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.

Despite many people dealing with me flawlessly, I have personal experience of both being careless.

She wouldn't have been refused money for experts and they don't just hand you a certain amount of money that you have to stick to, that's not how legal aid for crown court works

@HollyKnight
It's terrifying.
But question it and people try to shut you down by saying you love baby killers and you're in the Lucy Letby fanclub!

According to the New Yorker the triplets’ mother said that she was alarmed when she saw a doctor sitting at a computer “Googling how to do what looked like a relatively simple medical procedure: inserting a line into the chest.”

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.

On this basis doesn't that mean that a lot of rape convictions are unsafe (especially when it's within an established relationship)? Very often the only evidence is he said/she said. Is it wrong for the CPS to prosecute these cases as there will never be any 'hard' evidence? And will a jury always be incorrect if they convict these cases?

Agreed.

Appearing for Lucy Letby would be the last time you were called as an expert witness. There is a huge problem getting representation if you are seen as an unattractive or unsympathetic defendant.
It's an attractive option if you have a theory to peddle (Roy Meadow) or a book/stage show to publicise (Richard Shepherd) or a media profile to maintain (Ravi Jayaram), not so good if you want to return to medicine or academia afterwards.
I am in the camp that feels that justice is not served by evidence that relies upon a 'convenient consensus' that gets the hospital, consultants and other nurses 'off the hook'. For many people, the fact that she was moved to desk duty already proved her guilt because there's no smoke without fire.

On the contrary, the vast majority of rape cases do not make it to court let alone a conviction. You will struggle very hard indeed to find a ‘he said she said’ rape case that has led to a conviction with no supporting evidence. Generally speaking the cases that lead to a conviction have a lot more than ‘he said she said’, evidentially speaking.

As an autistic woman, what bothered me about the reporting of the trial was all of the media focus on her Weirdness.

Her weird bedroom, her weird internet searches, her weird crush on a male doctor. Being weird does not make someone evil or a murderer.

I did think on the balance of probabilities that the circumstantial evidence was very convincing.

However, surely everyone deserves due legal process and that includes right to appeal.

And was this with the baby where the procedure went wrong ?

Seems like potentially it was more acceptable to throw one person under the bus so to speak than a whole unit and all the consultants doctors nurses and assistants working there. The whole issue over her ‘weirdness’ makes me feel uneasy and as if the easiest target was chosen

To me, the question about her defence is: what would be in it for them to do such a fuck-awful job? If they made a deliberate choice to mount a substandard defence (as opposed to being forced to by the circumstances around the case), what are they gaining from that? How deep does the conspiracy go? Why would a KC lose a case - kind of throwing it - for the sake of the NHS?

What do you mean by ‘biased’ in this context? It is presenting a specific view point on the case. That is normal journalism. It isn’t a BBC news report, for example, which must remain balanced above all else. The points raised in the article are either true or they are not. That’s the only thing that matters.

I will also point out that this is ONE sober and measured article which looks at the case from a different angle vs 10,0000 hysterical tabloid ‘Baby Killer!!’ headlines we have all been subjected to the entire time. If the points raised in this article threaten the established public mood then so be it.

If the points raised are true they are important and should be explored. I do not believe that the New Yorker would tank its century long world-renowned reputation for fact checking and investigative journalism for this case, so I am inclined to take it seriously until I have good reason not to.

In addition, don’t assume that those expressing doubts after reading the article haven't also followed the case. There are multiple people in this thread alone who have followed the case as much as any of us can.

There are a hell of a lot more rapes happening than babies being murdered by nurses. That alone makes rape more likely than a killer nurse.

Actually, do you know many rape convictions happen when there is zero evidence of rape and zero history of bad behaviour? The rate of rape convictions is very, very low because it is often he said/she said.

In sex offences the complainant is giving direct evidence. In this case the evidence is mainly circumstantial - (ie not drawn from direct experience or direct observation of the event.)

However, it’s true that some sex offence cases come down to one person’s word against another - particularly in historic cases - and that’s partly why the conviction rate is so low.

I hadn't realised until it was mentioned by an earlier poster that Kathleen Folbigg was convicted as 'Meadow's Law' demonstrated that she was guilty beyond doubt - 12,000 miles from where that false theory was hatched.
The jury was told to disregard Roy Meadow's exaggeration that two SIDS in one family was the equivalent of accurately predicting the winner in the Grand National for four consecutive years.
I don't think I could ignore an image like that planted by a Professor who had received a knighthood for his exceptional contribution.

Could it have been difficult for them to get expert witnesses ? It seemed odd as well with the insulin case letby herself clearly thought it was deliberate too but yet just said that it wasn’t her ? There seemed to be no elaboration on that either which I find really really strange I feel majority of people if wrongly accused would have stated it wasn’t them, accepted the evidence it had happened but then gone on to try and offer up alternative explanations- her thinking seems to be very black and white and then to cease as if she knows it wasn’t her but doesn’t then have the desire to elaborate even if that could have helped her case and I find that both concerning and interesting.

No, I believe that was child A.

The article made it sound like the doctor was googling that when the second triplet was struggling and was waiting for a transportation team to take him to another hospital.

So this procedure went wrong with child A and then a separate baby the parent saw a dr googling how to do the procedure? That’s very worrying

Perhaps she didn't know any alternative explanations so she couldn't offer them up.
If there are alternative explanations then the defence team should have offered them, it's their job to pick apart the prosecutions evidence.

To be fair (if you want to be fair):

1. the CPS apparently spent £2.5m on the trial (against the defence's £1.5m)

2. the trial was over 10 months

I think she’s only weird if you think she was killing babies. If you remove that from the equation she is quite ordinary. Even a bit boring. Judging by the text messages I don’t think her ‘crush’ on the doctor was one sided at all. Certainly, if he was my husband I wouldn’t feel too happy about it.

As to ‘the balance of probabilities’ it is infinitely more probable that a hospital, particularly one as poorly run and overworked as this one, had an infection cluster than a one in a billion serial baby killer nurse. I’m not saying that is the case, but I am not swayed on the probabilities here at all when there is such an absence of any actual evidence that the babies were murdered at all, let alone by this nurse in particular.

It just seems so unusual- if you know your whole life’s freedom is hanging on it you’d try wouldn’t you - she just knew she didn’t do it, and that was that ? Also completely accepted the evidence it had happened , not querying it. It seems like she is very trusting / naive ?

I totally agree. She is a nurse, not a medical expert. If you are accused of something like this and you didn’t do it the only thing you can do is say “I didn’t do it.” why should you also have to come up with the alternative story? You could easily get yourself tied up trying to do so when the truth is, assuming you’re innocent in this hypothetical, you really just don’t know. How would you know?

On the contrary, the vast majority of rape cases do not make it to court let alone a conviction. You will struggle very hard indeed to find a ‘he said she said’ rape case that has led to a conviction with no supporting evidence. Generally speaking the cases that lead to a conviction have a lot more than ‘he said she said’, evidentially speaking.

So to flip it then 'isn't it scary to think that if you're repeatedly raped by your husband there would be very little point even reporting it - it's very unlikely to get to court and if it did there's no hope of a conviction'? I thought we might have moved on a bit from that narrative by now.

Anyway, according to the above logic there was clearly enough evidence in the Letby case to lead the jury to convict on most of the charges.

And the defence offered very little in response, presumably because the witnesses they had lined up were likely to end up damaging rather than strengthening her case. I'm not sure what sort of conspiracy some PPs are alluding to by implying that the defence purposefully withheld (and/or didn't look properly for) witnesses that would have provided a slam dunk the defence case? What would the motive have been for doing this?