Lucy letby

[Nettleteaser101]

How much longer are the poor parents of those babys going to be put through hell over and over again.
Wasnt she found guilty twice?.
I really feel for the familys.
They have had to put up with the hospitals cover ups and now new evidence and the Expert isnt sure now.
Why wasnt this all sorted before now.
Whos paying for the experts and solicitors on Lucy Letbys side.
If she didnt murder those babys who or what did?

She'd cost the tax payer less if released.

Her barrister and the experts supporting him are working pro bono. Can't get much cheaper in the circumstances.

It was discussed without reference to the clinical signs mentioned at the press conference, as far as I can see.

Would you really think the authorities cared more about losing a specialist nurse (who was suspended from duty?) than a consultant?

The hospital brought in the police and passed the consultants' concerns to the coroner. The Thirlwall Enquiry shows that the consultants' story has been exaggerated.

As I said, I haven't read enough about it - I was just reporting the conversation that I had had with my brother. And yes, specialist nurses are very expensive to train, the department was under huge pressure before any allegations were made and before she was suspended. I can imagine that they didn't want to lose a specialist member of staff - it's not always possible to replace them at short notice or find agency staff with the right skills.

The whole thing is awful and the relish with which people are dissecting it all makes me very uncomfortable. She has had two trials and been found guilty at both. I don't pretend to be enough of a legal or medical expert to have a strong enough opinion either way - I thought (though I could be wrong) that she had not been given leave to appeal - that must mean that a judge has found there isn't enough evidence to warrant yet another trial?

Certainly, but as a convicted serial killer that obviously makes no sense whatsoever does it?!

My comment was to the people saying she’s costing a lot of money with the appeals. Pro bono work aside, her mere existence in the system costs us money.

I don't really see the point. If she's innocent the money has been wasted. If she's guilty what's the alternative to spending it?

If she didn’t then I think it would be a sad case of an overstretched unit taking babies it wasn’t able to deal with and other failures / neglect.

I believe she has been scapegoated to cover up institutional failings of the worst possible kind.

For such horrifying circumstances it is easier for the public to accept a sole individual being evil and that individual being punished than unpick the whole story.

We may never know.

She was overqualified for the dept long before she was arrested. It has never returned to its specialist status.

The hospital knew she could bring a case for constructive dismissal when they suspended her. They noted this formally with legal advisers as the "least worst" response to suspicions. So while I can see the logic of your brother's point, it doesn't stand up to the detail - and fair enough that neither of you would know that.

I try to avoid "relish" on this subject but I do think it's reasonable to correct misinformation - not referring to you there as I know you didn't claim any special knowledge, but there is a lot of misinformation around, whether Letby was guilty or not.

This is what I think too. The Judge and jury only go on what they are told, they don't cross examine, they are not medical experts, if the defense don't ask then the prosecution don't willingly admit mistakes.

She had representation from one of the foremost defence barristers in the UK at both trials and her appeals.

Who would scapegoat her though the consultants have been absolutely scathing of management/the system ? They certainly wouldn’t have been part of it.

I don't think there was any conspiracy. The consultants were unwilling to accept that failings of care might be relevant to some deaths. Management seem to have believed they had no evidence that Letby had done anything. Eventually, when the two groups had no other way to proceed with consensus, the hospital contacted the coroner and then the police. Consultants met the police and gave them a report on their suspicions. Evans volunteered to review the files, and the case grew from there.

I suspect a lot of confirmation bias and at least a little skating over clinical issues, but no conspiracy.

The behaviour of the consultants is one of the things that makes me feel uneasy about the conviction. They didn't beg hospital authorities to do anything. They sent an email but waited weeks to follow it up when there was no reply. They didn't think to pick up the phone or go to the manager's office to speak to her in person. One of them claimed to have a "drawer of doom" filled with evidence against Letby but refused to share what was in it with nursing management. Another claims he thinks he saw her dislodging a breathing tube yet he didn't mention this to anyone at the time, nor did he document it.

If you really believed someone was murdering babies, wouldn't you just call the police? If her convictions are correct, she was doing this for over a year. Would you really sit around for that long hoping someone else would do something about it? I wouldn't. None of what they did makes any sense to me. And they were unable to explain their actions when questioned at the inquiry.

And did she have similar ‘evidence’ collected to prove something wasn’t right on the ward? Is this why she had so much paperwork / notes she shouldn’t have ? It was portrayed as some kind of sick ‘trophy’ collection but was she doing the same and planned to whistle blow ?

The Thirlwall Enquiry has made it clear how many times the consultants approached management - lots. And that none of them had a 'Drawer of Doom' and this was a phrase used to discredit their concerns.

Lots, but not with the evidence they produced later and not as early or as urgently as they claimed. Letby was off the wards within a week of the consultants claiming she might have harmed anyone.

At that stage they agreed they had no evidence beyond her presence at deaths and gut feeling. They agreed to wait for results of external enquiries. When those results came in they were still dissatisfied and management contacted the police.

The hospital didn't handle things particularly well, but the consultants simply did not tell them about key issues they raised later until months or years after Letby was off the wards. I don't think that amounts to a conspiracy. I don't think the consultants were very sure of their suspicions.

If that’s what your brother thinks happened, he has his facts wrong. The hospital did investigate the deaths - 6/7 babies had post mortems; they called in the RCPCH to conduct a review, they got a consultant neonatologist and pathologist to review the cases. But the consultants did not like the conclusion - natural causes, suboptimal care and understaffing.

The Thirlwall has made clear - just how much the management did, quite how sick some of the babies were, quite how poor the care was in some cases, just how little the doctors said or did to communicate their concerns contemporaneously - eg contacting the coroner or the CDOP - which could be done at any time (indeed was their legal obligation if they felt babies were being intentionally harmed) for which the management approval was not required. Then turned round and said they didn’t know what to do - well it’s in the GMC guidelines.

Instead the consultants did not report serious incidents properly, did not follow hospital procedure, had meetings without involving the risk manager, had a drawer of doom whose content they failed to communicate to management. They admitted themselves they had no evidence beyond shift patterns.

The expert witness has said he didn’t change his mind, as her lawyers claim.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6l0dynz7zo

He's very careful not to actually deny it in his press statement. The BBC headline isn't a quotation from his press statemen

I suspect he has had legal advice and has been told not to say anything that could be disproved so easily. He's given a signed statement to Channel 5 about the change of mind, and he has disclosed his changing views to other media outlets too. He can't deny it.

Dr Dewi Evans is questionable at best and at worst, in my opinion, a complete grifter.

Private Eye’s reporting on this has been excellent, and thorough. I’d highly recommend it as reading to anyone with even a passing interest in this case and the subsequent fallout:

www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

Then it was on the news that the chief witness for the prosecution a doctor had changed his mind, He has today made a statement that this is untrue. I have no doubts about her guilt.

He never said it was untrue. Read his press statement and see for yourself.

He has probably had legal advice not to say anything that could easily be disproved

He gave Channel 5 a signed statement changing his account for the three children in question. So he can't really deny it.

If she is innocent, her case will be a massive miscarriage of justice. That could take years though .