The Guardian today on the safety of the Lucy Letby convictions

[Kittybythelighthouse]

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”

In a case where statistical and medical evidence was crucial I cannot understand why the defence only called Lucy Letby and a plumber.
It seems like a host of medical and statistical experts (more expert than the prosecution ones) are lining up to criticise. These include real statisticians and the author of the air embolism paper. Surely some would have been available.
So why were none called?

The conclusion that most are coming to is that the defence view was that testimony of their experts would not have helped. Given that she was found guilty of most of the charges anyway and is serving a full life tariff, then it couldn't have made it any worse!

Easy to say with hindsight I know, but either the defence were correct and the experts on their side had nothing to say that would have changed the outcome or it was a misjudgement in strategy. Even really experienced professionals do get things wrong sometimes.

Baby E lost something like a quarter of his blood. From 10pm until 1am Harkness faffed about making no decisions while the baby went into shock, he didn't even order up O neg. There are several causes of haemorrhage in neonates. IRRESPECTIVE of whether someone had harmed that child Harkness had plenty of time to diagnose the cause of the bleed and give transfusions. He didn't.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel Are you not troubled that mum and the doctor’s account of events doesn’t match the medical notes made by Letby, suggesting that she’d changed them to take suspicion off herself?

So do they know she changed the notes? Or is it a “suggestion” she changed them?

are there corrections in paper notes? An audit trail if electronic?

or is it that mum and dr’s memories of what happened don’t match the notes?

even if she did change them, did the changes suggest a cover up of murder? In which case why the fuck did she write down what she’d done if it was intentional harm, to go back and change it later? You just wouldn’t, you’d write down your deliberate cover up, not what you actually did.

did they review all the notes? How often are they changed? Do staff make hasty aide memoires, then go back and write things properly when they get a break?

it seems odd you’d make incriminating notes in a patient record?

Potentially yes but I would need to know more.

It's not possible to 'change' notes! If it's done on a computer, you can't just go back in and edit them. They're a legal document. You can add to the notes if you forget something, but it's illegal to alter them. I'd certainly be interested to know how these notes were supposedly changed. Do the NHS use paper or computerised notes now? I'd expect it's computerised. I've worked with both kinds and you cannot change anything.

@toomanytonotice Have you listened to the court transcripts on YouTube? There a channel called Crime Scene to Court room where he reads put the entire transcript of the cross examination of LL, broken down by each indictment. many people on this thread would benefit from listening. It’s not biased or reported. He just reads the trial transcripts as they are.

@lawnseed She falsified these notes at the time by failing to record that mum had visited, not recording her interventions with Baby E and recording that she had been with another patient in a different room at the time Baby E’s mother saw her in Nursery 1. This is corroborated by phone call data from Baby E’s mum which records the time on the phone call she made immediately after Lucy Letby told her to go back to the wards.

She also told Baby E’s mum that she had already called the doctor but she hadn’t. Part of the delay in treating Baby E was that Letby did not call the doctor until after mum had left and had not recorded any of her interventions. When the doctor arrived they were at a loss to understand why Baby E was bleeding.

Okay, thanks for that info.

My main worry is that a NL jury convicted Lucia de Berk who was later found to be innocent, in Italy Daniela Poggiali's conviction was overturned and a U.K. jury convicted Colin Norris whose case is under review now and it really looks like he is innocent and no-one was murdered at all. More controversially (because of the syringe) but also probably innocent Ben Geen who was convicted of murdering 2 people who died of respiratory failure in a hospital in winter which is a pretty common occurrence and where it was later shown there was no cluster of cases at all this was the usual rate of deaths in winter in that unit.

All these cases had similar witch-hunt by colleagues type elements, no direct evidence and dodgy use of stats.

Obviously health care professionals do kill. There is no dispute on Harold Shipman, Beverly Allit or Charles Cullen but they did all have red flags in their backgrounds that these other cases do not.

I have been really worried all along that LL will turn out to be terrible miscarriage of justice.

I have to say, it does concern me that the ward seems to have been so badly run and a couple of the doctors not exactly great.

@ThePure Again, that’s not what happened. Please read fully about the case before drawing comparisons.

@Totallymessed Those inferences about the doctors are being made by Lucy and her defence. Her only defence line seems to have been that the unit was badly run.

But I would argue that it was impossible for the other staff on the ward to do their job properly when someone was tricking other collègues into noting things that didn’t happen to cover their tracks. I’ve re-checked the testimony on Baby E. Letby had another nurse make a notation and sign it on her behalf about blood aspirant that the other nurse had not seen for herself, thus creating the narrative that the baby had been bleeding before being with Letby. She tried to use another collègue to cover her tracks. The only reason she was caught was that notes for other babies showed that the other nurse was feeding another child when the supposed bleeding episode occurred. Other nurse testified that she never saw blood aspirate from Baby E before the collapse. She also ‘forgot’ to note mum’s ward visit when she wrote up the notes later. Cunning and slippery.

I’ve re-checked the testimony on Baby E. Letby had another nurse make a notation and sign it on her behalf about blood aspirant that the other nurse had not seen for herself, thus creating the narrative that the baby had been bleeding before being with Letby.

Are you able to link to where you've read this?

Rats I honestly have done a lot of reading on this and the parallels with the other cases I cited remain clear to me. I went back over the thread because you said 'again' but could only see you directing people to a Daily Mail podcast.

@Reallybadidea I read it in the trial
testimony. If you find Crimescene2courtroom on YouTube he has an entire video where he reads out the trial transcript. The discrepancy in the notes was discovered during the police
investigation. This what I keep saying about the details adding up to a full picture. I consider Baby E to be a smoking gun- means, opportunity, manufactured alibi, corroborating witnesses. I very much doubt there is anyway to overturn the conviction for this indictment.

The Reddit thread r/Lucyletby is also helpful because some members attended court and heard the testimony live. Their comments are often quiet illuminating

@ThePure Apart from the fact they are Ll
medical professionals, what do you see as the similarity between them?

If Lucy is similar to anyone, it is Harold Shipman.

I guess I am also influenced by knowing that health care professionals are certainly scapegoated for institutional failings on a regular basis cf Dr Bawa Gaba and Mr David Sellu

In Morecambe Bay and Telford babies died and there was no serial killer. This unit sounds awfully similar

In my line of work I deal with people in distress and many of them write self incriminating notes that are just a reflection of their distress and LL notes reads exactly like that for me.

Also I have definitely taken home hand over notes. Literally everyone does. TBH you'll probably find some in my house now if you search it.

• lack of direct evidence
• misuse of statistics
• no red flags in background (vs Shipman's prior drug addiction)
• colleagues think they are weird and start a witch hunt (vs actually no/one suspected Shipman)

@ThePure I can see why you might want to draw those parallels but in doing so you’re discounting the differences. Letby is accused of multiple counts over many years, using differing methods. I’m each case she has either been caught falsifying medical notes (why if not to cover her guilt) or alone with a child who is suddenly collapsing.

People spent years not wanting to believe she did it. If anything it was the opposite of scapegoating. The doctors who pushed for answers were threatened, told to drop it and made to feel like bullies while Lucy enjoyed the support of her colleagues and family. This wasn’t a witch hunt.

Be prepared for more indictments. Operation Hummingbird has been recruiting more officers on secondment for a further three year investigation. If they are doing that then they must have decent leads on more cases.

This is not true:

1- there is loads of direct evidence in the form
of witness testimony (parents, other nurses and consultants). There is also the medical note bundles for each patient. These are invaluable in catching Letby in her lies (of which there are many).
2- this is a moot point. The stats weren’t used as a basis for the case (despite what some people might think). The whole process began with a review of all infant deaths at the CoCH at that time and was then narrowed down to only the ones that seemed unexplained or strange. These were investigated separately- with the idea that there could be any explanation for each. Each family was given a team of detectives. Each team independently found Letby connected to the case as a suspect. Only then was she made a person of interest. So nothing to do with the stats.
3- yes and no on the ‘no red flags’. This depends who you speak to. She presented as nice but so do other serial killers and psychopaths. How often do you hear people say ‘Oh I never thought he’d do something like that’. Not all serial killers have strange behaviours in childhood.
4- Her collègues liked her. She was seen as ‘nice Lucy’. Many would not believe it was her until she was convicted. Listen to Dr Jayram talking about his own disbelief when it was initially brought up. She wasn’t a scape goat or a weirdo. She is very much a case for ‘they walk among us’. She used these relationships to manipulate people into signing notations for her for procedures they hadn’t witnessed.

Not sure why my post has been hidden, maybe because of a link I put in it? Anyway, I've had a look at that YouTube channel and there are so many videos I can't work out which relate to child E. Can't find anything in the trial reporting about the other nurse not witnessing the aspirant

@Reallybadidea It’s broken down into parts on the Reddit board. The whole video is 10 hours long and contains all the testimony. Again, it’s her own testimony so not biased or controversial.