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.

Jury bias is another crucial factor to consider, The risk of bias influencing the outcome is significant, with emotional responses, confirmation bias, media coverage, and the complexity of the medical evidence all potentially distorting the jury’s judgment. These factors could have played a role in shaping the final verdict.

Great article here imo
https://thecritic.co.uk/lucy-letbys-defenders-have-failed/

The BBC File on 4 program raises many interesting points, including from world renowned experts refuting the evidence as it was presented.

It wasn't about the notes or the statistics but the medical evidence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023vnp

This article by Triedbystats digs more deeply into one of the issues in the BBC report, the 12th June (?) x ray and the impact it had on the evidence despite the fact she was shown not to have even met the baby at that point.

The more I read / hear, the more I feel that the evidence presented was flawed, at least at times.

The most shocking revelation in the File on 4 program was that the consultants only did ward rounds twice a week and Baby C was not seen for three days !!. It was an absolute shambles of a unit. Her guilt should not be used as a way of batting aways any concerns that were had about how the unit was run.

I was convinced she was guilty until I watched the documentary on it all. Now I have doubts.

If you were not in court everyday of the trial, and you have not read the (very long, detailed) judgement, then you are not in a position to give a view on Letby's guilt or innocence.

Yes, the poor baby and their family were let down appallingly. The Addenbrokes doctor said he should have been seen by a consultant three times a day. No wonder serious conditions were missed.

experts who have read the full detailed judgement have doubts about the evidence too. I keep hearing people say if you weren’t there, you didn’t get all the evidence, ect yet no one seems to be able say what this supposed irrefutable evidence is.

I have followed the case closely. I’m not a medical expert, though I have a science background. There is so many problems with the case even not scientific. Like for example, baby C. The evidence used in court showing the air in their stomach was an X-ray. It later emerged that this X-ray was taken before Lucy was on shift, before she had any contact with him. She had not worked since he was born. So how is this evidence of anything? The swipe card data that’s now been admitted to being used in court incorrectly. There is just so many problems with the case.

Plus Facebook searches. That’s evidence of nothing. I search random people on Facebook all the time. Doesn’t make me a murderer. Taking the notes home. Sure maybe not best practice. But seems like she was a hoarder. I’ve watched enough episodes of hoarders to know that people keep weird things. I don’t see how of the bags and bags of bits of paper she had under her bed that this is evidence of anything.

Evans has now changed his mind on Baby C.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/01/lucy-letby-witness-changed-mind/

Dr Phil Hammond has also been in contact with him:

”he [Evans] now admits that he got it wrong over air injection by the NG tube in all three cases, that the court of appeal document is factually incorrect and that he changed his mind over the causes of death, and now thinks it has nothing to do with air down the NG tube, but rather air injected into the veins, which he somehow failed to spot first time around. So he changed his mind halfway through the trial and nobody spotted it. Is that even allowed?”

https://x.com/drphilhammond/status/1841224314714218822?s=61&t=r2_R2aezWDfDdIttDPUAug

@SweetcornFritter do you really think this article engages with the substance of most of the concerns?

It hardly touches on the evidence, with the exception of her “confession” note. And it fails to acknowledge that in the same note where she confessed she also wrote she hadn’t done it etc. Total cherry-picking and misrepresentation.

The article just rehashes the usual line that people (including highly respected experts who are putting their careers on the line for this) who question the evidence are somehow crazed Letby fans dazzled by her average looks and dyed blonde hair. Is it really so impossible to imagine they just have genuine concerns that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred?

Evans is an absolute liability. On the File on Four podcast he is asked about whether he realises the crucial x-ray for baby C had taken place before letby had actually met the baby. He says, and I quote, “I don’t know, but she was certainly there when he died.”

WTAF?! How could you not get something so foundational to your argument straight in your head before taking it to a jury?

So either someone else was putting air down the NG tubes or it must surely be realised that it can be a naturally occurring phenomena? Which must cast doubt on not only her conviction regarding Baby C but also other babies where air in the stomach was said to be a cause of death?

It does actually
Yet Letby’s “confession” note, while making many headlines for its shocking content, took up a mere 7 minutes of court time across her 10-month 2023 trial. These disturbed scribbles, which included claims as contradictory to the neurotypical mind as “I haven’t done anything wrong” and “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person”, were not the crux of the prosecution’s case by any stretch of the imagination.”

What the article highlights is the refusal of Letby supporters to look at the totality of the evidence against her, preferring to focus on individual aspects of the prosecution case, such as this note which we are now supposed to believe she was told to write by counsellors but this is obviously completely unevidenced misinformation put out by the Letby Is Innocent brigade.

Cases of medical murder stand and fall on the medical data. If there is no evidence of murder from the medical data, the whole case falls apart.

It’s not true that the concerns are focused on individual aspects: the concern is the entirety of the medical evidence, the dodgy stats, the incorrect swipe data, the use of private ramblings as confession. Beyond that, there’s not much left.

I'm not a "Letby Supporter" I am a supporter of a fair and robust justice system. I am not sure this was achieved.

Evidence of murder from the medical data was presented in court. Rather belatedly it is now being challenged by a new bunch of experts, none of whom was called upon to defend LL when she really needed their help. In most cases you’ll be able to find experts to challenge the medical data evidence presented, it’s upon the entirety of the evidence that jurors base their decisions.

The jury have no medical training and they were presented with evidence principally on one side only.

As per the medical data presented to the court, there is no evidence of murder. Just a set of wildly implausible theories which are now falling apart.

The evidence is being challenged late in the day due to reporting restrictions.

Anyway, not wasting my time rehashing all this.

The evidence should have been challenged in court, not in the Daily Mail or on Mumsnet. The fact that it wasn’t speaks volumes.

By this logic Andrew Malkinson and every other victim of a miscarriage of justice should still be in prison.

The first flagging up of the Post Office scandal was by (iirc) Computer Monthly (or similar, was a computing magazine). It was then picked up by Private Eye who niggled away at it for years and have been widely credited with bringing it into the public eye.

Care to take a wild guess who is niggling away at the LL case?

What volumes does it speak? ‘Speaks volumes’ is an unhelpfully vague expression in this context, where there are a number of possible reasons for various points not being raised in court.

In the Tortois podcast that I linked on the page before Dewi Evans said the following. (It may not be fully correct, but will be 99% correct) (Around about 13 minutes in)

"Babies are simple things, there's not a lot that can go wrong with them. If they are premature, they have breathing difficulties, they are at risk of infection, they are at risk of haemorrhage and of course newborn babies may have congenital problems. That's about it really. so going through a checklist of what can go wrong with a baby doesn't take a lot of time........ Babies don't just go from being nice and stable, not requiring much in the way of additional support to suddenly dropping dead. That just doesn't happen."

The presenter then goes onto say that he could find 10 experts in the next 5 minutes who would say that the picture is more complicated than that and that many of the babies were not well and stable prior to their collapses.

He (in his own words) decided within ten minutes of reviewing the medical notes that [one of the triplets] had suffered intentional harm. If he holds the opinion that babies don't just "suddenly drop dead" then he has already made his mind up and will look for the evidence to prove that.

The issue is bigger that LL's guilt, it is the role of expert witnesses in trials and how you know that they are truly an expert.

Your reading of my post is quite illogical.