re not “supporting a case”. Their duty is to provide specialist knowledge to the court, and to give an impartial opinion in their area of expertise - this opinion must be objective and unbiased.

I suspect part of the verdict problem is that the babies were so prem that no one really knows much about their health, or lack of it.

Five months gestation isn’t especially viable, even a decade on in a top hospital.

The New Yorker says the experts were ‘at the edge of medicine’ ie not that expert. And the prosecution didn’t mention how many other babies died that Letby didn’t go near.

The judge in this case told the jury

“If you are satisfied so that you are sure in the case of any baby that they were deliberately harmed by the defendant then you are entitled to consider how likely it is that other babies in the case who suffered unexpected collapses did so as a result of some unexplained or natural cause rather than as a consequence of some deliberate harmful act by someone.

“If you conclude that this is unlikely then you could, if you think it right, treat the evidence of that event and any others, if any, which you find were a consequence of a deliberate harmful act, as supporting evidence in the cases of other babies and that the defendant was the person responsible.

So the jury only had to be sure she was guilty of one of the charges and from that they could use the evidence that she was already a 'baby killer' as supporting evidence for the rest of the charges.

Personally, I think that is horrible. Surely parents are owed the truth about how their baby died? There is a huge emotional difference between knowing your baby died of natural causes or because they were murdered. Telling the jury to say Y was murdered just because X was murdered is awful.

What he is saying is far more nuanced and conditional than your interpretation.

And nonetheless, each charge is considered individually and a verdict given on each. LL is facing retrial for Baby K because the jury could not reach a verdict on that individual charge.

As in no individual case is there clear evidence of deliberate harm, no case can be used as supporting evidence of guilt in any other.

Yes I do understand that,

He also said* "In the case of each* child, without necessarily having to determine the precise cause or causes of their death and for which no natural or known cause was said to be apparent at the time, you must be sure that the act or acts of the defendant, whatever they were, caused the child’s death in that it was more than a minimal cause"

but nonetheless they were allowed to use the fact that they were sure of her guilt on one of the charges as supporting evidence when deciding the rest.

They clearly didn't need 'clear evidence of deliberate harm' to find her guilty because there wasn't any 'clear evidence of deliberate harm' by Letby yet they did find her guilty of many of the charges.

And I am aware that they couldn't reach a verdict on that charge, they also didn't reach a verdict on 5 other charges. Does anyone know why that's the only one that they are seeking a retrial on? Will they be allowed to order re-trials for the others at a later date which will mean that these 'reporting restrictions' could be in place for a long time? Or is there a time limit on when they can order a retrial.

They clearly didn't need 'clear evidence of deliberate harm' to find her guilty because there wasn't any 'clear evidence of deliberate harm' by Letby yet they did find her guilty of many of the charges.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Not sure where you're going with that emoji, particularly as you said in one of your own posts that there was no hard evidence of murder in any of the cases.

Which is what I just said. They didn't have any clear evidence of deliberate harm, yet they still found her guilty, despite what jury instructions they may have been given.

Isn't that scary? That you can be found guilty of murder when there is zero clear evidence. Not one little thing that proves you did it. Not even a motive. Just a selection of vague things that can be twisted to fit that theory.

In other cases where there hasn't been actual evidence of the act, there has at least been a history that would support that the person was capable of their crimes. Abuse, mental health problems, troubled relationships.

In this case, they can't even prove that the babies were murdered.

The article is very biased, it's very long but has left out a lot of important medical evidence. It needs directly comparing to the court reports for people to have a valid opinion.