Lucy Letby: a condensed update on recent developments

[Kittybythelighthouse]

So, in the past week or so alone we’ve had:

Leading neonatology expert Dr Shoo Lee (Professor Emeritus at University of Toronto, Honorary Physician at Mount Sinai Hospital, President of the Neonatal Foundation, Founder of Canadian Neonatal Network, Previously Head of Neonatology at University of Toronto and a hospital for sick children) says his 1989 paper, which the prosecution relied on as their only proof of alleged intravenous air embolism (skin discolouration) was misused by the prosecution. He actually went to the appeal hearing and had his paper Judge-splained to him by three CoA judges who probably don’t even have a science A level (the judiciary have a poor record regarding science). He was so astonished and aggrieved that he has has published a new peer reviewed paper filling in all new evidence since 1989 and distinguishing between intravenous and arterial air embolism which the 1989 paper didn’t do. The conclusion: there is zero evidence for skin discolouration in intravenous air embolism, which is the only possibility in this case. This means there is absolutely no evidence to support an allegation of air embolism. It didn’t happen.

https://t.co/TRokh1hneu

Dr Shoo Lee pulled together a blue ribbon panel of the world’s best experts in relevant areas. Never before in legal history has a group of such highly regarded international experts come together to challenge the evidence against a convicted serial killer. They went through all of the evidence independently and pro bono (with the proviso that they would publish reports regardless of findings). Yesterday they held a press conference. Conclusion: there were no murders. There was plenty of poor care, medical malpractice, mistakes, and a poorly run struggling hospital.

“If this was a hospital in Canada, it would be shut down”

Link to their summary report: drive.google.com/file/d/1aV4zwwdBYw8Z_E-Tpe9_-iPR7n8cZdFk/view

A leak from an Operation Hummingbird detective which reveals that deaths were chosen as suspicious or not based on whether Letby was on shift (remember, most of the babies had uncontroversial post mortems at the time). There were ten other cases originally classed as suspicious until it was established Letby couldn’t have done them, then they magically became unsuspicious.

“Four more children would later be added, two children would be dropped, collapses deleted and added as the focus was turned in different directions, and the whole chart thoroughly chopped and changed. The guiding principle being, always, that Letby must be in the frame.” Trials of Lucy Letby on X.

https://t.co/FOO55lWlCi

Chester Police responded with a statement to The Mail on Sunday:

“There is a significant public interest in these matters, however, every story that is published, statement made, or comment posted online that refers to the specific details of a live investigation can impede the course of justice and cause further distress to the families concerned. It is these families and the ongoing investigations that remain our primary focus.”

“Cheshire Constabulary's statement to the Mail on Sunday is remarkable, coming from a police force that put out an HOUR-LONG promotional video about their own investigation.

They claim to be demurring from commenting now because "every story that is published, statement made, or comment posted online that refers to the specific details of a live investigation can impede the course of justice and cause further distress to the families concerned."

Such concerns did not stop them, less than two years ago, from flooding the press with incendiary and prejudicial commentary, going so far as to announce that they'd be reviewing the care of 4,000 babies that Letby may have ever come into contact with.

The lead investigator, Paul Hughes, even sat down with the co-hosts of the Daily Mail podcast for an episode called "Catching the Killer Nurse," where he speculated to no end about the supposedly evil and cunning machinations behind Letby's every move, and concluded that "she clearly does love the attention. I think she's loved the attention of a trial." (From The Trials of Lucy Letby on X).

Is Letby the one who loved the attention? The investigation was as active then as it is today. Why the silence now? 🤔

Thirlwall released the witness statement of Michelle Turner on behalf of Liverpool Women’s Hospital. She speaks about Letby's placement in 2012 & 2015, including how unlikely she would have been in an intensive care room without another nurse present.

thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/upl…

Former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord MacDonald to BBC’s World at One: “It is clear that there is now this quite impressive body of work. Something may have gone wrong here. That clearly has to be taken seriously.”

"New documents released by the Thirlwall Inquiry also show how the Countess of Chester refused to take part in research to improve outcomes for premature babies."

Neena Modi: "The Countess of Chester was the only hospital to decline participation."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/04/the-10-baby-deaths-that-cast-doubt-on-lucy-letbys-guilt/

Meanwhile the CPS still (as far as we know) refuse to hand over former Dr Dewi Evans new report about how one of the babies died - written in October 2024 after BBC’s File on Four challenged him about Letby not having been on shift when an ‘incriminating’ x ray was taken. In fact she hadn’t been on shift since the baby was born. She was convicted of killing this baby.

The CCRC announced yesterday that they have opened their investigation of the case. They assembled a team specifically for this case late last year, in anticipation of an application. This is an extraordinarily speedy and organised response from the CCRC.

https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/lucy-letby-application-received-by-criminal-cases-review-commission/

This has been a remarkable, historic, run of events. It is now looking very likely that the case will go back to the Court of Appeal, or there may be a more expedient solution. Whatever happens, it’s very unlikely to take the CCRC their usual 10 years to deal with it. They are on the ropes recently, with a CEO stepping down and a raft of bad press. I am not Mystic Meg, but my money is on an exoneration within the year.

🤯

I absolutely agree. I first waded into this around May last year when the New Yorker piece came out. I wasn’t sure in either direction yet, but I had questions. I had previously been pretty sure, without looking into it much, that she must surely be guilty. No smoke without fire and all that. I was astonished when I naively waded into threads on mumsnet and the *Reddit ‘LucyLetby’ sub and found that people were willing to hound and block anyone for not towing the party line of “She’s guilty! Burn the witch!”. It’s one of the first things that really got me thinking that there is something very off here. I simply cannot trust people who are that authoritarian about something like this, so I looked further, and further, and here we are.

I don’t know how anyone can possibly be completely sure she is guilty now given the amount of questions about literally every single piece of this case and the fact that the lead expert witness Dewi Evans has completely lost all credibility, surely, surely, at this point! Yet, some people claim to be completely sure. They will handwave everything. They will claim Dewi Evans is more reliable than a panel of the world’s leading experts in this area. They will say that anyone who is more circumspect is “defending a baby killer”. They will put an awful lot of time and effort into doing all of the above. It’s baffling to me and, frankly, a bit scary.

*(Not the LucyLetbyTrials, sub Reddit btw, which is perfectly sane and tolerates all opinions as long as they are civil)

@mealienpleasehelp speak of the devil 😬

The Lucy Letby sub on Reddit is mental. So are the tattle threads.

No Dewi hasn’t lost all credibility - that is what you are claiming

The irony of you coming here and making statements as if they are true when in fact it is your own beliefs and not facts at all

The justice system is not relying on YOU for the facts and other posters should not interpret your statements as such (if we want to talk about rational)

Dewi Evans and Roy Meadow (who I believe knew each other) both compared themselves to fictional detectives. Roy meadow (whose bs fantastical evidence convicted Sally Clarke of murdering her own babies) compared his investigation style to Sherlock Holmes. He was also a member of the Sherlock Holmes society. Evans compared himself to Frost from A Touch of Frost, quoting “I don’t believe in coincidences”. An elderly man playacting as a television detective is a bit sad but also kind of endearing if they aren’t trying to bang some poor woman up for life based on sheer vibes, main character syndrome, and unbridled narcissism.

Bear in mind that Dewi Evans worked as an ‘expert witness’ in the family courts for donkey’s years before this case. The family courts were totally closed to the public (and reporters obv) until about two weeks ago. I dread to think what horrors he has left in his wake. A senior judge wrote to Judge Goss during the Letby case warning him about Evans and how flipping dodgy he is. This is an extraordinary thing for a senior judge to do. Goss didn’t heed it. More fool him.

Oh, and by the way, Dr Jayaram signed a letter sticking up for Meadow when he was facing being struck off for the Sally Clarke miscarriage of justice. Small world.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/20/my-kind-of-case-intense-focus-falls-on-lucy-letby-trial-expert-witness

Well they weren’t the only ones acting like Sherlock were they @Kittybythelighthouse

😂😂😂

good luck with your investigation

Hold on. Anything that I state is a fact, will be a fact. I make sure of that. Did I state that my opinion of Evans is anything but my opinion? No. I didn’t. What I did say is that I’m astonished that anyone thinks this man has an ounce of credibility left, which rather implies that it is my opinion. Many share it. He recruits us by the load every time he opens his mouth, which he can’t stop himself from doing apparently.

Did I say that the justice system is relying on me, personally, for the facts? Of course I didn’t. Why are you making things up? Argue with the things I do say, if you like. I’m completely open to that.

In my opinion (you don’t have to agree!) Evans is heading for Meadows level disgrace with his foot full pelt on the accelerator. He’s (IN MY OPINION) completely unhinged.

Yes. There are people online claiming that because they see "submission" "review" "accepted with edits" on the publishing history online, the paper was revised to suit Letby's defence. They see edits before publication as somehow suspect

Well he retracted his stomach air theories in a signed statement to C5 in August. That covers 3 cases. He has revealed the lack of any methodology in arriving at his conclusions in ill-advised interviews. Lee’s panel has just demolished the air embolism and insulin claims. What is there left?

What “investigation” are you referring to?

It’s a very odd place.

I'm absolutely baffled how some people are so determined that she must be guilty even if no murders took place. The logic seems to be that if you are in a room with someone who dies, even if the cause of death is unascertainable, or could be down to multiple factors, it's quite alright to insist you might be guilty of murder if someone saw you nearby and thought you were.

It's the constant back and forth that gets me, one minute the medical evidence is robust, and Evans opinion definitive despite the lack of supporting research for methods of murder, then it doesn't matter about differences of opinion because the other evidence, the circumstantial stuff, is far more compelling, even though some if it, such as the door swipe data has been proven to be factually incorrect, and of course we have that chart, Schrodingers statistics that is both central to and incidental to the whole case.

There are the claims that either the guilters completely understand everything and agree with the original experts, or don't understand everything completely but defer to everything the experts said because "experts". The original experts are sacrosanct, but experts who disagree are frauds and charlatans desperate for five minutes if fame.

From my own perspective, seeing scores of HCPs commenting on the trial from the perspective of "hang on a minute, that sounds fanciful / absurd based on my decades working on the front line" and grappling with the cognitive dissonance because obviously baby killers should be brought to justice, suggested something was very wrong.

As a PP suggested, if air in the NG tube is such a dangerous occurrence, why did they not come out going "Oh my God, everyone knows how dangerous that is" and it would have cropped up before, surely.

In fact I'm pretty sure that introducing a little air into a tube can be used to clear it. I think I found an actual NHS leaflet on line about it.

The air on x-rays - apparently its composition would be relevant. However I haven't seen any data about that.

Very rarely does one see the clamouring around a case like this from people with nothing to gain from jumping on a bandwagon, and possibly much to lose from "defending a murderer" , which many people caveat anyway by saying they can't comment on her guilt or innocence overall, but the evidence doesn't stack up.

Court cases are supposed to work based on evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, not a judge saying "if you think she did this one, even if you're not sure of the method, you can find her guilty of the others, and this expert has tossed around a few ideas that might help".

That's. NOT. How. It's. Supposed. To. Work. And that's the crux of the issue.

He said in a podcast interview with John Sweeney (who was forefront in covering the Sally Clarke MoJ also) that he “didn’t know” that the NICU had the fatal to infants pseudomonas bacteria colonising the taps/sinks. First of all how the f* don’t you know this when you’re supposed to have investigated infant deaths in this NICU?! He said if that had happened in his hospital in Swansea in the 80’s he would have shut it down instantly. Why? Because pseuomonas kills babies. When it was pointed out that the COCH NICU wasn’t shut down he simply barked “What’s that got to do with her murdering babies!” The man is terrifying. Baffling. Anything but credible.

There is so much more to say about Evans but I don’t have all night. Anyone interested should read the Private Eye pieces on this. Dr Hammond first covered this case completely believing she did it. He did an interview with Dr Jayaram. He later changed his mind once he was inundated with emails from very high level clinicians all calling bullshit. He then wrote several pretty good articles that summarise the main unfolding events post trial. Worth a read. All published parts are available via this link. https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

The way the Letby sub bans anyone casting doubt on her case is extraordinary (and it is official policy. Not just an impression).

It means you have all these people huddled smugly together in their play fortress, agreeing with each other about a case that they insist can't be challenged. What on earth is the incentive to post?

Day 1 - well, she's guilty as sin. Evil.
Chorus of praise and agreement

Day 2 - how about that confession note? That was evil.
Chorus of praise and agreement

Day 3 - remember that time she cried too much? That was evil.
Chorus of praise and agreement

Day 4 - remember how she didn't cry that time? That was evil
Chorus of praise and agreement

Day 500 ... you get the picture ...

It's certainly not humanity at its most attractive.

Great post.

I would add for anyone unaware of it - infants on breathing support get air in their stomachs all the time. Nurses aspirate it out to keep them comfortable until they are robust enough to be winded. Because that's what it is - wind. Nothing unusual and nobody is known ever to have died of it.

That’s exactly what it’s like! You’re a little facetious, but you aren’t really exaggerating. It seems that poring endlessly over the entrails of this horrendous series of “murders” by a naughty nurse “serial killer” is a hobby that won’t be given up without a fight. Who cares if all the post mortems returned natural causes?! She called the tracksuit she was wearing at 6am “pyjamas”! This woman would “lie” about anything! It’s bananas.

I'm absolutely baffled how some people are so determined that she must be guilty even if no murders took place.

It’s very hard for people to admit they were wrong. The media stoked such strong emotions in people - it would be difficult even scary to admit that was all completely misplaced.

Watched an interview on YouTube earlier Sir David David vs Christopher Snowdon. The latter is a perfect example of the type of person terrified of not getting their pound of flesh here

*Davis

Coincidentally I watched that too. It was very much "the law says she's guilty so nothing else matters" on Snowdens part.

Chilling.

@MistressoftheDarkSide also very red faced and flustered. Particularly liked his "I won't go into it too much as most people watching won't understand". What a chap

He was still misrepresenting what had been said and using straw man arguments. Such an ignorant and arrogant display. Horrific. Is he actually stupid or was he lying?

I don’t understand why anyone would do this. Why when there are so many holes in the ‘evidence’ used to convict her would any reasonable person not want to revisit the facts? The repercussions are huge, it seems to me it’s essential the truth is exposed.

Indeed. Bluster and condescension are the hallmarks of many alleged professionals, as is the "amused detachment" approach coupled with institutional gas-lighting, designed to make anyone challenging them lose their cool and add to any evidence that the challenger is unstable.

I recently had this with a psychiatrist at a discharge meeting about my DSM, 82, long term mental health issues, pre-cognitive impairment, paranoid delusions, possible organic neurological issues that she refuses investigation or treatment for, plus small blood vessel disease identified on a previous scan. It's not my first rodeo with possible dementia as I cared for my MIL for 18 months whose disease progressed extremely rapidly.

Yes, I Google, I go on the Alzheimers forum, SM is a virtually text book case for likely vascular dementia.

Anyway, she had developed extreme antipathy to my DF, 85 and frail with multiple physical health conditions. This includes physical aggression observed in hospital and contributing to her section, which was then lifted after a couple of weeks. There was a raft of safeguarding concerns on both sides, as DF has been her carer for 14 years, already worn out and physically deteriorating.

The psychiatrist dismissed all our concerns out of hand, plus the brain scan, confidently asserted she has full capacity and no sign if dementia and essentially said it was basically all a marital dispute, and that as they'd been together 40 years, Dad should essentially "man up".

At one point, he interrupted me as I was laying out all the reasons we felt it would be an unsafe discharge, and asked me what I did for a living. I queried the relevance of his question, and he insisted I tell him. For information I've done theater design and construction, admin, and retail mainly.

"Ah," he said "So you're not a doctor then" and that was it, game over. Phased return started two hours later with no time to prepare leaving my Dad so flustered he measured his length in the hospital car park, and it was a miracle he only suffered scrapes and bruises. I swear it shaved ten years off my life.

Fat forward to now- DF had to flee the marital home after less than a week due to three escalating episodes of physical aggression and he's only just about to get permanent tenancy in sheltered accommodation 8 months after the separation.

In the meantime, CMHT nurses don't know what to do with SM, who is allowed to instruct solicitors based on lies, running up huge bills and complaining she's all alone through no fault of her own.

Throughout it all, we have been patronised, ignored, and regarded with suspicion.

Sorry, it's a bit if a tangent, but it is illustrative of pervasive attitudes amongst some HCPs.

I know full well I am biased and cynical, but I often go back to a joke I heard when I was dealing with SS and doctors 30 years ago.

"What's the difference between Gid and a doctor?"

"God doesn't think he's a doctor"

I rest my case, and look forward to my cosy niche in hell.

My mother starved to death in hospital because she’d gone very confused due to a UTI but the doctor said she had capacity and was choosing not to eat, even though she didn’t know where or who she was. I was banned from the ward due to a norovirus outbreak and couldn’t feed her. They just let her die and completely refused to believe that without the infection she was still beating the countdown woman at the maths questions and her grandchildren at chess, not a senile old woman. Arrogant bastards.