Lucy Letby in the news

[Viviennemary]

I've just been watching the BBC news and apparently some experts have been questioning the validity of Lucy Letbys conviction. I must say when I read the details of the trial she did sound 100% guilty. But it would be a tragedy if she is innocent Personally I don't think she is but who knows. Somebody on the news said the only person who knows is Lucy Letby.

@renoleno those experts who have spoken out have said the insulin test results have been used to prove something they couldn't possibly prove and that the statistical evidence has been misinterpreted. They have then gone on to say they do not know whether LL is guilty. So what they are saying is that two major pieces of "evidence" were deeply flawed. You cannot and should not rely on them.

How you can say no one had anything to gain from LL being found guilty is, at best, naive. They, the hospital management, absolutely did because it meant their poor management of the place was no longer under scrutiny. Their, far more highly paid, jobs and their professional reputations weren't being questioned as closely. One could say pinning the deaths on LL was highly convenient.

I know midwives who also works as sonographers too. It's not that uncommon.

You can still read it. There are links below the article (which is blocked). You can also read the MANY reports slating the article for being complete rubbish and that the journos involved have form for it.

Lucy Letby looks like butter wouldn’t melt, if it were a male nurse or someone of a different nationality I’m not sure so many people would be calling unsafe. I’m not legally qualified so this is just my opinion, as it’s yours if you think she’s innocent. There are arguments and articles in both favours.

I don’t know if she’s guilty or not, I’m inclined to believe she is. There are some very odd things she did, looking the parents up on Facebook repeatedly, taking notes home with her, her journal saying she did it. (I think one person has come on here to say they do the same thing). Well it’s very odd behaviour. It sounds like an unhealthy obsession and if your obsessing to that degree than perhaps you need to step back. The consultants who were working with her left her with babies knowing she may have been killing them? Is that because they fear whistleblowing /accusations?
These wards need CCTV and to be constantly monitored to prevent further murders (or not) as the case may be.

Really? After the first 3 ‘extra’ baby deaths in 2015, 4 consultants decided not to address the problems in the unit - conditions that consultant Alison Timmis warned in an email may cost the lives of babies. Instead - a small bunch of male consultants looked at the staff rotas and found a nurse to blame.

As the deaths mounted - be absolutely clear that all those consultants careers were on the line. One explicitly stated in an email: “We are all under suspicion until this is resolved”.

The RCPCH report found understaffing and suboptimal care; a review by Gt Ormonde St senior neonatologist found suboptimal care in 13 cases and stated that some babies may have survived with different treatment. Neither reported any evidence of LL’s involvement in the deaths, indeed the RCPCH found she was a competent, well-respected nurse.

By 2016/17 the unit had been downgraded from Level 2 to Level 1, it was facing negligence lawsuits from parents of 15 or so babies who died. And the consultants were required to apologise to LL for bullying.

So what did they do? They went to the police to report LL for murder. They managed to convince police, with no medical knowledge, what they had not managed to convince either the RCPCH or Jane Hawdon - that LL was responsible for the deaths.

That's full time though and is the minimal qualification, it is often taken part time and an MSc can be up to 5 years.

I'm in the camp of it was a doppelganger, highly unusual for a nurse to be working in ultrasound unless they are studying for the qualification and changing career. US can cause some side effects, depending on the frequency which is why physios sometimes use it on soft tissue injuries. I'm not sure any hospital, no matter how badly run, would let someone unqualified to do a scan

Letby seemed to want to stay on the NICU.

@mnahmnah I'm so sorry who ever it was didn't treat you as you deserved to be treated. I hope it wasn't LL.

Thanks, I was going to post similar.

The fact they couldn’t agree on some but convicted on others shows how careful they were being.

The arguments being ventilated on here, well the ones that are any good, would have been made during the trial and I’m sure well understood by the jury. Any new arguments, or any problems with the way things were presented at trial, would have been put forward at the application for leave to appeal, which failed.

I’m not saying she’s definitely guilty. It’s a difficult and unusual case, which makes it particularly dangerous to comment from an armchair.

I think it's very telling that her friends are sticking by her.

My gut feeling is that she didn't do it.

I read the notes she'd written- they look like they come from someone who is anguished by the accusations and trying to make sense of it all- they don't read as a confession because although she's says "I did it, I'm evil" she starts with 'I didn't do anything wrong' - it's like she's questioning herself- asking herself 'did i do it?'

If she does turn out to be innocent then I just can't imagine how her life will turn out after this- poor girl.

It's one of those where you hope the person did do it, because the alternative is even worse. And not just for her either.

I don’t buy the argument that management pointed the finger at LL to avoid scrutiny of poor practice etc.

This is not Scooby Doo, where the culprit is immediately hauled off and never heard from again. By pointing to evidence implicating LL, it was assured there would be an extremely high profile trial with LL represented by some of the finest legal minds doing their utmost to secure a n acquittal.

Not a very good way to avoid scrutiny.

I really hope she didn't do it- it would be nice to hear those babies weren't murdered and that a nurse who people trusted was actually trust-worthy all along.

I just think imagine going through the horror of being told your baby was murdered, someone being sentenced and then later finding out oh no actually, that's not what happened.

@OneBadKitty

"I really hope she didn't do it- it would be nice to hear those babies weren't murdered and that a nurse who people trusted was actually trust-worthy all along."

But then you'd have to accept that the state at some point got it seriously wrong and among many serious harms absolutely ruined the lives of an innocent person and their family having splashed everything about their lives all over the media. Not to mention what she probably goes through in prison.

If in future it turns out she did not do it, that's a really serious miscarriage of justice. Not sure they'd be much trust left in CPS etc either from the families or wider public.

The hospital management have hardly gained. Aren’t they under investigation precisely because Letby is guilty. And they’ve done anything but use her as a scapegoat. They were preparing to put her back on the unit rather than go to the police.
It took them two years from doctors first raising concerns, including at least one, if not 2 external reports.

It was a small group of doctors who scapegoated her. The management originally protected her as there was no evidence for their claims. There still is none, hence the wide concern that the conviction is unsafe.

No, it was funded by Legal Aid (£1.5m pre trial)

You very clearly don't understand the criminal justice system. It's terrifying how little people understand our legal system and the issues with that system which cause wrongful convictions and make them so incredibly difficult to overturn.

If someone is accused of killing babies, it is nigh on impossible to find any expert witnesses prepared to testify for the defence - because they know they will be attacked and tarnished for doing so. This has led to previous miscarriages of justice and is a known problem stretching back decades.

Never mind the huge social pressure on the jury to give "closure" and "justice" to the families of the babies they have been told were killed. In much the same way as it is almost impossible to persuade a jury to convict a police officer of murder. Just because they deliberated for a long time, doesn't mean their conclusions were correct or that the convictions are safe if their conclusions were based on flawed evidence.

Or the prosecution whose cross examination consisted of character assassination, aggressive baiting, and misrepresentations of the evidence. Again, common with miscarriage of justice cases.

If the evidence was so strong and incontrovertible, why was that necessary? It shouldn't have been.

The twins mother said that Letby was extremely upset and emotional after Child Ps death, that she was in floods of tears and that she was in pieces and almost as upset as they (the parents) were.

Was Brearey crying himself at the meeting or showing emotion?

Wow. Don’t understand the CJS. Ok; can you please point exactly to the part of my very short post which shows this. Which part of what I actually said was wrong? I think you might be reading things into my post which weren’t actually there.

Unfortunately I met her when I was in hospital prior to my baby being born in 2016. In for complications but not restricted to bed so midwife took me up to the outside of the neonatal unit. LL came out in a hurry at end of her shift. She didn’t want to stop and speak at all and was distracted. You will all think it’s irrelevant, that I’m interpreting after the event. But, how can I say it so you can see what worried me, she isn’t normal. Didn’t react to her colleague normally. Didn’t actually speak in those two minutes or so that I was there with the midwife (who could carry a conversation on her own, bless her). It stuck in my mind. I turned it over and over about why she didn’t want to chat to someone she knew so well.
I can’t shake the meeting from my mind. It haunts me. Please don’t slate me.
This was April/May 2016.
To me NO ONE would write those notes on pieces of paper unless they had a reason. Be honest! You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.
There was nothing wrong with the plumbing at the hospital. I was there for over two weeks.
I am so sorry. I feel she is guilty. I would be horrified to hear that she was released. Fundamentally, I feel people are only questioning this because it’s hard to imagine that anyone could be so bloody heartless. But I believe that she was 😢

If someone is accused of killing babies, it is nigh on impossible to find any expert witnesses prepared to testify for the defence - because they know they will be attacked and tarnished for doing so. This has led to previous miscarriages of justice and is a known problem stretching back decades.

This is simply not true. And I am talking from personal experience, both my own and that of other people working in criminal defence.

Why did no one raise a campaign to revisit the conviction of middle-aged bewhiskered, surly-looking Dr Shipman? But young, blond pretty Lucy Letby does?! Does she just not look ‘the type’? Do people sympathise because she’s a young woman? Because she turned to the court at the end of the retrial in July 2024 and said “I’m innocent”?

Hospital where Lucy Letby worked suffered bacteria outbreak ‘lethal’ to babies

Because the evidence against him was strong. There is no evidence against LL.

Do you not read the papers at all?

I asked medic friends they said U.K. medics are generally afraid of harming their reputations, particularly wrt cases involving child abuse, particularly after Waney Squier. So many doctors prepared to do it are generally retired.

@Mirabai your certainty that she is innocent is disturbing. There is plenty of evidence against her from her colleagues who tried to raise the alarm. They were THERE! Are you saying that they know nothing but an armchair sleuth like you has it sorted?