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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:
Thread gallery
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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.

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:08

MissMoneyFairy · 09/07/2024 13:06

Didn't she find an unattended baby, the doctors had left without telling the nurses, they had turned the monitor off and she called for help and raised the emergency alarm. What happened to those doctors and an investigation.

One of those doctors also directly caused the death of a baby boy around the same time by intubating him into his stomach rather than his windpipe and then not checking it properly, assuming the desaturation was because of a faulty machine. Imagine the frenzy if Letby did something like that. I am not convinced there were any murders at all. However, I have no idea why the doctors (particularly that doctor) were deemed above suspicion. Some of them were even asked to collect evidence for the police!

OP posts:
OolongTeaDrinker · 09/07/2024 14:08

I think on balance that she is guilty. That's not to say that some of the evidence isn't water-tight, but a lot of it was and the trial went on for months in great detail. Surely her legal team would have pounced on any evidence that was dodgy.

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 09/07/2024 14:09

@Tinylittleunicorn

The voice of reason! Well done!!

QueenCamilla · 09/07/2024 14:09

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 13:46

That is your reading of it. I don’t see it that way. Armchair detectives don’t worry me as much as the actual detectives on this case, who stupidly misinterpreted common nursing shorthand as “serial killer hidden code” and got the door swipe data, which evidences entry into the ward, wrong all throughout the investigation and the first trial.

I don't know enough about the case to analyse the evidence either way but your "I don't see it that way" to writing in front of you, doesn't instill confidence to question anything based on your observations. There is clear bias at play, and it will be true for every other thread&article in Reddit, Mumsnet, Tattle, Guardian - all of them, no matter the stance on innocent/guilty.
It must be quite a strong belief too, to deny what your own eyes are seeing. The most serious miscarriages of justice have all been affected by this plight - be it from the general public or professionals.

Maybe she is indeed innocent but keeping one's mind open to either possibility and readily admitting mistakes, can keep either side from doggedly pursuing an outcome that's directly opposite to justice.

ThatHazelDuck · 09/07/2024 14:10

This reply has been deleted

We have some concerns about the OP.

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:11

OolongTeaDrinker · 09/07/2024 14:08

I think on balance that she is guilty. That's not to say that some of the evidence isn't water-tight, but a lot of it was and the trial went on for months in great detail. Surely her legal team would have pounced on any evidence that was dodgy.

You would like to think so, but every miscarriage of justice had a defence, a QC, etc. The jury system/adversarial trial system, is far from infallible. The British miscarriage of justice stats are horrific. Many experts don’t agree that the evidence was watertight btw.

OP posts:
samarrange · 09/07/2024 14:12

Something I found concerning at the time of her first trial was that part of the prosecution's case against her was that she had "deliberately chosen the weakest babies to target, so they had the least chance of surviving her assaults".

But if she was innocent and this was just a cluster of tragic accidents, it would also have been the weakest babies that would have died.

So this argument doesn't tell us anything either way. Which makes it concerning that it was wheeled out as if it did.

Today was the first time I heard that although she was the only person present when 25 babies died, she was not present when 6 others did. So the prosecution are at risk of using the same techniques as mediums or dowsers: count the hits and ignore the misses.

None of this means LL is innocent. But the prosecution has to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, and you don't do that by using statistical inference incorrectly.

TriesNotToBeCynical · 09/07/2024 14:12

Meadowtrees · 09/07/2024 10:27

One of the expert witnesses was on the radio the other day. I haven’t followed the case but he spoke about the threats he has received, why people find it so hard to believe that she is guilty and the work that went on to secure her conviction.

What an apposite pseudonym! What concerns me is that it is not the job of expert witnesses to "secure a conviction". They should give truthful objective opinions whether they help the defence or the prosecution.

EmmaPeele · 09/07/2024 14:12

I feel very uneasy about this case. Admittedly, I don't know every tiny detail, but things like searching for bereaved families on Facebook being used as evidence against her, that seems to be scraping the barrel a bit. It's odd, I know, but maybe she was just interested in the families, how they were doing, being nosy etc I really don't know, I only know I feel uneasy about her conviction. I'm just glad we don't have the death penalty as there really is no coming back from that if there has been a miscarriage of justice.

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:14

This reply has been deleted

We have some concerns about the OP.

Because you’re a young nurse who has spent your whole life working hard towards being a nurse and suddenly your life is turned upside down and you’re being accused of the most horrific crimes imaginable. I don’t think any of us can say for sure how we would react in such a scenario. The notes can absolutely be read as the anguished outpourings of a person who feels hounded, bereft, frightened. They aren’t clear proof of anything, but more to the point they are meaningless if there were no murders in the first place, which is what many experts believe might be the case.

OP posts:
Tinylittleunicorn · 09/07/2024 14:15

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:08

One of those doctors also directly caused the death of a baby boy around the same time by intubating him into his stomach rather than his windpipe and then not checking it properly, assuming the desaturation was because of a faulty machine. Imagine the frenzy if Letby did something like that. I am not convinced there were any murders at all. However, I have no idea why the doctors (particularly that doctor) were deemed above suspicion. Some of them were even asked to collect evidence for the police!

They were deemed to above suspicion because they have an alibi for the majority of incidents - they weren't there.

If you believe that these deaths were not the result of intentional harm that's one thing. But if they were the result of intentional harm then only LL individually had the means to inflict it.

ThatHazelDuck · 09/07/2024 14:15

This reply has been deleted

We have some concerns about the OP.

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:17

samarrange · 09/07/2024 14:12

Something I found concerning at the time of her first trial was that part of the prosecution's case against her was that she had "deliberately chosen the weakest babies to target, so they had the least chance of surviving her assaults".

But if she was innocent and this was just a cluster of tragic accidents, it would also have been the weakest babies that would have died.

So this argument doesn't tell us anything either way. Which makes it concerning that it was wheeled out as if it did.

Today was the first time I heard that although she was the only person present when 25 babies died, she was not present when 6 others did. So the prosecution are at risk of using the same techniques as mediums or dowsers: count the hits and ignore the misses.

None of this means LL is innocent. But the prosecution has to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, and you don't do that by using statistical inference incorrectly.

That’s a great point. At various times, when it suited the prosecution, the babies were stable and about ready to go home, at others they were “the weakest and most vulnerable” babies in the NICU.

OP posts:
Tinylittleunicorn · 09/07/2024 14:18

samarrange · 09/07/2024 14:12

Something I found concerning at the time of her first trial was that part of the prosecution's case against her was that she had "deliberately chosen the weakest babies to target, so they had the least chance of surviving her assaults".

But if she was innocent and this was just a cluster of tragic accidents, it would also have been the weakest babies that would have died.

So this argument doesn't tell us anything either way. Which makes it concerning that it was wheeled out as if it did.

Today was the first time I heard that although she was the only person present when 25 babies died, she was not present when 6 others did. So the prosecution are at risk of using the same techniques as mediums or dowsers: count the hits and ignore the misses.

None of this means LL is innocent. But the prosecution has to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, and you don't do that by using statistical inference incorrectly.

So that's complete misinformation right there. Whatever source you have read is getting very basic facts wrong. I wouldn't trust any source that can something so fundamental to this case, so completely wrong. 13 babies died on the neonatal unit in 2015 / 2016. These figures were published by the RCPCH in the report they made following their investigation. LL was present in every single instance.

voiceofastar · 09/07/2024 14:18

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:01

Who is saying she didn’t do it? All I’m seeing is an article wherein a lot of medical and statistical experts express concerns about the safety of the convictions and a lot of people echoing that in the comments.

“a convicted killer and you all think she didn’t do it” Sally Clark didn’t do it. Lindy chamberlain didn’t do it. The postmasters didn’t do it. Miscarriages of justice happen.

Edited

Anthony Broadwater, the alleged attacker of Alice Sebold, was innocent too. He spent 16 years in prison. It was the executive producer for a film adaptation of her book Lucky who started questioning things.

'I started having some doubts—not about the story that Alice told about her assault, which was tragic, but the second part of her book about the trial, which didn't hang together".[9] He ultimately was fired from the project when he did not provide funding as he had originally agreed, and subsequently hired a private investigator to review the evidence against Broadwater.[9][10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Broadwater

Andrew Malkinson was another one quite recently https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66324801

Andrew Malkinson, reads a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, after being cleared by the Court of Appeal

Andrew Malkinson: Why are some wrongfully convicted prisoners charged jail living costs?

Money for "board and lodging" in jail is sometimes deducted from former prisoners' compensation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66324801

OtterMouse · 09/07/2024 14:19

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

QueenCamilla · 09/07/2024 14:19

QueenCamilla · 09/07/2024 13:20

Here.

I have to correct myself.
Meant to say her writing says "they won't" rather than " they can't".

And now I'm part of how mistaken social media crime legends are created 😁

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:19

Tinylittleunicorn · 09/07/2024 14:15

They were deemed to above suspicion because they have an alibi for the majority of incidents - they weren't there.

If you believe that these deaths were not the result of intentional harm that's one thing. But if they were the result of intentional harm then only LL individually had the means to inflict it.

I have doubts that anyone harmed any babies intentionally. I do however take issue with the fact that Chesire Police did not hold the doctors under suspicion in any meaningful way. In fact they asked them to collect evidence for the investigation, which is an astonishing thing to admit.

OP posts:
samarrange · 09/07/2024 14:19

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:14

Because you’re a young nurse who has spent your whole life working hard towards being a nurse and suddenly your life is turned upside down and you’re being accused of the most horrific crimes imaginable. I don’t think any of us can say for sure how we would react in such a scenario. The notes can absolutely be read as the anguished outpourings of a person who feels hounded, bereft, frightened. They aren’t clear proof of anything, but more to the point they are meaningless if there were no murders in the first place, which is what many experts believe might be the case.

Also, as we've seen in many miscarriages of justice, suspicion will often fall on people who are "a bit different", mentally or physically. And then it's not hard to find things about them that "aren't right". Stefan Kiszko and Christopher Jefferies spring to mind.

MattDamon · 09/07/2024 14:20

Tinylittleunicorn · 09/07/2024 14:18

So that's complete misinformation right there. Whatever source you have read is getting very basic facts wrong. I wouldn't trust any source that can something so fundamental to this case, so completely wrong. 13 babies died on the neonatal unit in 2015 / 2016. These figures were published by the RCPCH in the report they made following their investigation. LL was present in every single instance.

Edited

'A key plank of the prosecution was that it was always Letby who was there when the babies collapsed or died unexpectedly.

The jury was shown a chart listing 25 deaths and collapses Letby was charged with and the names of the nurses who had worked on the unit through the period of the cluster of deaths. The column for Letby was marked with a cross for every incident, whereas other nurses had only been on shift for a few of them.

However, the jury was not told about six other deaths in the period with which Letby was not charged. They were omitted from the table.'

From the article linked in the OP.

ThatHazelDuck · 09/07/2024 14:21

This reply has been deleted

We have some concerns about the OP.

Rainbowsponge · 09/07/2024 14:23

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:19

I have doubts that anyone harmed any babies intentionally. I do however take issue with the fact that Chesire Police did not hold the doctors under suspicion in any meaningful way. In fact they asked them to collect evidence for the investigation, which is an astonishing thing to admit.

Why is it astonishing? What grounds did they have to treat them as suspects?

Kittybythelighthouse · 09/07/2024 14:23

This reply has been deleted

We have some concerns about the OP.

Yes, her completely banal and uneventful diaries where she wrote LD and the detectives assumed this was code for one of the babies names, when it is in fact ordinary nursing shorthand for ‘long day’. Her diaries were of no interest besides that error in interpretation.

The post it’s - which are the dramatic ones that people reference - were written after she was arrested.

OP posts:
JennyBeanR · 09/07/2024 14:24

buffyajp · 09/07/2024 13:47

Absolute bollocks. They have to be reported accurately and precisely which they were. I don’t care what people here defending her say, there is no way she would be getting the level of support she is if she was a person of colour, fat and conventionally unattractive. Either here or in the general public. Not that anyone will admit it.

Exactly. I really doubt that person even bothered to go through the evidence.

I have a genuine interest in true crime and that is how I ended up consuming everything related to her trial. I like many others who had no stake in this, simply could not follow the trial,look at the evidence and say she's innocent. No way.
And seriously, the fact that people are claiming this isn't about her looks are delusional. It was precisely those looks which protected her in her job for so long.

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