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.

W

I'm sorry but she did not carry out a miscarriage scan. These are carried out by highly specialised sonographers (radiographers) or certain midwives with additional postgraduate qualifications. Not neonatal nurses who are not even trained to care for adults.

Not true takes 18 months. It wasn't her!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-david-davis-tory-mp-innocent-appeal-b2605767.html

I think it is difficult to paint those that potentially have questions about this as absolute conspiracy theorists and lines which some in the press want. With murderers if similar notoriety, Hindley, West etc. it would be madness to try and argue doubts about their guilt but this seems different.

We know miscarriages of justice happen even when evidence seems compelling (or hopefully they wouldn't be convicted in the first place).

The thing with miscarriages of justice is that once doubt is sowed in the public mind and there is a realisation that at least some sane people could get behind questioning a conviction there remains the doubt.

I think one thing that isn't helping is that anyone questioning the case is being shut down by calls of crassness and insensitivity. I think this may just add to the feeling that something is not fully revealed.

No it's easy for people to paint those with concerns as complete conspiracy theorists.
It's just a quick and easy way to try to shut people down.

Likewise with people calling it insensitive...I don't doubt that for many their hearts are in the right place, but they don't seem to understand that if this has been a miscarriage of justice then it has to be put right, and that our hearts are in the right place also.

I definitely believe that LL would have tried to bring this to the CRCC at some point, I did think it was going to take a long time for there to be even any talk about it, but although it must be incredibly painful for the families for all of this to start when the convictions are so fresh wouldn't it be better that it's done sooner rather than later, rather than happening in 20 or 30 years when it has all died down, when the Thirlwall inquiry is over and apologies have been made, when there has maybe been charges for the hospital over corporate manslaughter and it's considered to be over? Wouldn't it be a lot worse if it was all brought back up then after a couple of decades have passed?

@Nc209

Absolutely.

I think a mistake has been made with the timing of the enquiry. Instead of a cathartic insight into a trusts failure to prevent a serial killer it has the potential of being a source of evidence of at least speculation about the safety of Lucy's conviction. The judge has made a decision to try and suppress the debate by mentioning the fam relative's feelings but I think her initial statement has came out sounding as righteous condescension dismissing all those with expert doubt about the trial (including a defence expert) as noisy conspiracy theorists. This was a mistake imo.

A better approach from the judge would have been to just ignore the speculation. If there were calls for say Rose West to be released we can easily ignore them as calls of attention seeking fantasists, the armchair conspiracy theorists many wish to paint the current questionnaires as. Taking the approach she has attention has been brought to the arguments of those that support the defence and the quite manifest failings of it for as yet unknown reasons known only to a limited legal circle.

The inquiry itself , all 4 months of it, in my opinion to hold weight must look at the relationships that existed within the department at the time including between nurses and other clinical staff. I think the nature of the day to day interactions of staff will be revealing as surely it is relevant on why there were delays in brining this to police attention. We know that Lucy had some kind of relationship with a consultant in the department (the prosecution assert that Lucy brought the babys into distress to get his attnetion) and this relationship needs to be examined as the anonymous consultant (who was allegedly sleeping with her during the period of the deaths) will have critical things to say. I doubt personally we will hear more of this. The moniker 'Nurse Death' needs to be put into context; was it that the juniour doctors used a cruel nickname as it became an in joke that Lucy was present during neonatal fatalities as humour? Was the moniker evidence of workplace bullyiing which seemed to exist as Lucy had a partially upheld grievance? Did the clinicians like Lucy in general (with the affair complicating thjs)? Why have we not heard from the friends Lucy obviously had at the time (she was popular and we'll regarded)?

These are important questions the enquiry may skirt around. We will not see imo an in depth portrait of the complex maybe toxic work environment that was present in a department that had overall problems and failings. All those called to give evidence as in all enquiries will be trying on the well versed phrase 'to cover their arse'. No one wants to be held up in public to have inadvertently failed to prevent serial killing. Everyone wants to be the hero that eventually stopped the killings.

As an aside what the he'll has Lucy being present in a course in Beverly Allett have to do with anyhting. Are people trying to insinuate Lucy was a copy cat killer and she took a university lecture as a template for serial killing? It seems perverse to think a mention of a past killer would suddenly spark a desire to kill?

I thought exactly that. It’s yet something else which means nothing. The other students on the course haven’t started killing people. I imagine many other nursing courses might mention Allit during the training. 🤷‍♀️. What of it? Can’t see the significance.

It is quite bizarre. Why mention allitt at university at all? To provide a macabre anecdote or make trainees suspicious of their colleagues? It is a strange thing to have in a degree course really and of no significance.

Maybe they commissioned their own expert witnesses, but those experts agreed with the prosecution. The point about expert witnesses is they give an expert opinion, NOT that they will say something to suit whichever side has commissioned them.

The inquiry has just heard that at another hospital where Lucy Letby did some shifts, during her shifts, the babies she card for had 40% rate of tube dislodgement. The normal rate is less than 1%. The investigation into potential other crimes is ongoing but it's starting to sound like the phenomenal evil we know so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

That’s erm… unfortunate.

The inquiry also highlit that in the two years preceding Letby's appointment that unit had had two deaths one year and three the next. Then suddenly they had three deaths in one month plus one serious collapse, and two deaths and two serious collapses later in the year. The following year up to June they had two deaths and three serious collapses. And that's just the cases that resulted in charges; the initial inquiry was looking at 15 deaths in all over the period Letby was working there. If, as people claim, the problem was all down to deficiencies in the unit, no-one seems able to explain why those deficiencies didn't have the same effects in the two preceding years or indeed the period after Letby stopped working there and before it stopped taking more serious cases.

@ClockwiseHoneysuckle
Right - and no one seems able to explain why it was that when Lucy Letby was switched from night shifts to day shifts, babies stopped dying at night and started dying in the day.

//they [the families] feel that revealing their identities would cause them to become the focus for ill will. [Like the prosecution witness who was recently assaulted by a Letby truther.] What does society come to where the parents of murdered or injured children should live with this fear?

Everybody who recklessly promotes conspiracy theories, or who parrots without questioning the same tired misconceptions about this case, should be ashamed of themselves.

The families, along with the jury, collectively sat through 10 months of evidence – in the case of family K two trials. They did so with impressive dignity, they heard the evidence against her and have no doubt that she was guilty. The jury had no doubt that she was guilty.

The trial was overseen by an experienced high court judge and reviewed comprehensively with care by the court of appeal. This process, conducted with scrupulous fairness and with exhausting detail, is arrogantly ignored by those who criticise the outcome.//

⁃	Richard Baker KC, a barrister representing some of the parents

Absolutely.

https://apple.news/AL4YHrxFIQrCDZL0lRyJaiQ

@mids2019
I think a mistake has been made with the timing of the enquiry. Instead of a cathartic insight into a trusts failure to prevent a serial killer it has the potential of being a source of evidence of at least speculation about the safety of Lucy's conviction

Yes and there's also the fact that there is an ongoing investigation for corporal manslaughter which could create a conflict and make people less likely to be honest.

Karen Rees denied that Dr Brearey had been clear about his concerns to her, she accused him of lying and making false allegations about her.
She also said that he said he had evidence that might have led to her removal but he refused to show it to her.

Presumably she's going to be called to give evidence to the enquiry too, I'm not sure what if any charges or punishment she could face from the corporal manslaughter charges or if that is only against institutions rather than individuals, but if he did make it clear to her and she's the one who is lying then maybe she's not worried about charges, just her reputation.

On the other side of it maybe the doctors are lying, but who knows, and even if they are all on the same page that there was a serial killer at the hospital then I still can't see how they are ever going to get full honesty at this point, so soon after the trial, and while there is another investigation ongoing.

@mids2019
We know that Lucy had some kind of relationship with a consultant in the department (the prosecution assert that Lucy brought the babys into distress to get his attnetion) and this relationship needs to be examined as the anonymous consultant (who was allegedly sleeping with her during the period of the deaths) will have critical things to say. I doubt personally we will hear more of this. The moniker 'Nurse Death' needs to be put into context; was it that the juniour doctors used a cruel nickname as it became an in joke that Lucy was present during neonatal fatalities as humour? Was the moniker evidence of workplace bullyiing which seemed to exist as Lucy had a partially upheld grievance? Did the clinicians like Lucy in general (with the affair complicating thjs)? Why have we not heard from the friends Lucy obviously had at the time (she was popular and we'll regarded)?

These are important questions the enquiry may skirt around. We will not see imo an in depth portrait of the complex maybe toxic work environment that was present in a department that had overall problems and failings.

Yeah I can't see that doctor being called. He appeared to have been treated with kid gloves and was allowed to remain anonymous.
To me I believe that it's also likely that he lied when he applied to be allowed to remain anonymous because he said he had been the subject of unrequited affection from Letby and said his wife had also been targeted by her on social media.
The texts don't show 'unrequited' anything, and I believe if there had been any evidence or proof or that and of her targeting his wife on social media then that 100% would have been used against Letby in the trial, and it wasn't.

The nurse who spoke to the Telegraph who said she was asked to be a character witness by the defence but was advised not to, definitely said that there was a culture of bullying and mocking people and they liked to humiliate people, and that things like that would never happen in the hospital she now works in.

But they're saying the other deaths aren't suspicious. That's the issue. They looked at all the deaths and decided the ones LL was involved with were suspicious and the rest were not. (Even though the reason they decided those ones are suspicious was because LL was involved with them.)

That’s simply not true! The deaths were collected over the period in question; the babies who had sadly suffered death were anonymised; this anonymised data was given to Evans and he looked through to determine how many of the deaths were potentially suspicious. He did not know the babies names nor who cared for them.

Having obtained these suspicious deaths, each ‘suspicious death baby’s data and case was passed to a separate team of detectives to investigate. This was done to avoid confirmation bias.

Then, when all the teams had done their investigations, they came together and went through the babies one by one. After the first few, a common theme emerged - Letby was on duty for every single suspicious death. The police actually commented on how shocked they were to see this as the separate investigations were reported one by one.

I just heard this on the the news. Further proof of her guilt in harming babies.

For child C an X-ray showed gas in the stomach on the 12th and that was apparently the most striking feature, both Dr Evans and another doctor said that that was potentially there due to someone injecting air.

However Letby hadn't been working from the 10th-12th so it seems that that was just set aside, instead she was accused of injecting the baby with air on the 13th or 14th. (Baby died on the 14th).

How many more potentially 'suspicious' things like that did they come across and just ignore them and only include them in the charges when they could, because she was actually there?

If she'd been there on the 11th or 12th she would have been accused of injecting air then too.......but she wasn't so it's deemed not relevant, and she's then accused of doing the thing that they already saw on the Xray that she couldn't have done two days before?

Presumably that information was available to the jury, along with the other evidence? So they considered all the evidence in coming to their decision?

Was that comment to me?
If so then the information about child C was available to the jury because she was on trial for killing that particular baby so the defence would have had those babies medical records examined and then they cross examined the witnesses and mentioned it.

It's unclear if they had access to the medical records of the babies who collapsed or died that she wasn't accused of harming, and if they did then I don't believe the jury heard anything about their collapses or deaths.

Well, it seems there are 3 possibilities:

• that info was withheld from the defence, in which case I assume that is the basis of an appeal?
• the defence knew about it, but didn't present the evidence, that's between LL and her team
• the defence knew and presented the info, and the jury considered it along with the other evidence, in which case that is what every jury does

@mnahmnah I am so sorry for what happened to you and I do believe you xx. I met LL also and believe there is something very abnormal in her behaviour.
I am quite prepared to be shot down again by the aggressive ‘LL is innocent’ campaign on here. But we are just as entitled to our views as they are.
It seems to me that no one has a greater vested interest in starting such a campaign than the retired and reclusive parents of LL. Where better to sow the seeds of her innocence than on forums such as Mumsnet where large groups of ladies could be receptive to the idea. I feel that some of the voices on here could easily be theirs stirring up the opposition to the verdict. They would have to be patient for their purpose to gather momentum but they have nothing else to do.
I am so pleased that none of the bereaved families came on one of the LL threads. They would not have been treated with respect. Some of you should be ashamed for what you have said.

I definitely don't think the parents are trying to infiltrate forums to try to get people thinking about this. People would naturally have done so anyway like they do with all major news stories.

This has been discussed on all sorts of different forums, not just the main ones like reddit or MN, it's being discussed on the main forum in my country. I even seen a big thread about it on a website called overclockers which is a website related to gaming computer parts. Or football forums. And the views are the same as on here, varied.

I think your views are abnormal and I don't mean that in a nasty way but the leaps and conclusions that your mind makes are odd. Mulling it over and over in your mind about why she couldn't have possibly have wanted to talk to a colleague at the end of a shift like it was something that was completely abnormal. Finding it so difficult to believe that people can feel strongly about this so you convince yourself that and even questioned whether @Mirabai was LL's mother or father.