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.

Of course she was going to be found not only innocent but even a victim, it was certain.

I read an article yesterday about the man whose research had been used to help with evidence against her. He is saying his research had been incorrectly used/interpreted. He doesn’t believe that the skin rashes on the babies were necessarily a sign of air being injected. However, his research was used in the trial against her.

Thanks @TheCountessofFitzdotterel and @thiswilloutme

I'm still not clear on why he wasn’t called to the original trial.

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

It is not good enough. Nor are the patronising vibes I pick up from that statement. For the number of people working hard for no reward in this country it is not good enough.

my god. It will come out that she is entirely innocent.

And then think, what she and her parents too have suffered.

There is no change, ever, to the world. No change from 500 years ago, or 1,500 years ago. Now we have trial by social media and instant communication which means the whole world is the vengeful village.

Never think that we have advanced in any way.

The death rate on the unit was 10% higher than other similar units, for the period of her employment only. It’s a 13 cot scbu, which doesn’t care for extremely premature or very ill babies. Considering the average tertiary neonatal unit, where they take in the smallest micro premies and most unwell babies, and usually have about 30 cots, has a lower death rate than babies cared for by Letby the evidence against her isn’t great.

yet they were caring for babies sicker than they should have been and after LL left the unit was downgraded - which would explain why they had more babies dying and why this stopped afterward

There’s also the small matter of her note saying “I DID THIS. I killed them on purpose.” How are we interpreting that….?

That's a good point, she probably could make money from it. On one hand it would be very tasteless, on the other, it could be a way of earning money to keep her safe, security etc.

I don't know what I'd choose; initially I thought freedom however I'd be too scared to even sit in my house without being terrifed that the house would be attacked.

There’s not enough evidence for a sound conviction unfortunately
I don’t think she’s innocent or guilty because quite frankly there’s not enough evidence to prove either
its such a devastating and emotive subject.

I have no idea if she's innocent or not. However, I'm horrified by the number of people who think that writing in a diary is evidence of her guilt to the point that they are not willing to entertain anything else now they've seen that.

There are loads of situations and mental health issues which would cause someone to write something that isn't true. I have a form of OCD where I have intrusive thoughts but no (external) compulsions. Right now, I have a note on my phone where I describe an intrusive thought I have of my son falling down the stairs because I forgot to close the gate and the despair upon finding him. I dread to think what it could be used as evidence of if it were to ever be found but luckily it's very clear that I'm describing a very distressing thought and not the truth.

There are also a lot of people with OCD who have intrusive thoughts that they might be murderers or psychopaths or abusers. It's now thought that this type of 'pure OCD' actually does have compulsions but mental ones instead of external ones. A common form of mental compulsion is to 'test out' whether an intrusive thought is true. People with these intrusive thoughts might purposefully make themselves imagine doing awful things to see if they enjoy the thought. They don't, of course. They are not the things they fear, and the thought of it is extremely distressing which just continues making things worse.

I can 100% see a situation where, if I was accused repeatedly of something like this, I could write a note to myself in the absolute depths of despair with the very vague 'confession' that she did. It was a chaotic mess of words that look like the words of someone whose mental health is 100 percent not ok at all. It doesn't make her guilty though. It doesn't make her innocent either. I don't think it should have much weight at all.

In fact, this whole time I've been uncomfortable with a lot of the stuff that's come out about her googling the families or keeping paperwork as again a lot of it sounds like things you'd see someone with mental health issues doing. They might be inappropriate things or even things that warrant getting fired but I don't think they can be used as evidence she's murdered a load of babies.

I don't even necessarily believe she's innocent. If I were to weigh it up then my hunch is actually more towards that she's guilty, but I do not want to live in a world where my hunch would even matter in something like this.

If there's genuine new evidence to suggest that not only may she not be guilty but maybe no murders happened at all, then I think it needs to be considered. It's of course awful for the families but as someone said perfectly, if LL is innocent then she cannot exactly be expected to 'take one for the team' to avoid causing the parents distress or because she's white and systemic racism exists.

My biggest question in all this is why her defence didn't bring up all this stuff that's been brought up since. I haven't followed it enough to comment on every specific brought up but from what I've read it feels like there's a lot of stuff that should have been mentioned or people who should have been called but weren't and I just don't know what's happened there.

It makes me wonder (and I'd be interested in opinions from anyone who knows about the legal system) is it likely that she confessed guilt to her lawyer? Am I right in thinking that if they know she's guilty, they can't argue she's innocent but can only argue it's not been proven beyond reasonable doubt? Would a confession to them limit the things they could say and present in her defence? Again, it's not something that can or should be used as evidence one way or the other but it makes me wonder if that's what it looks like to people who have experience with this.

I havent read the whole thread so apologies if this is answered somewhere, but she didnt have a defense during the trial, so on what basis is the appeal?

Surely you present your defense at the trial, not later

She literally didnt even put a defense forward

That the trust employed counsellor who was supporting her told her to write out stuff like this, ie to write out different scenarios, etc. apparently it’s some sort of therapy. So you write something /the worst thing even if it’s not true and then work through what this means.

she didn’t actually write “I killed them on purpose”. She wrote “I killed them” and “I am evil”. So it could have been trying to process had her care inadvertently killed them, was she negligent, was she a shit nurse and therefore a bad person. She also wrote that she hadn’t done anything wrong and similar messages.

Well, that is an entirely different matter. I am no expert, but I believe that there are opinions that it’s based on therapy she was having and / or mental health issues. Have you actually seen what she wrote? As in seen it vs how it was referred to in the press? It’s far from conclusive. I also cannot imagine the mental state you would be in by that stage.

I doubt a few hundred pounds on daytime TV would be enough, I would imagine she would find it hard to live a life without being in some form of relocation.

Wonder where the inquiry fits into this

Are you suggesting that appeals are never warranted?

Not sure if she is guilty or not. Swaying to not atm……

Personally I don't believe she's innocent. This was over a substantial period of time and multiple members of staff noticing suspicious behaviour. They're concerns fell on deaf ears. I believe this is a cover up for something else they're hiding, maybe she knows more and they're letting her off, I just don't see how many drs in practice can submit substantive evidence and a court convict her, just for a random panel to come along and say it's void.

well she now has a new defence team, so it doesn't;t look like her original team did such a great job......

I don't know if she did or didn't do it but entire debacle doesn't fill me with any confidence about how seriously ill babies, and indeed adults, are cared for in this country. Where were the safeguards? Where were the best practice ways of working? Where was the supervision at all levels? What precisely were the hospital's medical director, the director of nursing, the director of children and women's services doing?

I have greater concerns about the structural deficits in the management of NHS care and our hospitals than I do about whether a young woman involved in all this was guilty. The entire scenario appears to arise from moral and clinical ineptitude. How does that happen?

Well it’s her barrister who puts a defence forward not her technically. But how can you prove a negative? She says she didn’t do it, and that was her defence. there was no actual evidence to say she had. No actual evidence to say anyone had to be honest.

i do agree I think her defence team have done her a massive disservice and I Don’t understand why. Her barrister apparently is good. People at the time said it’s very hard to get health care professionals to stand up and defend someone at such a time, they worry about being tainted by association. It’s hard to find a professional expert to stand for the defence. But I don’t understand why people are speaking up now and didn’t then. But I suppose if they are not listed as a defenc expert and never have been they were in no position to get involved. By the time they hear the evidence reported from court the case is in full swing, you can’t ring them up and say “this sounds a load of bollocks” mid case.

I did not know if she is guilty or innocent, but all the way through this has reminded me of the Sally Clarke case. Very different I know but the same feel. I do think the diary entries are misleading.

From the Private Eye notes mentioned above

A STATISTICAL paper questioning Letby’s guilt has been refused publication in the journal Medicine, Science and the Law because – according to the main reviewer – “the suffering of the parents of the victims needs to be held firmly in mind”. A miscarriage of justice would indeed cause more suffering for parents, and cause catastrophic damage to the reputations of the police, legal and medical professions. But if NHS scandals have taught us anything, it is that cover-ups are the greatest catastrophe of all.

So grief trumps possibly relevant statistical analysis.

You can appeal on the grounds of inadequate legal representation. Not sure how likely she is to be granted an appeal on these grounds. Also new evidence, which she might get if enough experts come forward to say they believe what was stated as medical facts previously was incorrect….so the new expert is the new evidence.??

Shoo Lee is speaking up because he heard it was his paper had been used and wanted to put that right