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.

Possibly, although there is an obvious flaw with calculating convictions as a percentage of total reports in any given year; many cases will not make it to court in the year they were reported.

Either way we can agree the rate of convictions for rape is very low.

Without the TPN bag to test there is no way any investigation could conclude, with any certainty, it had been tampered with.

The blood tests were suggestive of insulin being given and the TPN bag was considered the most likely route. The possibility of unreliable lab results and no testing on the TPN bag means that no one can prove the babies were poisoned with insulin.

@kkloo You misunderstand me - I'm not suggesting that she was poorly represented by her defence team, but that her defence to the charges was inherently weak.

And don't forget that the prosecution is just as entitled to 'pick apart' a defence witness, as a defence witness is able to against the prosecution case. All of the potential risks will have been weighed up by both sides as part of their decision making.

But her defence wasn't potentially weak at all, that's the point. The causes of deaths were all just theories. There was great scope to defend her

There was no concrete proof that she did those things, in at least 5 of the murdered babies I believe the initial postportem said the babies died of something else also.

I'm not forgetting that the prosecution is entitled to pick apart a defence witness, I fully expect them to. That doesn't mean that you don't bring forward any.

My quick insulin thoughts.

Not a medic or a nurse.

Claim

Records showed there was unnaturally high level of insulin in a record from a lab test done on a ward patient.

This meant LL was spiking the TPN bag used to supply the patient at the time.

This was (retrospective) proof of her guilt.

Proof by prosecution

Paperwork showed an abnormally high test result.

This was a result from an external testing lab.

Working backwards, this high result could ONLY be caused by insulin administered from a bag.

This proved someone on the ward at the time was putting insulin into bags.

There was no reason for there to be insulin in the bag used for this particular patient.

This technique has been done by medical serial killers before.

This proves LL was spiking bags to intentionally harm patients.

QUESTIONS

Bags

Why did LL say under questioning that she agreed there was actually insulin in the bags?

No one had actually claimed this or thought this until ages after the event.

There wasn't anything noted as abnormal at the time. No investigation.

This looks like the defence being completely incompetent and/or setting her up to fail.

Had she been told that there was 100% proof of insulin in the bags and it would look bad for her if she didn't agree?

Insulin test results

Why were the insulin test results not questioned at the time IF they were abnormal?

Was the unnaturally high reading not just a glitch?

(I know enough to know most test results are not foolproof.

I tried a fancy weighing machine, my print out says I'm 80 stone hmmm!)

Looks like the result was unreliable /irrelevant at the time and everyone knew it ...

...which makes sense as to was why it wasn't followed up.

The processing lab itself says you shouldn't interpret the results to prove anything (see attached image, I didn't put the red highlight in).

So it means nothing...proves nothing....

Until....

Interpretation

We don't know the test results proved anything...the lab doesn't agree...it looks like some glitch someone dug up from ages ago....Dismissed!

So in comes ..... Expert...

Expert says the high test results mean that there was insulin in the bags.

Question: Why are we trusting this Expert?

He's got a lot of fancy titles.

We have a photograph of him with Theresa May getting a Daily Mail award.

(My experience is some senior guys think they are untouchable, are as slimy as anything and will happily throw juniors under a bus.

They know they're too high up and well-connected to be called out).

Access and door swipes and CCTV

Ok.

Now we agree with Expert because he's got a big title (grudgingly).

The evidence now says someone was spiking bags with insulin, this only means anyone with access to the ward/bags did it.

This didn't have to be LL.

So why do we not know who was actually in the ward at what time...? Who could have been spiking bags?

All we get is that shit diagram with nurses only, and gossip about how LL sometimes came in to chat with friends and look at her patients when she wasn't on rota, which is "creepy" which is proof she's a killer.

The court notes say they used LLs mobile records and door swipe and her diary and rota.

We all know about that fucking rota, as it's been referred to in every press article going.

But where is everyone else?

We're constantly asking how many people were around, if LL was alone, any nurses online and want to clarify...as we don't even know.

We only have the doctors statements.

Where the hell is the defence again -

Why are they not bringing up other people coming in and out of the ward?

CCTV

Where are the CCTV and door swipe records? Everywhere has CCTV. If not the ward itself, corridors, car park, entries and exits.

My first thought...if I was told to investigate who was causing X in a location would be to work out (independently) who was physically coming in and out and when.

Imagine you were told someone was stealing from the ward.

Time to investigate!

Phone records, CCTV, door swipes, and everyone's rotas including cleaners, plumbers, doctors, visitors, and ward clerks and admin.

Basic diligence as a starting point, surely?

You wouldn't take someone's word about who did it and focus on them only (especially if that someone could also be a suspect).

We've all seen the footage of LL being arrested, or photos with teddies, ok great, but where is the actual hospital footage?

Where is the MN diagram?

What was the ward layout?

When people keep saying they "saw" her, where were they and where was she at the time?

I don't want to constantly know about eerie feelings or if LL looked both innocent and sinister, I want to know location.

It would be so easy to clarify certain things.

Lot of us seem to be guessing at what went on, or not sure, or feel gaslit or confused.

because there is no actual picture of what did happen or who was where. Just emotional statements.

That seems intentional.

It's like we're being given a blurred picture at a funny angle that's gone through two filters. And then been crumpled.

I completely agree and if I were a nurse I’d be very nervous about getting cornered like this now. I think cctv in vulnerable wards like a NICU should absolutely be standard.

When I say “a weak defence” I mean incompetent. Not that she had no possible defence. There clearly were points that could have been challenged and weren’t - the insulin evidence for example. The lab that returned that result is on record stating that the test is not conclusive, can return false positives, and is only indicative of the possibility of the presence of insulin. There was further testing needing to be done if the presence of insulin was to be factually established. The hospital/doctors did not undertake further tests at the time. Why? If they really think it meant someone introduced that insulin then why wouldn’t they challenge it then? This was not challenged in court. This alone points to a weak (I.e incompetent) defence and therefore an unfair trial.

When I say “a weak defence” I mean incompetent. Not that she had no possible defence. There clearly were points that could have been challenged and weren’t - the insulin evidence for example. The lab that returned that result is on record stating that the test is not conclusive, can return false positives, and is only indicative of the possibility of the presence of insulin. There was further testing needing to be done if the presence of insulin was to be factually established. The hospital/doctors did not undertake further tests at the time. Why? If they really think it meant someone introduced that insulin then why wouldn’t they challenge it then? This was not challenged in court. This alone points to a weak (I.e incompetent) defence and therefore an unfair trial.

@Kittybythelighthouse Okay, then going back to your earlier point I don't believe either that she had an incompetent defence team or that there was an unknown reason that witnesses were disallowed. Therefore I can't see in what way the trial was unfair.

Also, I thought the point with the insulin cases is that they were only discovered quite some time after the fact, and after the initial investigation into the other deaths had started? Were the samples even still available by that point? I have heard at least one of the consultants expressing deep regret that it wasn't picked up at the time, and that if they had personally reviewed the results they would have done.

When Lucy gave baby F that bag, his blood sugars really fell and he became very unwell. His blood sugars fell from 5.5 to 0.8. The doctors then struggled to control his blood sugar by giving him sugar through dextrose.

The c peptide results came back a week after the incident. The baby was better by then and the reviewing doctor didn't realise the significance. No one realised what was happening at this stage.

No details have been reported on a third insulin incident and we don't know why (if there was one,) it wasn't included in the trial.

She can’t possibly get one. Everyone knows her as a serial killer from endless articles in the news and documentaries.

A major point of the article is that the story painted at the trial omitted relevant information.

If you don't believe that they were possibly incompetent you're just refusing to be open to that.

They called a plumber, that's it.

The forensic evidence was weak, they had multiple angles to attack to try to throw some doubt on at least some of the charges but they just called a plumber.

Correlation is not causation. All you can actually say from the data is that at some point between 11.32pm and 1.54 am Baby F’s blood sugar crashed from 5.5 to 0.8. His heart-rate also rose from 150 bpm to over 200bpm between 1.15 am - 4am.

If you want to take the exogenous insulin option, which is by no means the only possibility, insulin could have been applied at the time the TPN bag was changed; but equally a vial of insulin could have been injected into the TPN bag or the baby at a later point, (Victorino Chua’s method); or it could have been a mistake, given that insulin had been given to that baby previously. There is precisely zero evidence it was applied at the time LL changed the TPN bag.

In the absence of any corroborating evidence the insulin theory remains entirely unproven.

Hyper and hypoglycaemia are common in preterm neonates, and the latter is more common. Baby F was recovering from respiratory distress, being treated for suspected sepsis and he had lost weight which would have depleted glycogen and fat stores. We do not know whether Baby F had a diabetic mother, but if so that would also be a risk factor.

Both insulin babies had a twin. Baby F lost his twin brother due to an unexpected bleed under Letby's care. The second insulin baby, baby L, very nearly lost his brother, due to yet another unexpected collapse.
Out of the seventeen babies in the case, eight were multiples. The second multiple had an unexpected collapses very quickly after the first. The only one to escape this, was the surviving triplet, who was quickly transferred. One triplet had an horrific, high impact injury to his liver.

You’re wrong about the insulin. There would be no test result if the samples hadn’t been tested at the time. They were tested at the time, which is when the result was returned. It was not followed up and indeed was clearly not felt to be important then. It was only dug up again, years later, and used to fit a murder narrative. By this time the samples were long gone. The point stands that A: the actual lab who returned the result clearly state that it is not a definitive result. B: the doctors at the time were not alarmed enough by it to take the further test that would have established for certain whether or not insulin was introduced and C: their “regret” years later is neither here nor there. If they are attempting to claim it is definitive proof of murder that is simply not good enough. This was not challenged by her defence. It therefore stands that she didn’t have a fair trial or a competent defence based on this point alone, and it is not the only contentious point.

Further to this is the fact that a third baby, who LL could not have tampered with, also returned a positive sample yet this was waved away. Why wasn’t this included? Because it didn’t fit a narrative that LL had poisoned the babies? If they felt the very same test showing the very same result did not point to attempted murder with that baby, why so for the others? If they feel that such a result definitively points to attempted murder, despite the clear advice of the lab, why didn’t they look into who tried to murder that infant?

Do you know how many vials of insulin would have to be used to have levels that high? One babies levels were said to be 4657 pmol/L.
I don't understand the conversions etc but I read that it would be enough to be fatal in an adult.

Wouldn't vials of insulin need to be signed for or recorded in some way.

It would be a hell of a coincidence that these two babies suffered massive unexpected relapses consistent with insulin poisoning at the same time as there was evidence in their blood samples of high insulin combined with high C-peptide levels, in circumstances consistent with all the other occasions when babies suffered sudden collapses at times when Letby had access to them or the means to harm them, etc etc etc. For that coincidence to be further compounded by the defence being unable to find expert witnesses prepared to support her case, coupled with LL's highly competent legal team having a collective lapse of judgement all at the same time, unnoticed by those in court, really stretches credibility beyond all bounds.

Your problem there is that Letby herself agreed that the two babies were deliberately poisoned with insulin. She had very good reason to know that that was what happened to them.

No, they’re not a controlled drug. Obviously you sign if you are giving them openly on a prescription chart but you could remove them from a drugs cupboard with no checks or signing.

The triplet with the liver injury had experienced CPR that morning.

Dewi Evans gave his opinion that this “does not get near the liver” but everything on a small preterm neonate is near everything else. The liver is directly under the ribs.

In adults - resuscitation is a common cause of injury to the ribs and sternum. In one study of post CPR autopsies - 25% had rib fractures; in another study 42% had thoracic injuries, 30% had intra-abdominal injuries. Life threatening injuries is around 3%.

Imo that is the most likely cause of the liver injury.

What are the odds of a “murderer” suddenly deciding to eschew their previous successful MO od- “insulin” or “air embolus” and randomly decide to whack one baby on the liver - just on the day the baby had CPR?

That's a very confusing one because he said that CPR couldn't have caused it but no other possibilities were put forward about what she could have done to cause that kind of liver damage, he said the injury would be similar to that of a traffic collision or "the force required would be of the magnitude of forces generated from a baby jumping on a trampoline and falling off".
So what could she possibly have done unnoticed that could have caused that damage?

@Mirabai

Resuscitation argument was also used in Roy Meadows (overturned) evidence against Trupti Patel....injuries caused trying to revive this ladys child were meant to have been confirmed by "experts" as evidence of assault.

And again...suggested two of her children were meant to have passed away with no visible cause (very very sadly) but at her hand..

but apparently for just one of children she decided to change her method and get physically violent.

Also I think one of the "insulin" babies had already been treated for low blood sugar the day before this incident, and continued to have trouble over the next three days which would mean at least three bags would have to have been tampered with for that to happen. What are the chances that the staff kept choosing the contaminated bags for that one baby.

Interestingly (not 100% sure on details as I haven't gone to original source) it's suggested as soon as Roy Meadows was discredited and the tide started to turn, so did the enthusiasm of the expert medical witnesses.

The two prosecution "experts" who were originally happy to say the injuries were not compatible with CPR suddenly changed their minds.

Quote from Wikipedia.

""

By the time the case came to court, Meadow's claims about the likelihood of a second cot death in the same family had been largely discredited.

Clark's conviction for the murder of her sons had been overturned some months earlier, and Cannings's guilt was disputed by many.

After the trial started, two key prosecution witnesses, both of whom examined Mia's body and disputed Patel's claim that the fractured ribs were caused by attempts at resuscitation, said that they were no longer sure.

Professor Rupert Risdon, wrote to the judge saying that he had found evidence of rib fractures caused by resuscitation in three children that he had examined in the previous month alone, and Nathaniel Carey said he could "no longer state categorically that the rib fractures were not due to resuscitation."