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.

I’d also like to know more about this panel and, if there is new evidence, why in hell it wasn’t brought to the first trial. How are we supposed to have faith in a system with this going on?

You know what, if there were a load of deaths going on in my area of care and it looked like I was under suspicion I’d want to get the hell out of there and hope other deaths happened while I wasn’t there. Her family is not short of money so she would have other options.

Those are quite some assertions. Unless you’re a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of course?

You can get the answers to your questions here:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/04/lucy-letby-conviction-challenge-to-evidence

The full report is also linked above.

How are we supposed to have faith in a system

I think the system is very flawed, and the majority of people would be aware of that presumably.

Evidence?

There were ringleaders initially but after two days it was pretty 'unanimous' 😂

@thiswilloutme gives a good explanation of this @ 18.44

I think if you are young and not so cynical it might not cross your mind that you are going to end up going to prison, when you know full well you haven’t done anything and there is therefore no proper evidence against you.
It can’t have occurred to her that her angsty post it notes are going to be held up in court and claimed to be a confession, it would have been easy enough to bin them!

God knows. I do wonder for some more technical/professional cases so health stuff, maybe tax cases the jury should have to be made up of people in that field? So they can hope to understand the evidence. I know the legal teams are meant to explain it but half the time they don’t seem to understand it well themselves.

on the (other posters) point of were this panel coming at it from an angle of “she’s innocent “ (which I Don’t think was the case) let’s remember Dewi Evans examined the evidence after already declaring (after hearing about the case in the media) that he thought she was guilty. He’s not even a neonatologist. But an out of date paediatrician. Am surprised if there’s so many consultant neonatologists who think she’s guilty that the prosecution couldn’t find one to be their expert witness.

These aren’t assertions, they’re facts. You can google this information quite freely - all neonatal and maternity units have to mandatory report neonatal deaths. If you look for the MBRRACE perinatal data, it’s all there.

There are several documentaries laying out how poor the evidence was, by some prestigious people in their fields.

I completely understand the desire to blame, but it maybe that the blame lies in other areas and not a single person, and not Lucy.

I think when something horrible happens, people always want someone to blame. Blaming one or two (or a few) people is much easier than blaming a system.
The NHS has a history of scapegoating staff members to draw attention away from systemic failure. An odd immature woman would be a perfect target for this.

Even at the time of the trial, the statement that jumped out was 'there were more arrows pointing at her than pointing away'. What does that even mean? She may have done it, she may not. But the trial did not seem to be particularly sound.

How awful, that poor man and his mother. 😔

Whether Letby is guilty or not, I couldn’t say, but the neonatal death rates at Countess of Chester in the period of 2015/2016 is factually higher than most tertiary units.

The prosecution expert who testified at the trial that there had been injections of air has recently stated that he no longer believes that.

She never went back on the ward.

Management removed her from the ward and downgraded it to take fewer children and to move all intensive care to other hospitals within a week of consultants raising concern about serious harm.

The stories the consultants told in the media after the conviction haven't stood up to the evidence presented at the Thirlwall Inquiry.

Dr Jayaram changed many details about the incident he described between trials, and has admitted there was nothing suspicious about it anyway. He told the Thirlwall Inquiry the media exaggerated it when they said he caught her "virtually red-handed".

Obviously if he had, he would have called the police or at least mentioned it to anybody else in the hospital.

The story doesn't stand up.

The smaller a sample there is then the greater the skewing of the average with only one or two outliers.??

I might be wrong, it’s a long time since I did gcse statistics but I seem to remember something about this.

certainly the royal college of statistics bloke said he saw nothing in the numbers which couldn’t be explained by a natural variance.

even if it was higher, it doesn’t make it murder. It’s more likely to be a dysfunctional unit.

Only Lucy Letby knows whether or not she is guilty, we cannot judge from what we've read in the media.

It's outrageous that she is refused an appeal, that should be a basic human right.

I wonder what the powers that be are afraid of. What do they have to hide?

That's right. Everyone agrees they had a spike in deaths. The specialists today gave some explanations.

But even with no explanation, you would expect 1 in 50 units, so three or so a year, to have a similar spike. It doesn't mean murder

Remember there was also a higher than average still birth rate. Did the problems with substandard care start in the maternity dept…..which of course would directly link to higher neonatal admissions and higher mortality rates.

I don't agree, it's like Nicola Bully - all the people that could not countenance that her death did not involve another person when quite obviously she was on her own and it was an "accidental" death. Hundreds of nutters making stuff up to further the theory that there was foul play.

That is indeed the issue. They may be facts, but you are presenting an interpretation of them, combined with information about LL’s employment, to mean something statistically. You nor I are likely to be qualified to do so.

The whole things is awful and if she is actually innocent then it is horrific for her and for the families.

Yes, agreed. And her family and friends too, presumably.

agree
You only have to look at many of the comments on MN to realise that most people don't have the reading comprehension skills to understand and respond to a 2 paragraph post about what time a child should go to bed, yet could be called to jury service and have the power to sentence someone to life imprisonment?

I'm okay with medicine but I know if I was on the jury for a fraud or other financial investigation it would go completely over my head. Apparently 1 in 7 UK adults have a literacy age of 11 or under and half of adults have the numeracy levels expected of an 11 year old. If I (with a professional job and high level of education) would struggle, how on earth would someone like that cope? I imagine there would be exactly the same issues with a very medical based trial.

I think the primary scientific question - were the babies murdered? - should be a matter for scientists, and only if that answer is "yes" without reasonable doubt should the question of who is responsible be put to a jury