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”

I thought that after the Roy Meadows situation statistics would be treated far more cautiously.

I'm very aware that my personal experiences could make me biased so I try to remain neutral. But it's giving me a hinky feeling.

I've always questioned the verdict, but have been told by others that it's my unconscious bias talking, as in she doesn't look like a killer so therefore, she isn't... But it's far more than that - there is NO concrete evidence, it's entirely circumstantial. Even the stats have proven to e faulty - they used an incorrect rota to suggest that she was working a day shift, when in fact it was a night shift, during one of the deaths. This was allowed to stand during the trial and remained unchallenged. I think it's desperately sad if this is a miscarriage of justice, so many lives ruined.

I wondered about the safety of the conviction too.

Such an odd case.

Chesire police, in an extraordinary move, reported The New Yorker to the Attorney General which may or may not have anything to do with why the publication haven’t made it accessible in the UK yet. There could be an ongoing legal situation. Unfortunately Chesire Police are just going to have to live with this Guardian article, which presents a lot of the same information.

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 !

Yes, it reminded me of that case too.

@Whatisthereason Have you listened to interviews with the families? They are very clear that they are happy with the conviction. Who are you (with no evidence or expertise) to tell them otherwise?

Just to add, the bit covered by "HATE" looks like "they used to" (you can see the "to" under "FEAR").

So to me, that section is "how will things ever be like they used to. They won't", which is coherent and written in the same 'hand'.

Then next to and underneath that, as she's become more erratic, she's gone onto say "I don't deserve to live I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough..." and then has fit in "I did this why" around the edge of it.

Sorry @SoundTheSirens, I hadn't spotted your post but glad I'm not the only one!

It's very convenient for NHS management to just blame Letby alone and/or (earlier on) just blame the doctors as persecuting one nurse.

They should have stopped her - they should have robust safeguarding that protects all patients. This was not in place and it failed. It's not rocket science. There should be accountability.

Valid concerns were raised and she should have been removed from frontline nursing much sooner. Managers should lose their jobs / pensions for not doing this.

The happiness/unhappiness of the families with the conviction whilst something they are totally entitled to feel should not be a factor in any potential legal process going forward if that happens. You can’t just have a potential miscarriage of justice left because the family of the victim/s want it to be left alone.

I believe that the searches for parents of dead babies amounted to a few dozen searches in a search history of 1000s.
Not obsessive searching, seems reasonable given the circumstances

I think it's clear that there are many experts who disagree with one another on how concrete the case against Lucy is.

I'm wondering if anything will come of this; would there be a chance for her to get the evidence reviewed or is that her note basically destined to spend the rest of her life in prison? I know that an appear has been rejected but would new experts coming forward with concerns change anything?

A solicitor once told me that when a case gets to court, the truth is less important than winning the case. He went on to be a judge. That still chills me. High profile cases have so much riding on them.

The people who keep saying this seem to think it’s some kind of gotcha, but appear to have a poor grasp on just how circumstantial the evidence that convicted LL is. I can’t of course state she’s innocent, but I certainly think there are very clear concerns, based on the testimony of expert witnesses and the failure of others to be called, and the use of statistics, about the safety of the conviction, and it’s telling that medics are expressing their concerns.

Everyone has empathy for the parents in this case: However, We are all, as citizens of this democracy, living under the same justice system. If this is (and that remains to be seen) a miscarriage of justice, we have every right to talk about it. If the convictions are safe they will stand up to public, and professional, scrutiny. This case doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The repercussions of a miscarriage of justice, particularly one like this, being allowed to go unchecked go far beyond this one case.

It is manipulative and short sighted to attempt to close down discussion by evoking the parents in this case. In any case, their views may well change if it turns out they were dragged through years and years of continued trauma for nothing. Particularly if it turns out that hospital failings were the actual cause of the deaths. The COCH has already come under fire for sub optimal care leading to infant death. One of which was nothing to do with Letby at all, but rather because of a horrendous mistake by one of the consultants who intubated a baby into his stomach rather than his windpipe.

I think all that’s left is the CCC, which is a body set up to investigate possible miscarriages of justice, but there would need to be new evidence to take it back to the appeal courts.

This is exactly how the adversarial system works and very, very, few people are aware of that. Finding the truth is not at all the primary goal in a trial of this sort.

Public pressure counts for a lot. There is still the CCRC (Criminal Convictions Review Commission) but that process takes many years because of their huge backlog.

They downgraded the unit shortly after she was taken off it and stopped taking the most poorly babies so naturally the number of deaths fell. Why not read the article?

When I first read about the case (on here) I hadn't seen a picture of her and I still instinctively felt uneasy about it.

My work diary could easily be interpreted as some sort of code.

it’s simply shift notation. However to the uninitiated much of it wouldn’t instinctively be what you’d expect- hell it’s a naming convention that’s been used for years and even I don’t know why late shift is “SH” . It just is and everyone in our dept knows what it means.

As far as I was aware she did t keep patient notes, more her hand over sheets. When I was in a nursing role I often went home with my handover sheet shoved in a pocket. Admittedly she should've disposed of it properly but I'm sure I read it those rather than actual patient notes

The hospital are certainly not blameless. No matter which way this falls they failed massively. However, Dr Jarayam talks a lot about how he was “whistleblowing” and not listened to. If he genuinely suspected, as he claims he did, that a serial killer was actively stalking their NICU, he had a legal and moral responsibility to tell the police. The fact that he sat on his hands for over a year, sending emails to HR and going to dispute resolution meetings, leaving her free to kill and kill again, does not track for me with someone who genuinely believes a murderer is on the loose. Whistleblowing is not the process you undertake when dealing with a criminal activity, particularly one as severe as this. I don’t know how anyone finds him credible to be honest.

No, I think it's written in three different columns.

That part says: How can things ever be like they used to // they won't

and then later she writes I DID THIS

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00258024241242549?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org

This journal article on the statistics is very interesting.