New Development in the Letby Case?

[thiswilloutme]

This headline popped up in my news feed, so I had a closer look.

The Expert, a retired Canadian Neonatologist, whose 30yr old paper was cited as part of evidence that LL killed the babies by means of injected air - says that his results were misrepresented. He was willing to testify to that in the appeal, but the judge ruled his evidence inadmissible as he had not been called in the initial trial (how bonkers is that?).

He was so concerned about the potential miscarriage of justice that he asked permission to convene (pro bono) a group of international experts to review ALL of the medical data re. the deaths. He said he would only do this on condition that WHATEVER they found would be made public. Letby agreed to this.

Each case was assigned to two experts, who were given all of the medical data for that case. IF they disagreed on their conclusions then a third expert would be called in. This only happened in two cases out of 17.

They are due to publish their conclusions on Tuesday.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/lucy-letby-evidence-conviction-0mqwglpbq

Well their conclusion is failing in medical care. NOT murder. Looks like she was thrown under the bus ?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/04/no-medical-evidence-to-support-lucy-letby-conviction-expert-panel-finds?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

To add to the above, look up the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. There were a lot more collapses and deaths on the unit than those with which Letby was charged. Circular reasoning was used - the doctors thought Letby was killing babies, so any deaths or collapses when she was on duty were regarded as suspicious. Any deaths or collapses when she was not on duty were not regarded as suspicious. Therefore, when you put together a chart of suspicious incidents, it shows that she was the only nurse on duty when they all happened.

As for the "extremely rare" point, remember that this was a level 2 unit at the time, which means it dealt with babies needing a higher level of medical and nursing support.

I, for one, will be praying for everyone involved in this case- the families of those poor babies, also the barristers, judges, the jury who found LL guilty, the hospital staff who worked with LL and LL and her family and friends.

I wish the legal system was less adversarial and more rational. I feel so sorry for the babies’ families, having to live with this further doubt.

This. I'm not a statistician, but I thought from first sight of that chart it was blindly obviously nonsense. It was tantamount to someone deciding I was probably a shop-lifter, so collating data from my local Tesco (which I go to most days) about all the shop-lifts which happened on days I was there, then presenting a chart of these (but including none of the shop-lifts which happened when I wasn't there, and none of the days I was there and no shop-lifts happened) and saying "oh look, she was there at all the suspicious shop-lifts!". The fact I was there is what made them classified as suspicious in the first place. Also, I live locally, so I'm ALWAYS in that Tesco, and they didn't take into account all the times I was there when there was no shop-lift.

How that evidence got through, I'll never know. You don't have to have any training in stats to see it's bullshit.

I really hope this goes towards getting her a retrial. I’ve always thought that the case smelled funky and she was a scapegoat.

I watched this case with horror, as I've been a NICU nurse and I think it's so easy for people to think that it's all very regimented. But people have breaks, people need the loo, people get called to the phone, people have to escort a baby somewhere, people have to feed one baby, which means that the other 3 or even 5 they are looking after are unattended....it's not as transparent as 'she was the nurse for that baby.'

I was accused of failing to do something that affected the welfare of a baby. I, fortunately, had the presence of mind to say 'look here and you'll see this...' (deliberately vague) - by pointing out what they would find, I was able to prove that I had done the thing I was accused of not doing. It wasn't major, but it was an accusation that I had failed to care for a baby appropriately.

Unfortunately, humans are very bad at statistics. We struggle with understanding probability and randomness. Faced with this chart and the constant refrain from the prosecution that Letby was the common factor tying the deaths together, I am not surprised the jury accepted it. But yes, even if it was accurate it was nonsense and had no value whatsoever as evidence.

As an ex NICU nurse I've been following this case for years and it's always made me feel uneasy and torn.

I've just watched the news conference by the group of neonatal experts.... Fascinating and harrowing. After watching this I'm convinced it's a miscarriage of justice.

I haven’t seen any evidence that there was collapses and deaths when she was not on duty.

Id be keen to see that

It was not mentioned in court

It seems this whole case is a horrific example of the toxic NHS culture, scapegoating and the untouchable god complexes of many NHS managers and doctors

Here you go: https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-the-letby-case-isnt-closed/

There were initially 10 more incidents that were considered to be suspicious. They only stopped being suspicious when it emerged that Lucy was not on shift for them.

Once the cases got to court, the prosecution became less fussy about making sure that Lucy was on shift and available for some murdering. When the door entry data to be ward was shown to be incorrect, they decided that maybe she snuck in on her day off to punch a baby. When it was revealed that she couldn't have caused an internal blockage to a baby because she wasn't on duty at all between the baby being born and the blockage being shown on an x-ray they told the jury "you don't have to be sure how she killed a baby".

Even if there was failings in the unit it is extremely rare for babies to have persistent collapses

To return to this, a statistician gave evidence at the Thirlwall inquiry a few weeks ago. He told the inquiry that the mortality rate at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit was only 10% higher than the national average for neonatal centres with similar birth rates. It was the highest rate in its tier of centres, but only just. It was not an outlier. He would expect to see similar at least once a year in one of the UK's neonatal units by chance alone. This would not have prompted an external investigation.

If we remove the deaths Letby is alleged to have caused, the mortality rate at Countess of Chester would have been around half the national average.

Edit: replying to the point you are quoting
I
t's quite common for some premature babies to have persistent collapses: so much so that Evans and two of the hospital consultants referred to particular babies on the charge sheet as prone to collapses.
If you don't mean premature babies it is rare, yes.

The more I read the more I’m convinced she didn’t do it.

The approach of "don't ask questions because it'll upset the victims" is also a well-worn way of deflecting from potential systemic injustice. OBVIOUSLY the families need as much support as they want, in the face of the horrific things that have happened (whatever their cause).

They need truth and justice. Not possible scapegoating and lack of systemic accountability. If the latter is potentially what's happened, it needs investigation.

Like all of us, I don't know what the truth is. But the idea that a single person might be wrongly taking the flak for tragedies caused by systemic failures doesn't even seem that surprising. It happens all the time.

Yes but the families believe she murdered their children or attempted to

They sat through the trial

The thing is, people keep going back to the trial but if the evidence was misleading/incorrect, then the families, jurors etc were not given all the facts.

For however long, the families will have been told that they got the perpetrator and they'd be going away for a very long time. They wouldn't expect anyone to have got it wrong. So they were (understandably) sitting there from the position that LL was guilty. They were/are grieving and wanted answers, they wanted someone to pay. All of that is totally understandable. But you can't say "well the families think she did it so she must have".

Likewise, if the jury were misled, it's not that they got it wrong per se. They just didn't have all the information. So again to say well I don't believe they got it wrong. No they probably didn't based on what was presented to them, but what if that was wrong?

I honestly don't know if she's innocent or guilty. But given she was sentenced to the rest of her life in prison, we can't ignore what was said at the press conference. IF she's innocent and it was systemic failures etc, the families need to know that.

They are not neutral though. They have been told she murdered their babies, so they are seeking justice, naturally. They see justice as securing a conviction for the murder if their children and will likely find it extremely difficult to accept a decision indicating that noone is to blame. People like having someone to blame.