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.

@Mirabai and the fact they followed Lucy from night shifts to days? Would love to know your explanation for that since you have an explanation for absolutely everything else.

Baby D

If LL did not kill Baby D, how is this finding to be explained?

//Professor Arthurs found unusual 'columns' of air in the major blood vessels of Babies A, D, and O. The jury was also shown a striking X-ray of a 'line of gas' in a blood vessel along Baby D's spine which, in the absence of a fracture or infection, Professor Arthurs said, must have been injected into her circulation. Dr Marnerides also found a bubble of air in Baby A's brain and lung at post-mortem, while Baby D also had gas in a blood vessel in her belly which could not be explained by infection or death.//
⁃ Liz Hull (journalist who attended every day of the trial)

Also, how is the fact that LL was found to have forged a colleague’s signature in the nursing notes for Baby D to be explained?

Baby O

As was said during the first trial, Baby O was born in good condition and was making good progress.

If LL did not kill Baby O, why was he found to have ‘inflicted traumatic injury’ to the liver? According to Dr Andreas Marnerides, an expert in neonatal pathology, CPR cannot produce this extensive injury to a liver. He compared the extent of the liver injury to those suffered by children involved in road traffic accidents and non-accidental assaults.

On the anniversary of his death, LL carried out a search on Facebook on Baby O’s surname.

Spike in neonatal deaths at Sherwood Forest Hospitals

No-one called the police.

Probably because these deaths were not unexpected and unexplained, unlike those at CoCH.

You persist in ignoring the stark contrast with the death rate in the two preceding years, and the fact that the majority of the babies concerned would still have been at the Countess of Chester if the unit had been a Level 1 unit. You cannot get away from the fact that there was a sudden fall in deaths and collapses of Level 1 babies when Letby was finally stopped from working.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/14/doctor-on-shift-at-time-of-many-baby-deaths-letby/

You need to consider all the deaths and collapses to look at the overall death rate before and after Letby stopped working in the unit if you are going to claim that it was the downgrading which caused the drop. Bearing in mind that the main criterion for Level 1 units is a gestational age over 32 weeks. A and B were born at over 31 weeks and were doing very well, so the chances are they would have stayed at the Countess of Chester. D was full term. Child G was transferred to C of C at 34 weeks in a stable condition. H was born at 34 weeks. I is uncertain as the baby was born elsewhere and later transferred to C of C, but I'm not sure at what age. J was born at 32 weeks. L and M were over 32 weeks. O and P were 33 weeks. Even if you discount A and B, that's 8 babies, and then there are the other 6 deaths which did not form part of the charges. That's a big statistical change which is not accounted for by the downgrading of the unit.

@Skye109
Three of the babies Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering were over 32 weeks and would still have been on the unit if it had been a Level 1 unit at the time she was there. (Babies D, O and P.) That’s 3 ‘Level 1 baby’ deaths in 12 months. Yet in the 7 years after she left only 1 baby died out of all the ‘Level 1 babies’ treated there.

I don't think O and P would have been there. They were 33 weeks.
According to the following page twins need to be over 34 weeks to be in a level 1, they don't mention how old triplets would have to be.

https://www.humberandnorthyorkshirematernity.org.uk/labour-and-birth/neonatal-care/

@Skye99
Also, how is the fact that LL was found to have forged a colleague’s signature in the nursing notes for Baby D to be explained?

I don't believe she did. The nurse said that the prescription wasn't and she didn't think some reading was in her handwriting but I don't believe she said anything about the signature or her initials not being in her handwriting.

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23100606.recap-lucy-letby-trial-friday-november-4/

If LL did not kill Baby O, why was he found to have ‘inflicted traumatic injury’ to the liver? According to Dr Andreas Marnerides, an expert in neonatal pathology, CPR cannot produce this extensive injury to a liver. He compared the extent of the liver injury to those suffered by children involved in road traffic accidents and non-accidental assaults.

We don't know. The coroner had CPR down as one of the possible reasons for the injury.
How on earth was LL supposed to have caused an injury so severe that it was like the damage that would be done in a road traffic accident or if a baby was on a trampoline and went up in the air and landed? And how was she supposed to have done it unnoticed? They never put any theory forward for that.

An aside but why are the media all just using the mugshot of Lucy in articles? It's as if all the photos of a smiling woman are now seemed inappropriate. It seems you occasionally do have the normal non mugshot photos shown but only in articles questioning the convictions.

You’ve answered your own question with the obvious answer. Of course it’s more appropriate for the families of the victims to see, over and over again, the neutral mugshot rather than smiling holding up a babygro.

And it’s absolutely standard media practice when someone is convicted, let alone of the most heinous crimes.

Didn’t Harold Shipman have a nice GQ photoshoot?

@eastegg .

i the other photos of Lucy are still obviously in circulation and I was curious how they were used by the press. The BBC for instance use pretty much the mugshot but the daily mail are still using a photo of a smiling Lucy with a baby especially with articles professing her innocence.

Personally I think but th sets of photos have a role in media use.

@Skye99

The problem with all the claims about gas - lines, globules, bubbles is that it is challenging for any pathologist to determine what they are with any certainty from X-ray and tissue samples.

Post mortem gases start to accumulate around 4 hours after death, aiui, so any given bubble may not even be air. If it is air it’s impossible to be sure how it got there - so many options - CPR, CPAP, ventilation, lines, infection, sepsis, none can be ruled out despite the claims made in court. If you were going to use Lee & Tanswell to prove anything it would surely be that ppv causes air embolisms. And many babies were ventilated at some point.

It is possible to diagnose air embolism from a post mortem, the most common cause being iatrogenic. Even if it had been suspected at the time it would be impossible to prove the air was put there deliberately, and there is no evidence to show anyone did.

The original pathology report by a neonatal pathologist for Baby O indicated the liver injury could be from CPR. While it was claimed in court it couldn’t be CPR, other experts have since disagreed. CPR in neonates has a high mortality rate anyway at around 60% and injuries from CPR in adults are well-documented.

An investigative journalist team asked a pathologist for an opinion on Child O's liver damage without disclosing the connection to LL case. The pathologist provided stats that subcapsular haematomas occur naturally in 3.6% of neonates, and a retrospective study spanning 10 years found an incidence rate of up to 15%.

Finally, the deaths were not reported as unexpected at the time, and they were explained by the autopsies. The one baby who was not autopsied, it was because the medics were confident of what the child died of.

I’ve already addressed it. The COCH spike in 2015 & 2016 can be accounted purely by random variation alone. However, it can be explained by increase in activity and acuity (RCPCH) suboptimal care, (Hawdon) and the presence of pseudomonas.

Pseudomonas outbreaks have caused clusters of deaths at other neonate units for example 4 babies in NI in 2012.

If you explain 7 of the deaths with LL, you still have another 9 to account for.

Imo you can’t get away from the fact that the deaths fell as soon as the unit was downgraded and 2 consultants were added.

And LL left.

Do you have a medical background @Mirabai? Genuine question, not snarky!

The nature of the claims you are making on this thread e.g what caused the spike in deaths, are such that expert knowledge would be required in order to make them. If you have the necessary expertise, you really ought not to be wasting time on here but ought to be in touch with Mark McDonald, or directly with the CCRC, to assist with the appeal.

“Can be accounted” Can be explained” by is not making a “claim”.

Anyone is free to go to do their own research.

One could equally argue if you had the legal expertise you’d be appearing at the Thirlwell.

No, it’s just basic science + common sense.

I have just listened to the Tortoise Media Lucy Letby podcast. It seemed, to me at least, to be a very balanced insight into the role of the expert witness and did give counter opinions. It didn't particularly draw a conclusion, but did give a useful insight.

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/audio/lucy-letby-the-expert-witness/

No I’m sorry you can’t equally argue that at all. There is a world of difference between me, for example, explaining how the disclosure rules operate in order to shed light on how other deaths which were not charged may have fitted in to the framework of the case, and you claiming that the convictions are not safe because the science was flawed and the CA judges didn’t understand it.

It’s not just me saying it, at this point is half the doctors and statisticians in the country.

And I’m not talking about explaining the rules of disclosure, but claims such as:

And what about the death rate going up when LL arrived? Did that coincide with the unit being upgraded to take the sickest babies?

Which indicates a poor grasp of the data as she arrived in 2012. And the answer is no.

Half? Is this backed by any evidence or more a 'say it three times and it's true' kind of "fact"?

OK I should have said ‘did the spike coincide with the unit being upgraded’, which was obviously a rhetorical question.

But my grasp of the data is irrelevant to the point being made, which is that you are expressing opinions which cannot properly be based on simply ‘basic science and common sense’. Saying what could explain the spike in deaths is ‘making a claim’, and it requires expertise. Unless you just mean what could theoretically explain a spike in deaths, not necessarily what could actually explain it in this case? Which would be irrelevant to the discussion, because it would be ignoring the actual evidence in the case.

I’ve come to this thread in good faith. I spent time the other week reading the CA judgement because I didn’t think it was right to engage in discussion without having done that. I wonder how many others on here have. I’m going to step away now because I’m discovering this thread is not a good place to be for information and opinion about this case. There’s some good podcasts out there, and of course there’s the judgement itself, which I highly recommend to anyone who has unwisely come to the thread to declare the convictions unsafe without reading it. Enjoy the rest of the thread, I’m out.

That was to Mirabai. Quote fail.

@eastegg Observing that suboptimal care, a rise in activity and acuity, and/or infection could explain the rise in deaths is common sense and does not require any particular expertise. But as it happens medical professionals have made those very points in the media.

As it is, 4/9 non “LL” deaths were from “infection” and the original pathology results found natural causes including 2 cases of pneumonia (ie chest infection) among the “LL” cases.

Anyone interested in reading the CoA may find Prof Mike Hall’s letter to the BMJ posted upthread, commenting on the judges’ findings, instructive.