Really! 
I read it without any problems.
The public inquiry into infant deaths at a hospital in England begins next week amid a growing debate around the scientific evidence used to convict former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby of their murder. Letby, found to be one of Britain’s deadliest child serial killers, was sentenced in August last year to life imprisonment for murdering seven babies and attempting to end the lives of six more between 2015 and 2016. She was convicted of a further attempted murder in a recent retrial. Last year, the UK government announced an independent statutory inquiry into the circumstances surrounding her crimes at the public Countess of Chester hospital.
Letby has a new legal team and is planning to apply for another appeal at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body responsible for investigating potential miscarriages of justice, according to her lawyer. The inquiry begins on Tuesday against the backdrop of concerns from expert commentators, statisticians and medical practitioners over Letby’s conviction, highlighting long-standing questions over the use and presentation of scientific data in her trial. Many specialists have stressed they are not arguing that Letby is innocent, but rather that the evidence against her may not have reached the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”. They also pointed out that they had not seen all the evidence and proceedings viewed by the jury.
The inquiry, led by Lady Justice Thirlwall, aims to determine whether suspicions over the deaths should have been raised earlier by hospital staff, and how NHS managers responded to clinicians’ concerns months before Letby’s arrest. The proceedings will also look at whether the police or other external bodies should have been informed of events in the ward sooner.
In July, a group of neonatal doctors, nurses and statisticians wrote to ministers urging them to postpone the inquiry or change its terms of reference, expressing concerns over how medical and other data had been used in court. Stressing they did not want to relitigate the case, the signatories said they were focused on “patient safety, healthcare management, and the potential for miscarriages of justice in complex medical cases”. “We believe that legal systems are particularly vulnerable to errors when dealing with intricate scientific evidence, especially in cases involving statistical anomalies in healthcare settings, and the complex physiology of neonates,” they wrote.
A spokesperson for the inquiry said it would “follow the terms of reference set by the secretary of state”. Experts are often particularly important in cases of alleged medical misconduct because of the range of evidence involved in these hearings — and the risk it can be misunderstood. “Statistical evidence, however misleading, can often seem convincing,” said Philip Dawid, emeritus professor of statistics at Cambridge university. “It’s quite hard to bring out the subtleties and show that apparently obvious interpretations are not to be trusted.”
Speaking in a personal capacity, Hall said he did not believe Letby had been given a “fair trial” because the jury did not hear from medical expert witnesses who would challenge the prosecution’s arguments. “How can a jury determine how credible the prosecution case is if they have nothing to compare it with?” he added. Hall said he would have raised concerns over the prosecution’s claim that skin discolouration found in some of the babies was evidence they had been injected with air.
He added that the argument was primarily based on academic research on the consequences of oxygen entering babies’ bodies via the lung, when it was alleged that some victims had air injected into a peripheral vein. Air, largely composed of nitrogen, is processed differently by the body from pure oxygen. “I do think the relationship between the courts and medicine is an uncomfortable one because, as far as I know, judges are not trained in evidence-based medicine,” Hall noted, adding that the interface between medicine and the law “bears further scrutiny”. Letby’s solicitors in her initial trial declined to comment, citing legal privilege.
Notes written by Letby, used as evidence of her guilt, have also been queried. The Guardian newspaper reported this week that these were made on the advice of hospital mental health counsellors as a way of coping with stress.
Letby had scribbled: “I am evil I did this” and “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person.” She also wrote: “I haven’t done anything wrong” and “I feel very alone + scared”.
An explanation as to why these notes were written was never cited by her defence team during the original trial. A government spokesperson said: “This was a horrendous case and there were clear failings across the NHS and with regulators”. The inquiry would “review all aspects of the case”, they added.