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”

None of this is being done by reputable sources. None of this is being done by people who have reviewed all the evidence.

It is being done by weirdos with some sort of axe to grind (attention/ problems with the CPS/ trust issues with the NHS and/or police).

Baby E and F’s mum is absolutely right in characterising it as lies and half truths. As someone who has read the trial transcripts I can tell you that everything being brought up is factually inaccurate. You are being fed a load of emotive rubbish by people with money to make from articles/ social media and blog monetisation.

The experts querying this include Nobel Laureates, Heads of Royal Scientific Societies, the former Forensic Regulator for this UK - these, and many others of a similarly high calibre, are not “weirdos with an axe to grind” by any reasonable measure.

Again, please move on if you are not interested in engaging honestly in a sober respectful discussion.

@Kittybythelighthouse

None of whom have read the full medical evidence. I have yet to see a single, credible, appropriately qualified expert who has read all the material (often close to 8,000 pages per baby) who is challenging the verdict.

So far it’s been the usual attention seekers, sound bites, anonymous sources and journos getting sound bites out of people who have only read bits.

She has had the full course of justice- hundreds of police officers, dozens of qualified medical experts, a good defence team and millions in court costs. She’s appealed and been turned down.

What people who have nothing better to do than half-arse something vaguely racy online are doing is expecting everyone who paid close attention to the trial and actually understand the evidence to go away so they can play out their wrongful conviction cosplay in public. It won’t do. Making up crap to make yourselves sound right at the expense of grieving families is sick.

How much does the court transcript cost?

*To get a hold of anyway.

@DysonSphere

This YouTube channel has full readings if you want to save the cost. https://youtube.com/@crimescene2courtroom?si=ue6hCIxyL64ApPib

And there’s also charge by charge break downs on r/LucyLetby by people who have been through the transcripts. I’ve read these and listened to all the video readings. It takes about 60 hours.

But if you want to order and read them yourself then you can order them from The government website. However, it is £2-£4 per page. So thousands.

Genuine thanks for this, but if the link above is feely available to the public, why do you assume none of the experts questioning the conviction haven't also taken advantage of such resources also?

£100k for all of it I think.. Apparently this was Peter Hitchens. I haven't verified that though.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/comments/1f8wtyx/do_you_wish_to_pursue_this_transcription_request/

That's a bit of a red herring though.
They don't need to have read all 8000 pages to dispute the evidence that was presented as evidence in the court case.

Also the rebuttals put forward to the CRCC will be more robust and thorough. Any expert currently looking into this isn't going to be sending their reports into the newspapers.

She hasn't already had the full course of justice. The CRCC is part of the justice system and it's very possible that they may be looking into this case in the future.

£100k!! Goodness!

I assume this is because the trial was so long.

But I think such things as this ought to be free or a nominal amount, in the interests of open scrutiny of our courts and justice system and basic fairness. I'm shocked that it should be priced so well beyond the means of well, anyone.

Are court transcripts priced like this in other European countries, it seems bizarre!

I wonder if Lucy Letby and her legal team are expected to pay that amount too?

@kkloo

But I’m not an expert saying her conviction is unsafe. I’ve read and listened to the trial transcripts so I can say that her conviction wasn’t based on stats. Anyone who is a saying this does not have the first clue about the case. Which is why the articles by journos looking to whip up a long series of articles are bothering me so much. They are totally misrepresenting the case for monetary gain.

Jane Hutton, who was one of expert signatories to that letter challenging the safety of the conviction, was interviewed on The Trial of Lucy Letby a few weeks ago. Her grasp of the case was dreadful, often totally factually wrong. The two hosts were in court every day for the nine month trial and knew their stuff. They had to keep correcting her assumptions and bad information.

This is the level of understanding of the experts who’ve been writing letters and making challenges to the case. They don’t even understand the basics, never mind the details of how Lebty was found guilty.

@DysonSphere

The Crimescene to Courtroom videos are very good. They include the court artists drawings, illustrations of evidence and photographs.

I’m just relistening to her cross examination for Child C. It really is astounding. Her arrogance. She wants the jury to believe that everyone- the other staff and the child C’s parents are wrong about her movements and behaviour the night child C died. It’s like that for every charge.

£100,000 for the transcripts and I’m not joking. Be aware that the YouTube series people will direct you to only refutes the prosecution case and has a lot of dodgy voice acting.

No, they would have to have access if they wanted. Everyone directly involved can access recordings I understand. Letby’s team would be able to review all the notes and all the evidence too of course.

Many of the experts are probably only familiar with their own area of expertise and may well be very ill informed about the other aspects of the case.

The fairest trial or appeal would have experts looking at only the evidence based on their own expertise and not any preconceived notions about guilt or innocence, the other evidence or lack of shouldn't be a consideration for those people.

If there is an appeal it's going to be a long process combining rebuttals from several or many different expertise all rebutting different parts of it.

If an expert in statistics finds a problem with the statistics and the inferences a jury could have made from them then that's simply one part of it, they don't need to know or understand or be able to rebut the rest of it. Other experts will focus on other parts.

I was looking for a transcript of the podcast you mentioned so I quickly read it before responding to you but unfortunately there is none so I just have it playing here now and they just said

"and significantly her conviction did not hang on one piece of evidence, Nick Johnson the prosecutor talked about context, context, context, in other words, it was the cumulative effect of lots and lots of different pieces of evidence which when put together in context built a picture of guilt and persuaded the jury that she harmed and killed the babies in her care"

Well the same is going to go if there is a successful appeal, it will be the cumulative effect of lots and lots of different pieces of evidence which rebut the prosecutions evidence. Statisticians don't need to know everything about the case, they just need to look at the statistics and see if they could have been possibly misleading.

Isn’t it crazy? Even America isn’t that bad. It differs state to state there, free in some states, paid in others, but no one has the cheek to ask for £100k! Open justice indeed.

In 2024 it is ridiculous to pretend that it is impossible to have an easily reproducible record of such things for public use at an accessible cost, if not for free. Like with the reporting ban, which doesn’t work in the modern age, this is prehistoric thinking also.

Recites the prosecution case- not refutes.

@kkloo

Jane Hutton is a statistician. She did not know that the shift patterns weren’t the method of identifying Lebty as a suspect. She had no idea how statistics were used in the case. It was shameful.

Challenges to convictions should be made on facts, not misunderstanding and half truth. And definitely not because some strangers on the internet believe themselves to be better than the police, the CPS, the families, the witnesses and the experts.

As for overturning the 14 separate counts. Each carries a whole life order. Each one would have to be unpicked to free her.

And Operation Hummingbird is still running. They are still looking into the other babies she cared for over her career. So it it very possible there will be more charges.

The 'method' didn't sound anywhere near as robust as they tried to make out.

"We looked at it individually, every case needed to be investigated on its own merit. I wanted to allow people to come to a determination of what they were finding on their own." After six months using this tactic, Mr Hughes then introduced weekly team meetings, where investigators shared information. "All of a sudden the picture would start falling into place," he said. "It was chilling really at times, to see it drop into effect.

"A detective would give the update of their investigation, they would say, 'What happened in my case was…according to the medical evidence the collapse took place at this time, at this time the designated nurse went on a break handing over care to Lucy Letby, the parents left and the child collapsed,' then another detective would go, 'Oh my God, that's exactly what happened in my case.' Patterns emerged. That's what happened as we approached mid-2018," he added.

What 'determination of what they were finding' did they find on their own? Sounds like nothing.

If there is a challenge then it will be made on facts, it will be robust and thorough and presented correctly. What you're seeing on podcasts or in newspapers is not how it will be presented to the CRCC.

Yes there are 14 counts but if they successful rebut some of them then the rest become easier.

Yes it is possible that there may be more charges, but as of yet there isn't. No one knows how this is going to go.

@kkloo

I’m sorry to break this to you but all the medical information and case notes and testimonies are separate for each child. Because this case is made up of thousands of pieces of separate medical data, witness accounts and expert opinions, you would have to undermine each one.

I cannot think of a single piece of evidence that would undo all fourteen convictions at once. All the witnesses would need to be wrong. Her text messages would need to be fake (as they place her in various areas around the unit as part of timelines). All the swipe data would need to be flawed and the electronic nursing notes system would need to be entirely erroneous.

People don’t want this conviction to be right because they don’t understand it properly.

Who said one piece of evidence would undermine them all at once? No one

All I said is that if they rebut some then it becomes easier to rebut the rest.
I think 9 of the charges related to air embolism, if they manage to discredit the air embolism evidence then even though there may be some individual differences and other work to be done in the cases they have a huge chunk of the work done by dismantling the main theory.

2 cases for insulin, both of them can be worked on together. Rebut one, the other becomes easier.

Then there is child G who she was found guilty of force feeding milk, if the other cases have fallen apart then that is far more likely to also.

They don't need to dismantle every single piece of evidence such as swipe data or text messages etc, but if enough evidence is able to be successfully rebutted the the verdict will be considered to be unsafe.

The public inquiry is going to throw up some very challenging questions and be legally interesting. It is is the Trusts interests for the conviction to be solid as otherwise they are on the hook legally for the appalling standards of staffing and care set out in this
Guardian article.
the conviction in my view is like a line in the book ‘the House of God’ an American novel on being a medical intern
’the medical student hears hooves at the window and looks out expecting a zebra’
otherwise known as ‘common things occur commonly’
the common thing is the broken NHS lack of staffing etc. the Zebra is a serial killer nurse
to date no one from the NHS has had to defend the care provided
Private Eye’s MD is investigating this - had a lead part in exposing the Bristol
Heart Surgery scandal and the Horizon scandal so watch this space
I am sceptical about this conviction and I wasn’t until I started reading Private Eye

An interesting thing in the article was that senior nurses were replaced with non qualified nursery nurses. This could seem like an obvious saving as babies move out from an acute care setting to a nursery where they are not big enough / well enough to go home but cost saving to not have senior nurses looking after them. Combined with a lack of appropriate qualified senior medical cover meant clinical safety was incredibly poor around the time of the deaths.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/letby-brings-in-new-lawyer-as-potential-appeal-prepared/5120772.article

A KC here must have reason to believe that something may be amiss or deserve further scrutiny as he is working for free on this one. I wonder if many in the legal community are taking an interest?