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.

Conspiracy theorising is not interchangeable with critical thinking.

The evidence just didn't convince many people.

I don't think it's anything to do with her specifically.

Is all the evidence and are all the court transcripts in the public domain? Otherwise, why would anyone think they knew better than a nearly year- long trial with 12 jurors, a judge and teams of lawyers on each side thrashing it out?

I don't know whether LL was required to inject any of the babies with insulin in the course of her duties, but it would seem to be a normal thing for a pediatric nurse to do.

My understanding is that some of the babies died from having very low blood sugar, and there were also two cases of babies on the ward who did not die but where insulin overdose was later suspected as having been the cause of their near-death.

Low blood sugar could have been due to deliberate overdose of insulin, accidental overdose of insulin, or some natural cause (e.g., the pancreas of a seriously ill baby not working properly). However, the tests that might have teased out those differences were apparently never done.

Nobody thought they were anything other than natural is how Shipman managed to get away with at least 218 murders. And concerns were being raised about unusual deaths or collapses and subsequently Letby fairly early on. It’s why she was eventually moved from nights to days.

What's the opposite of a conspiracy theorist?
A total sheep?

I don't have an issue with people thinking that she's guilty, but calling others conspiracy theorists just because they question the evidence says far more about you than it does about them.

For those who want to learn more about the issues in this case, I recommend reading Phil Hammond, who writes under the name of "MD" in Private Eye and has a long record of exposing medical injustice. Here's something from a recent edition that he said "keeps me awake at night":

"Different authorities give different figures for the total death count for the period under investigation, ranging from 13-17. If they can't even get the body count right, what else have they got wrong? Letby has not been implicated in 6-10 deaths during that period, when the ward average was 2-3. What caused them?"

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Thank @Obelism Will have a look at that. Will look tomorrow now though. Bed beckons now!

Having watched numerous documentaries on the case, I'm not convinced she's guilty.

And I say that as someone who spent 4 months in a neonatal unit with my premature baby.

That link does work by the way! (The @Obelism one.) Thank you.

Just before I pop off, I just wanted to say/ask... If LL didn't kill all those babies, then who did?

Almost certainly (if she didn't), they died of natural causes. They were sick babies with complex needs, on what seems to have been a ward with a lot of problems, in a hospital that apparently even had issues with basic things like sewage at the time.

We now know that quite a few babies died that LL couldn't have possibly been involved with, and the numbers of those, on their own, are higher than what would have been expected for the whole ward over the same period of time.

Of course, that information can be used on either side of the argument. You can argue that "LL killed the babies hoping that the other problems on the ward would lead to her killings not being discovered". Or you can say "The hospital had appalling numbers and, rather than confront the fact that their poor hygiene and protocols were resulting in unnecessary deaths, decided (perhaps unconsciously) that it was easier to blame LL than to own up to the problems". Both of those are possible, and we need other evidence to tell us which, if either, is correct. But the courts are supposed to convict people beyond a reasonable doubt, and in this case, we probably don't even know beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime even took place.

I think the feeling is that it wasn’t murder.

I think it is entirely possible she was a scapegoat for a failing hospital.

It’s certainly a tragic and fascinating case. I didn’t take a huge amount of interest until after her conviction, which I accepted. But then I read the New Yorker article (recommended) and it blew my mind at how circumstantial the evidence was. If a wrongful conviction, it’s tragic; I believe she was widely seen by colleagues as capable, reliable and did everything by the book. But it’s so hard to know.
The New Yorker piece could be over-egged. While a potentially wrong conviction for such heinous crimes should be questioned, I feel so much for the families (and especially mothers) of the poor babies and how triggering this must be for them.

Chatting to a PICU nurse at a very famous children hospital last week ,we talked about this …her and her colleagues are unsettled by the conviction ☹️

I dont have an opinion on whether she did it or not, because my knowledge is only based on what is available in the media. But from what I have read, it certainly seems like her conviction isnt a safe one. There is an interesting article on BBC news about how "experts" who are called to court are often retired as they are the only ones with time to do it, 2 of the "expert" neonatal medicine specialists called by the prosecution in her trial had retired years before the babies deaths. And her defence team didnt call, or couldnt find, their own specialists to rebutt the claims.

So whether she did it or not, doesnt sound like it was a fair trial to me.

Several specialists are coming to the conclusion that no one did. That they were very sick babies in a failing hospital with poor care. Whether you believe that or not is up to you, but evidence is that, at best, her defence team let her down. As a PP said, to convict in a British court, a person must be found to be guilty "beyond all reasonable doubt" but the evidence currently available seems to be that there is no proof that a crime was even committed.

The whole case is based on opinions. There was not one solid piece of evidence to say these babies were murdered let alone who killed them. That should terrify everyone.

I have a sub to PE and I read that too.

PE were first on the case (after computer....monthly?) about the Post Office, wouldnt surprise me if they were first on the case with this too.

The New Yorker article has been blocked in the UK altogether.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-new-yorker-crown-prosecution-service-england-court-of-appeal-b2547908.html

I wasn’t aware of that, sorry.

I didn't mean it to sound like I was correcting you - just that I went to find it and discovered it's actually blocked altogether. I was surprised and really wanted to read it! Thank you for sharing anyway.

Agree. Failings in the unit.