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.

Not to mention the coincidence of the baby becoming unwell within 1/2hr of the TPN bag being started, and his blood sugar crashing at that time it staying low while he was on it despite dextrose except for the hour or so the bag was removed because the line tissued in the morning and recovering totally once TPN was stopped that evening.
Accidental administration doesn’t really fit not least because it wouldn’t be given through the TPN bag and would have worn off after 4-6 hours.

An awful lot of very weird things would have to happen for this not to have been deliberate tampering. You could make an argument that it wasn’t necessarily Letby but it was somebody.

I do think they probably didn’t change the bag just the line in the morning. There were different accounts of that at the child and it seems like too much of a co incidence for both the bespoke bag and stick bag to have had the same amount of insulin in.

There are other causes of a hyperinsulinism other than exogenous insulin, assuming that the readings were even correct.

One of the insulin babies had a T1 diabetic mother, we don’t know about baby F. Hyperinsulinism is consistent with a diabetic mother or gestational diabetes, others causes include: prematurity itself, intrauterine growth retardation, perinatal asphyxia, certain genetic and metabolic conditions etc.

Hypolgycemia in preterm neonates is common. It’s not unexpected. Nor is a baby who has recovered from respiratory distress and being treated for sepsis going downhill.

That baby was treated for hypoglycemia for 3 days. Different bags, different giving sets.

This is not actually correct as per the data.

Baby F’s blood sugar increased to around normal 3 times at 5am, 12pm, 7pm.

The TPN was resited at 10am which doesn’t correlate, and stopped at 6.55pm which doesn’t give sufficient time for the insulin to wear off by 7pm.

Baby F? I don’t think he was.

Doesn’t it just.

CPR can be absolutely brutal to a fragile patient. Especially so in premature babies and the very elderly it’s well known, my SIL is a nurse on a and e and has said many times it’s is not what people think and it can cause damage

One of the other babies then. Baby L I think. How do you explain that?

Oh no I believe myself that it was most likely to be CPR.

I'm just saying that the expert ruled it out and put the damage as being similar to that of a traffic collision or a baby jumping off a trampoline and falling off....but they put forward zero explanation of what Letby could have done that could have caused such a serious injury that would have apparently required much more force than vigorous CPR and that she somehow managed to do without being spotted.

And it seems that the jury believed that without any reasonable explanation put forward....now perhaps they didn't buy that part and instead just believed that that baby died due to the injection of air which Letby was also accused of administering to that baby.

But that was the only injection of air charge that had a unanimous guilty verdict which leads me to believe that the liver injury was the deciding factor in that case being unanimously guilty, but yet no reasonable explanation was put forward about how she could possibly have caused an injury that was apparently far worse than CPR and similar to a traffic collusion or fall from height off a trampoline.

Was there any outward sign of this injury ?

I don't believe so. I believe it was only found at the postmortem.

I find that extremely difficult to understand as there would be bruising if deliberate ? It seems cpr is the logical explanation

He also had excessive air in his abdomen, mottled skin and an unusual rash on his stomach the same as child B

You think so? In that case why wasn’t the insulin test result causing alarm at that time? Why didn’t they send the samples for actual conclusive tests at the time? Further, why wasn’t the third baby who fitted the same model and returned the same result, but who LL couldn’t have harmed, treated as an attempted murder too? Either you think the doctors are grossly incompetent or you think they thought the test didn’t really mean anything (as per the labs own statement) and there was no cause for alarm. Either answer casts doubt on the case and the fairness of the trial.

The defence not calling expert witnesses does not mean they don’t exist. We know they do exist and we’re not called for unknown reasons. Even if you think anyone now saying “why didn’t they call me? They had my number” is just a crank that would make things worse, that doesn’t explain not calling the expert who wrote the paper that the defence relied on re air embolism in neonates. This man is on record saying that he doesn’t agree that these cases fit with his research.

If his research was good enough for the defence to base a massive element of their case on, why wasn’t he good enough to be called? I don’t suggest that LL’s defence team had a “lapse of judgement”. I make no assertions on why they utterly failed by not challenging a single questionable item of the prosecution’s case, of which there are many. As I’ve said before, even the most obviously guilty defendant with the worst legal team imaginable will have people called to speak for their side. Even if it’s weak. Even if it’s a long shot. LL’s defence called no one but the plumber? This is shifty as heck no matter what your position is on this case. It is on its face a very weak defence job.

In addition, it’s not a “coincidence” that these babies crashed. That’s why the test was done in the first place. What’s odd is that they excluded the third baby who returned the same result but could not have been harmed by LL from their breathless baby killer dossier. That and the fact that they completely sidestepped that the test isn’t in any way conclusive and weren’t even challenged on that point.

Yes I mentioned she was also accused of injecting air into that baby, the liver injury was considered a separate injury that she had to have inflicted on him though, but it doesn't really make sense.

This isn’t “my problem” at all. LL is not an expert. Imagine for a second, if you can, a hypothetical where she is innocent. She can’t really say “you’re wrong. No one tampered with those bags” if the only expert present has stated that someone did. This just leaves her with “Okay, but it wasn’t me”.

What else do you want her to say? Do you expect her to come in with a whole alternative explanation all worked out? At least have the honesty to admit that if she did defy what the expert had said, as the only voice on that topic in the court, that you would think she was cheeky as heck for doing so.

It’s her defence’s job to present alternatives, if they so decide, and it would be ill advised for LL to attempt it on the stand herself. If anything, if she was guilty, I’d expect her to be far more cunning and to have an alternative worked out. All that this (again) illustrates is that she is very naive and that there was a very poor show from her defence team.

Yep and according to the New Yorker

After the prosecution finished presenting its case, Letby’s defense team submitted a motion arguing that the medical evidence about air embolism was so unreliable that there was “no case to answer” and the charges should be dismissed. Though the motion was rejected, perhaps it had seemed that the prosecution’s case was so weak that defense experts weren’t necessary.

Didn't call an expert though.

Did the KC think it was enough to just say all of this in his closing statement and not actually call an expert to testify?
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/national/23618292.air-injection-evidence-so-poor-cannot-support-letby-allegations-court-told/

Legal aid is not unlimited funds. It has strict fee caps which has resulted in many experts refusing work as well as a drop in 26% of criminal defence solicitors willing to work. It’s not much good to have say £4K to pay the costs of an expert when the expert’s minimum fee to do research, analysis and attend court is £30k (hypothetical example).

The Law Society recent published a report stating that the system is near collapse and this past December, the High Court ruled against the government for their cuts to criminal legal aid.

I know how it works , they don't just hand you 1.5 mil and say do as you please with It though as the pp seemed to think

They have a cap on how much they pay an hour depending on the expert

Thanks, my response was more for dark forces than yourself. You’ve been a welcome addition to the convo.

What do you mean by “dark forces” and who are you referring to? @IbisDancer

@DarkForces is a poster on this thread.

Oh what a twit I am. Please ignore my post @IbisDancer

(I loved that little exchange - highlight of the thread 🤭)