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The Guardian today on the safety of the Lucy Letby convictions

1000 replies

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 08:40

This article was apparently months in the making but it was delayed by the reporting restrictions https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/09/lucy-letby-evidence-experts-question

“A Guardian investigation has interviewed dozens of these experts and seen further evidence from emails and documents. Those raising concerns include several leading consultant neonatologists, some with current or recent leadership roles, and several senior neonatal nurses. Others are public health professionals, GPs, biochemists, a leading government microbiologist, and lawyers. Several of those still working in the NHS have asked to remain anonymous, fearing the impact if they are named.

These experts said they were acutely aware of the suffering of the families involved and did not want to reopen their trauma, but were so troubled they felt compelled to become involved”

OP posts:
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31
foothandmouth · 09/07/2024 17:35

Outliers · 09/07/2024 17:33

People just don't want to accept that a white blue-eyed blonde haired woman can be capable of executing an act of pure evil.

I think there is an element of this. We want evil people to look evil

However it's a tricky case. She still maintains her innocence and some of the evidence is controversial. Who really knows the truth

Lemonandlime123 · 09/07/2024 17:36

Whatisthereason · 09/07/2024 12:15

The cherry picking over shift data is horrific. Of course she would be on shift for all cases she’s under suspicion for. That needs to be redone and include ALL deaths and incidents in that time frame to be accurate and fair !

Edited

Surely this would have been done by her defence team though if it did indeed indicate something different from what was alleged??

Whatisthereason · 09/07/2024 17:37

Lemonandlime123 · 09/07/2024 17:36

Surely this would have been done by her defence team though if it did indeed indicate something different from what was alleged??

Her defence was very strange. Did they call a plumber as a witness and that was it ? I’m not sure if they did all they could if I’m honest

Reallybadidea · 09/07/2024 17:38

For those wondering why someone might write/make an "admission of guilt" if they were innocent, this is an interesting podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0014p73?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

The psychologist in question was able to persuade volunteers to "confess" to a crime they had never committed. LL never admitted to killing the babies in interview, but it does show that people can make completely false confessions and really believe that they committed a crime.

Bigcoatlady · 09/07/2024 17:39

Mostlycarbon · 09/07/2024 17:13

The thing I've struggled to understand with this case is, does someone really live as a murderous psychopath in plain sight for over 30 years, then do something like this without some kind of previous track record?

Wouldn't you expect people to come out from the woodwork, even a couple, who knew her at school or uni and say... actually yes there was this disturbing incident one time/there was something off about her etc.

Does someone really go from nothing for over two decades to the worst mass murder of children the NHS has ever seen?

Yes. I think if we could spot multiple murderers ahead of time readily multiple murders would not happen.

It is hard. But if the babies were deliberately killed at all whoever did it must be a nice seeming healthcare professional or a parent of premature newborn.

The only alternative was that they were not killed but died as a result of inadequate care due to shortcomings on the unit. Which is still possible but that it was investigated several times before the hospital reported the rise in deaths to the poluce and was one of the hypotheses the police themselves investigated.

If you accept the babies were deliberately killed since they spent their entire lives in hospital the only potential killers are their parents or healthcare professionals. Who will all look as likely or unlikely as Lucy Letby.

If you cannot believe she did it on the basis she seems nice you have to discount EVERYONE else on the ward on the basis they probably also seem nice. Which takes you back to a series of accidental deaths. But that's a problem too as the defence at Lucy's trial accepted the evidence that the deaths were deliberate - she admitted herself the insulin evidence pointed to deliberate killing.

BrotherViolence · 09/07/2024 17:40

I initially felt she probably didn't do it. I then started following the trial closely and was convinced she did, because the expert opinion that the deaths/crashes were foul play was unanimous. And if somebody did it, she was the only "suspect" who made sense.

Having said that, I'm really just interested in whatever the truth of it all is, so I'm very open to being convinced by strong enough evidence. My question, seeing this renewed discussion about the case, is why her original defence couldn't field a single medical expert to question the conclusion that the acts were deliberate. Letby herself acknowledged that several of the babies were poisoned with insulin. The defence only fielded one witness full stop. So where were all these people back then who are questioning the evidence now? The defence were seemingly very competent and well credentialed so I just find this quite odd.

Whether these were deliberate acts is the crux of this whole thing, the circumstantial evidence against Letby is only worth discussing at all if there is agreement that somebody did something, rather than this just being a string of horrendous accidents.

PocketSand · 09/07/2024 17:40

The NHS is understaffed and overwhelmed. Lots of people are dying unnecessarily. Most often it's deemed they were old, had pre-existing conditions and would have died anyway by doctors, pathologists so the deaths are not examined and would get nowhere if they were.

Maybe if they were an angel of death would be argued to be the cause.

Deaths of infants come under greater scrutiny.

Occam's razor - is it more likely that understaffing and poor management is the cause of death or a psychopathic murdering nurse?

5475878237NC · 09/07/2024 17:41

AmandaHoldensLips · 09/07/2024 10:26

Her diary entries were damning. Why on earth would you write such things if you were innocent?

That's my main conclusion.

BouquetGarni224 · 09/07/2024 17:43

PocketSand · 09/07/2024 17:40

The NHS is understaffed and overwhelmed. Lots of people are dying unnecessarily. Most often it's deemed they were old, had pre-existing conditions and would have died anyway by doctors, pathologists so the deaths are not examined and would get nowhere if they were.

Maybe if they were an angel of death would be argued to be the cause.

Deaths of infants come under greater scrutiny.

Occam's razor - is it more likely that understaffing and poor management is the cause of death or a psychopathic murdering nurse?

How long was it understaffed and struggling?

BouquetGarni224 · 09/07/2024 17:44

If you accept the babies were deliberately killed since they spent their entire lives in hospital the only potential killers are their parents or healthcare professionals. Who will all look as likely or unlikely as Lucy Letby.

Every single one of the parents a murderer of their own babies, in some cases multiple babies?

BouquetGarni224 · 09/07/2024 17:47

ImperialCrusade · 09/07/2024 17:26

Oh yes, it's all coming back to me now. She's an absolute psychopath who only got away with it for so long because the management of the hospital was so bad. She had a nice facade and would do lots of extra shifts so the managers didn't want investigate or suspend her and be even more understaffed.

If that's your interpretation, no wonder you're on the wrong side of this thread.

Treelichen · 09/07/2024 17:53

Divebar2021 · 09/07/2024 10:31

Hmmm I wonder how many people would be challenging the conviction if she wasn’t young and pretty ( and white). I would be interested to know what the death rates were like before and after her arrest. Presumably if she’s innocent they’ll be similar.

Eh? What an odd statement. OH, and the death rates were high when she wasn't working too. That is part of the stats evidence that wasn't presented. It improved afterwards as the hospital was in special measures and had increased staffing.

BouquetGarni224 · 09/07/2024 17:54

It's interesting that some posters can't conceive that a struggling, understaffed NHS (wide spread and long standing) is not mutually exclusive with the existence of a medical professional serial killer (of whom there have been several in the UK and plenty in other countries too (not counting the ones not caught to date)).

One does not exclude the other.

PocketSand · 09/07/2024 18:04

@BouquetGarni224 you don't know that the NHS is understaffed and struggling and has been for many years?

My mum was admitted about 10 years ago having had a stoke. The nursing staff misread the doctor recording in his bad handwriting that she had arthritis and assumed she had Alzheimer's. But once written in notes this became an unassailable truth despite total lack of evidence.

I worked for a consultant pathologist at the national heart hospital in London back in the 90's. A young boy had bled out on the table and died because of an error. Consultants spent hours constructing a no blame case so the parents couldn't sue.

Culture has always been a problem. Underfunding has increased the problem.

Maia77 · 09/07/2024 18:07

Tinylittleunicorn · 09/07/2024 14:05

There is so much misinformation being spread by conspiracy theorists about this case.

For example this was a level two unit. Aside from a minority of unwell babies pending transfer to another unit, this is predominantly not an intensive care environment. No extremely premature or extremely sick infants would remain admitted there for any length of time and it is a complete mischaracterisation to refer to babies at this unit as being on the brink of death. Prior to the events of 2015/2016 only 2-3 babies died at this unit each year.

The idea that these deaths were viewed as normal or expected at the time is false. Consultants at the time of the deaths immediately noted a cluster of unusual hard to explain deaths in which the infants did not respond normally to resuscitation. They held meetings about this within a month of the first 4 deaths in 2015. Not all of the babies had a post mortem and at least some of the babies had a post mortem resulting in a finding of cause of death "unascertained". So this was categorically not a case of looking at LL and then going back retrospectively to recategorise deaths as unusual or unexplained, as some have insinuated. This absolutely was a case of something very unusual happening and that being investigated - albeit in a manner which was undermined and delayed by a management team that did not want to acknowledge clinician's concerns.

There has been a conflation of total infant deaths which includes stillbirths, that have nothing to do with neonatal care let alone the neonatal unit or it's nursing staff, with deaths that took place on the neonatal unit under the purview of neonatal staff. This has led to the misrepresentation of the abrupt and dramatic increase in deaths at the unit as less significant than it actually was, and even the fasle claim that LL was not present for many unexplained excess deaths. The unit had 2 deaths in 2013, 3 deaths in 2014, 8 deaths in 2015, and 5 deaths in 2016 which all took place before LL suspension to administrative duties in July. She was present at every single death that occured in 2015 and 2016.

I totally agree that her notes are not a confession, but I also must correct the misconception that she wrote them under any kind of duress or following her arrest. I believe she told the court that she wrote them in 2016 when she was on administrative leave and before she was ever arrested (but aware of a police investigation taking place). Talking about her distress about the babies and saying "I killed them" I believe is less meaningful than her references to never having a family - which is an odd remark for an innocent woman to make. Why would she believe she would never have a family? To me it reads as someone who is aware the police investigation is going to lead directly to them. But I totally agree that as evidence goes it is supportive but weak.

The handover sheets are something she collected over a long period beginning prior to her suspension or arrest, or indeed any suspicion of her at all. In and of itself taking home this volume of confidential material is deeply bizarre, unprofessional and illegal. It doesn't prove her involvement in the deaths but it does undermine claims that she was an "ordinary" "professional" nurse who was behaving entirely normally prior to the deaths.

A lot of has been made about her supposed "normality" whereas I see a mother who when LL was arrested said "take me, I did it!" (Did what???) and behaved in a very unusual and unpleasant manner in court. An adult woman (LL) who kept a child like bedroom at her parents home filled with bizarre collections of confidential data related to her work, one handover sheet she put in her personal diary, a printed photograph of a condolence card. That's not normal, it's very strange. LL told manipulative lies from the very start of the court case re being arrested in her undergarments / pyjamas to try to elicit sympathy, apparently relying on an assumption she would be believed. Her testimony in court is riddled with convenient memory lapses. She was so traumatised by the clinical incidents her memory wasn't functioning yet she continued to aggressively request to work with the most unwell patients and take on as much overtime as she could? These things are very flimsy in terms of evidence - I don't believe they should or did substantially contribute to her guilty verdict but I think they do not support the narrative that she is a completely normal young woman.

Ultimately this case rested on expert witnesses independently reaching a consensus for multiple babies that they were harmed intentionally and the prosecution then went on to demonstrate that only LL had the means to do this. This was not a blanket statistical approach (as has been implied) of charging her for every single death or suspicious event she attended but a case by case evidence based approach carefully presented to the jury over a period of 10 months.

None of the concerned signatories are in position to be expert witnesses in this case. There is a reason that the experienced defence team could not produce an expert witness with a different opinion/explanation for the babies injuries and deaths, nor could they adequately undermine the expert testimony in cross examination. I think the most likely reason for this is because the conclusion of intentional harm is sound.

I think people are very concerned about this case largely because of the gross misrepresentation of the facts of the prosecution's case from certain sources which thrive on the publicity any controversy about this case generates.

Edited

Thank you for shedding light on the whole thing and using facts rather than half-truths and misinformation.

placemats · 09/07/2024 18:10

BouquetGarni224 · 09/07/2024 17:54

It's interesting that some posters can't conceive that a struggling, understaffed NHS (wide spread and long standing) is not mutually exclusive with the existence of a medical professional serial killer (of whom there have been several in the UK and plenty in other countries too (not counting the ones not caught to date)).

One does not exclude the other.

Edited

Each case has to be determined on its own merits.

On your analysis, and I use that word loosely, each murder is the same.

placemats · 09/07/2024 18:14

Maia77 · 09/07/2024 18:07

Thank you for shedding light on the whole thing and using facts rather than half-truths and misinformation.

A statement predicated on an opening that includes conspiracy theorists has little to offer but bluff and blunder.

Ophy83 · 09/07/2024 18:16

AmandaHoldensLips · 09/07/2024 10:26

Her diary entries were damning. Why on earth would you write such things if you were innocent?

They weren't contemporaneous though, they were written sometime later when she was suspended from work as far as I recall. A lot rested on her unusual behaviour- searching for parents of the babies on Facebook, taking photos of cards she sent them - but she seems to have done many many searches for all sorts of people she has ever met, and takes photos of cards generally, so she may just be unusual. The strongest evidence seems to be that the deaths and collapses stopped with her departure albeit the countess no longer takes such serious cases.

placemats · 09/07/2024 18:17

BifurBofurBombur · 09/07/2024 17:31

The local newspaper coverage of the case is brilliant. Tattle has done a wiki where they’ve gathered it all.

Tattle. Are you serious?

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 18:26

The Telegraph also published a long piece today with similar concerns
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/09/lucy-letby-serial-killer-or-miscarriage-justice-victim/

Here’s an archive link for those who can’t get past the paywall:
https://archive.ph/bZIdu

I haven’t had a chance to read all my notifications yet btw.

Lucy Letby: Serial killer or a miscarriage of justice?

Experts question evidence after former nurse found guilty of ‘cynical campaign of child murder’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/09/lucy-letby-serial-killer-or-miscarriage-justice-victim

OP posts:
Billyballyboo · 09/07/2024 18:27

ihateteatime · 09/07/2024 10:24

It’s one of the most troubling potential miscarriages of justice I can think of. If shes innocent she and her family must be going through absolute hell.

This and Jeremy Bamber.

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 18:30

BouquetGarni224 · 09/07/2024 17:44

If you accept the babies were deliberately killed since they spent their entire lives in hospital the only potential killers are their parents or healthcare professionals. Who will all look as likely or unlikely as Lucy Letby.

Every single one of the parents a murderer of their own babies, in some cases multiple babies?

Edited

With respect, the whole point of the article (and therefore this discussion) is that many professionals in relevant fields have doubt over whether or not there was any deliberate harm at all. So, within this discussion, that is clearly not an accepted starting point.

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LimeShaker · 09/07/2024 18:32

Not sure why everything seems to veer between her being a murderer or being innocent - maybe it was medical malpractice. I read they gave her the sickest babies because she was the best and that she was on shift a lot because she accepted every shift going. This sort of good girl people pleasing behaviour seems to fit with the persona - maybe she was burnt out and made some mistakes. The evidence that points to her would remain accurate but the motive - which they have never come close to explaining would not.

Rainbowsponge · 09/07/2024 18:35

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 18:30

With respect, the whole point of the article (and therefore this discussion) is that many professionals in relevant fields have doubt over whether or not there was any deliberate harm at all. So, within this discussion, that is clearly not an accepted starting point.

They always do. How many documentaries are there on Netflix with various professionals chipping in their 10 cents?

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 18:35

Onethreefiveseven · 09/07/2024 17:20

@Kittybythelighthouse @Bigcoatlady

It seems that there may now be a campaign underway to improve the way that expert witnesses are not/used in court:

"It should be mandatory for the jury to hear expert witnesses from both sides or - better still - it should be a duty of, say, the Royal Colleges and Royal Statistical Society to provide a team of the best, current expert witnesses on behalf of the court, not paid and employed by one side or the other. This is vital both for justice to be done and justice being seen to be done. In the current system, the jury may only hear a highly selective and curated version of the science from a single side, and experts will later disclose evidence that they believe should have been heard in the court hearings after the verdict, which must be extremely distressing for the parents of children who died, the friends relatives of Lucy Letby and members of the jury who would have wanted the complete scientific picture."

Again, potentially something good to come from an awful situation.

x.com/drphilhammond/status/1810630891649073506?t=CQ36-94XapE01u3FcTmtJA&s=19

I’m glad he is weighing in on this. He’s absolutely right, of course. Criminal trials of this nature should include an inquiry into establishing the actual truth, which the adversarial system does not prioritise. Currently prosecutors and the defence are incentivised to ‘win’, sometimes this is at the expense of the truth. It’s quite troubling.

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