Lucy Letby press conference

[Viviennemary]

There is a press conference going on now trying to get Lucy Letby's conviction overturned. From what I read the guilty verdict was sound. All those ill babies dying when she was alone with them. Just a coincidence? Already been refused an appeal.

No, a Black woman convincted on shoddy evidence and shoddier 'expert' witnesses would likely be left to rot in prison. Does that mean we should ignore Lucy Letby's treatment, or maybe we should try to do better for ALL defendants?

Thank you for posting that New Yorker article. It was a fascinating read.

For anybody who has Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" you might want to look at the case of the Dutch nurse Lucia de Berk which he discusses in chapter 14, "Bad stats"

Her case was remarkably similar to the Lucy Letby case and was based on largely circumstantial evidence concerning when she was on duty and the deaths of patients.

Ben Goldacre uses it as an example of the fallacy of looking at an unlikely combination of events and drawing the erroneous conclusion after the event that just because the combination is unlikely, the events must be connected.

At the time he wrote the book (2008 or 2009) she had been in jail for 6 years and had maintained her innocence throughout. I'm not sure what has happened to her since then. [NB - Apparently she was subsequently freed, retried and was exonerated in 2010. Lucia de Berk case - Wikipedia ]

He also uses it as another example of the prosecutor's fallacy that resulted in Sally Clark being wrongly convicted of the murder of her two children in 1999 on the basis of misleading probability evidence given by an expert witness for the prosecution.

Courts don't seem to handle probability and statistical arguments very well...

Nobody ever seems to have an answer for that.

Like everyone else, I have no idea if LL is innocent. But it is not the first time there have been massive failings in the care of very ill babies. Look at what happened in Bristol. I agree that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that there has been a massive denial that the hospital is at fault rather than one individual.

The Bristol scandal was first written about by Phil Hammond in Private Eye, IIRC. He was right about that and could very well be right about this.

Umm - I think you may be confused. That was the first trials, wasn't it? There was certainly plenty of "ill-informed public opinion", and several "big names" who the prosecution claimed proved she was guilty - including Dr Shoo Lee. The prosecution used his paper towards proof of guilt. He says that isn't the case. I imagine he might have a clue what he's talking about.

LL’s reaction when she was arrested was extremely suspicious. She was not at all shocked when she was told what crimes she was being charged with. She was almost resigned to it. I would be absolutely apoplectic if you told me I was being arrested for murdering babies.

The note was just an example of her compassion and empathy. We all feel guilty about things that were not actually guilty of doing and if we convict people because they feel guilty then the whole country would be in jail. It's not very clever for a killer to be so devious and never get caught but then wright down in their diary that they killed.

Or you might be in a state of shock and abject fear?

@PandoraSox indeed. Lucy Letby may still be guilty but it's crucial that she's found so through robust evidence and a fair trial. The consequences to justice are critical to all of us.

I don't know if LL is guilty or not.

What I do know is that a family member used to work in a special baby unit in another hospital and they told me there were a number of baby deaths due to under qualified staff/lack of staff and a severe lack of funding in the NHS.

So I don't think it can be ignored of the possibility of it happening at LL's hospital.

You know she'd been interviewed about them multiple times before being arrested? And I don't think people do always behave in the way we expect them to anyway. How many times have you seen someone arrested?

As if any of us have the foggiest what we'd so in a situation like that. It's completely outside of our experience. Unless of course you've been there done that, in which case as you were.

@thiswilloutme
"They have unanimously agreed that one of the babies were murdered."

Where did they say this?
It was my understanding that they found no evidence that any of the babies were murdered?

I don’t think anyone knows how they’d react if the police showed up at their door and told them they were being charged with murdering babies. Lindy Chamberlain spent years in prison largely because a jury thought there was something wrong about her demeanour and emotional responses. Any discussion of Amanda Knox and Joanne Lees still reveals a sizeable proportion of people who believe they had something to do with the murders they were associated with purely based on “a hunch” because they didn’t behave “like I would.”

This is a deeply unreliable way to judge someone's guilt. We all act differently in times of acute stress, shock, fear and confusion and we certainly don't all act the way we would assume we should.

There have been numerous and huge miscarriages of justice throughout history because of this sort of 'reasoning' (prejudice)

I agree with @LeMoo on not using reaction as any indication

Also with @EmmaMaria post earlier

She had been questioned on and off for some time by then, so no it wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t the first time the police showed up at her door, but when she was formally charged.

Well she was interviewed on at least three occasions and I'll let you into a secret. If you are repeatedly told, over and over again, that regardless of what you say, how you react, or what counter argument you have to accusations, you are guilty, even if you know you're not, you become numb. Utterly numb. You are also drilled by your legal team to hold yourself in check, because anything , from a lip twitch to a sigh can be interpreted to suit the agenda. Lucy's arrest was recorded. If she'd kicked off, it would have been detrimental. How you think you would react versus how you do react, or not, are vastly different things.

Someone’s been reading too much bad detective fiction.

Whether she's guilty or not, it's a good thing that there's a process where doubts about a fair trial can be heard and examined.

None of us have sat through all of the evidence given at the trial. Neither have these experts. They're calling attention to possible issues with some of the evidence, and it's right that this should be examined.

I don't know.

My gut thinks she did it, but people's guts are not sufficient for convictions. On the face of it this conviction does seem unsafe. I'm glad I'm not one of the people on the CCRC.

I don't know if LL is innocent or guilty, however this has definitely proved to me that we should never have capital punishment in this country.

Agree with others that it's a massive shitshow, can only hope the truth and justice prevails. So sorry for all the families of the babies, I can't imagine the anguish and uncertainty.

She doesn’t seem lucky. They convicted a white woman.

Where was this reported please? I hadn’t heard about this!