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.

ThatsNotMyTeen

Harold Shipman had motive and there was evidence of heroin in the last victims body.

LL case, there doesn't appear to be motive - thought he prosecution said its attention and there isn't any evidence other than circumstantial

FranticFrankie
Some of the responses here remind me of Les Tricoteuses at the guillotine or Monty Python’s ‘how do you know she is a witch?’ ‘ because she looks like one’

Yes, but does she weigh the same as a duck? (That would be after she has been dressed as a witch by the crowd, obviously.)

https://archive.ph/GS9r0

Telegraph article, pretty comprehensive.

One thing I keep seeing be brought up regarding the liver injury baby, is that the new panel are claiming it was purely down to birth injury, having changed their minds that the attempt to aspirate was part of the whole scenario, but my impression was that it was not an either / or situation, more of a series of unfortunate / potentially negligent events in combination. Must go back and watch again, but that's the impression I got anyway.

Yes. The written report doesn't mention the liver being perforated in its one paragraph report. But Lee did mention it in his presentation.

This is one of the 2 triplets who died?

From what I read last night they should never have been born at the COCH - right from the birth which wasn't straightforward it seems like the staff were out of their depth and almost everything that could go wrong did so

Their parents account is just heartbreaking

One thing I don’t understand (and apologies if this has been discussed) but did she just have a really bad lawyer? Why on earth did they not pull apart all this ‘evidence’. Why did they not prove reasonable doubt (which there clearly is)?..

Why did they not prove reasonable doubt (which there clearly is)?..

if there is clearly reasonable doubt - then you'd not be found guilty

you can't prove someone is innocent - they are innocent until proved guilty

Nobody has a definite answer, but two legal experts have made suggestions that make sense to them:

https://davidallengreen.com/2024/07/the-lucy-letby-case-some-thoughts-and-observations-what-should-happen-when-a-defence-does-not-put-in-their-own-expert-evidence-for-good-reason-or-bad/

and

https://unherd.com/2024/07/the-questions-haunting-the-lucy-letby-trial/ (may be paywalled)

There's always the possibility LL instructed her team not to as well. Quite why she'd do that I don't know, but clients sometimes make decisions against the advice of their legal representatives.

Very interesting! Thank you it makes a bit more sense now.

That’s the million dollar question.

She had a top KC but a small provincial solicitor with no track record of cases of this status or scientific complexity.

Why there was no defence narrative, aka the truth, of an overstretched underequipped unit punching above its weight with infected sewage and consultants looking for a scapegoat is not clear. Onto that narrative arc could have been hung any number of expert witness testimony from statisticians to microbiologists to neonatologists and pathologists. There could have been discussion of the original pathology reports, the RCPCH report, Hawdon & McPartland’s reviews, the deadly impact of bacteria in neonate units, flawed statistics and a take down of the infamous chart.

I can only assume that Myers had to work with what he was given. That he directed the court strategy and presented the case as best he could but he couldn’t on his own patch up existing deficiencies in the defence. That doesn’t explain why he didn’t call the experts he had at his disposal though, nor why there weren’t more. If he felt they could not match the certainty of the prosecution witnesses or provide a theory as to why the babies died, Myers may have felt they would do more harm than good. I don’t agree with him if that was the case. Anything would have been better than nothing. I don’t think it would have made a difference to the verdict though. Angela Cannings had 13 experts speak at her trial and she still lost. The atavstic desire to hunt & burn witches is a difficult thing to counteract with reason.

It's a puzzler.

There are threads on here from the time where people who believe LL to be guilty (I don't hold any belief either way) concluded that she didn't present experts for the defence because nobody was willing. That's obviously turned out not to be true.

I think these experts weren’t aware of the case at the time, only after the guilty verdict. People at the time said it’s hard to get an expert witness to act for the defence as if found guilty theyre fearful of being tarred by association and that it could negatively impact their career. I can imagine that fear is worse for a U.K. person than a Canadian person. And seems like Canada didn’t become aware of the case till later. Maybe she was failed by her defence if they didn’t cast their net wider in the search for an expert? Like abroad wider!

Yes. If all this had been brought up (and the failures in this particular hospital are very relevant) then you have reasonable doubt.

And it probably wouldn’t have changed the verdict and maybe they feel it would have backfired who knows. But to call zero expert witnesses, zero character witnesses? That all
lools very suspicious.

Well we know from David Davis that 4 nurses contacted him to say they were dissuaded from testifying in her favour by the hospital. So that explains that.

It does seem odd there were no colleagues prepared to give her a character witness.

I think anyone who advised those of Letby's colleagues who were willing to speak in her favour that this would be bad for their careers was, unfortunately, absolutely right.

This is Lucy's best friend from school talking about her. I remember thinking how odd this was at the time because I don't think there has ever been a serial killer before who has maintained close friendships for years in this way.

However if she is innocent as seems extremely likely following the evidence at the press conference then it makes perfect sense.

It is actually really awful what has been done to her.

Has anyone else read the stories about even her prison inmates thinking she is innocent?

Equally I read she has made friends with Sara Sherifs step mother which is beyond belief…

What does the body cam footage show?

Interested in why the body can shoes she’s innocent?

I've listened to a few you tube videos, Specialists talking, I am more convinced than ever of her guilt. She is a manipulator of the highest order

@Paradoes In my view it doesn't show that she is innocent, it shows that she's going to walk this all the way to a cushioned sofa on a morning-TV programme with plentiful hugs and cups of teas, while holding court about the turmoil she went through and how she's now rebuilding her life but hasn't yet made any concrete choices on what's next for her. She'll of course still be taking things 'a day at a time', but 'happy to be through to the other side'.

Someone should bottle up her tears and sell them on eBay. They'd be a millionaire before sunrise.

I remember seeing that interview at the time. Watching it now, I just think god if she really is innocent, it's just heartbreaking everything she's lost. Even if she does get compensation, it wouldn't bring any of that back.

My take on her initial defence is that they knew the evidence was circumstantial and didn't think it was strong enough to convict her. (Remember many people were surprised that she was convicted). So they took a stance of not calling anyone that potentially the prosecution would tie in knots. Kind of less said the better.

But even there i feel I'm being generous. If they were going with that strategy then don't call a bloody plumber as your only witness! Because that makes it look like that's all you have. That just made her look worse, like they were clutching at straws.

I do wonder if her original barrister will have much of a career left at the end of this. I mean I wouldn't want him defending me on a murder charge!

I've worked in Courts, although predominantly magistrates, and have always laughingly said that if ever I was in trouble I'd defend myself! Because I have seen utterly useless so called "defence" time and time again. I would have hoped that in the Crown Court, with a case of this magnitude, it would be better!