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.

You have completely missed the crux of the issue - that the evidence presented at those trials was deeply flawed. Medical opinion that is now widely disputed was presented to the juries as fact. To argue that she is guilty because these juries found her so is nonsensical.

It now only seems to be the least intelligent members of society apart from a few arrogant individuals in the legal profession who have a vested interest in her guilt who still believe she did it. There is zero evidence of a crime even having been committed.

Hilarious.

Why would lawyers have a vested interest in her guilt? You do realise they are just doing a job and get paid irrespective of whether she’s in jail or out on the streets?

I think the opposite, I think that it’s the thickest people who think she’s innocent.

14 world class experts are no doubt cut to the quick by your dismissal.... 🙄

I think the opposite, I think that it’s the thickest people who think she’s innocent

I followed a direction to the Chester Standard daily links on a certain other forum and from there to the forum threads for a browse. You are definitely incorrect. They are 100% convinced of her guilt and the standard of literacy, comprehension and critical thinking is dismal.

It isn’t about ‘I think she’s innocent.’

Firstly it was ‘we are not convinced of her guilt.’

Now it is ‘it seems no crime was committed in the first place.’

You can think that. It's idiotic but you are free to do so.

Unfortunately you're also allowed on a jury.....

I see. Feel free to critique the press conference. Where did you feel the experts (genuine in this case) went wrong?

Bunch of thickos, those neonatologists, the lot of them. That Shoo Lee, what a dimbulb.

Whereas Judith Moritz, what a masterful intellect.

And of course if no crime was committed the argument comes full circle, because she cannot be guilty of a crime which did not happen, so she must therefore be innocent of it.

I for example am completely innocent of committing the train robbery outside Slough last week, because there was no train robbery outside Slough last week.

There having been no crime committed may be one of the few occasions on which someone can be definitively said to be innocent of that particular crime, come to think of it.

I have a question.

In the original trial, as I recall, Dr Evans' medical explanations were all peer reviewed by one further British neonatologist - from memory from Guernsey?

But regarding the other prosecution medical experts eg. The pathologist, radiologist etc - did they ever review the full case notes and independently come to the same conclusions on cause of death as Dr Evans? Or was Dr Evans' hypothesis put forward, and they were asked if their specific area of speciality (eg radiology, haematology etc) supported this thesis? Eg. Dr Evans proposes the child was killed by air embolism, do the radiographs support that theory?

I'm seeing on other threads 'oh it wasn't just Dr Evans, other doctors have evidence in line with him' - but I think it depends on what exactly their brief was, as to how relevant it was.

I do think it'll be interesting if the full paper from Dr Lee et al will go into why each of the prosecution assertions was wrong e.g. the radiological findings which were said to definitely evidence air embolism etc.

I am wondering when anything is likely to happen. Does anyone know re timescales? It must be absolute torture.

It’s a life time sentence of torture for the parents of those babies.

This is a great point. The more I read about the process taken by the expert witnesses in this case the more evident it is to me how it can easily be subject to confirmation bias. The processes in place within science that are standard e.g. being ‘blind’ to certain factors, peer review etc seem to be missing from court processes, as I understand them from learning about this case.

According to Prof Modi in today’s Guardian, the other experts reviewed Evans’ findings they did not do independent detailed case reviews:

In assembling their case, the police relied principally on the opinions of Dr Dewi Evans, a long-retired consultant paediatrician with experience of neonatology who wrote to the National Crime Agency to offer his services. In the view of our panel, he drew selective conclusions which were not consistent with the full range of evidence. (Since the press conference, Evans has said he was not selective and that he identified “several problems” in the care of the babies.)

Other experts were instructed to “peer review” his opinions. They were not all asked to go through the cases in detail. It requires specialist knowledge to judge the experience or expertise of medical practitioners, and neither the police nor legal teams are necessarily in a position to do so. Had they taken advice or had guidance available to them on how to assess the suitability of an “expert”, it is possible that they would have sought alternative opinions that could have reached different conclusions.

Link

It was a combination of issues. The hospital got two external reviewers, including consultation with further pathologists. Meanwhile they faced mounting pressure from the consultants who said nothing found alleviated their concerns and that they would only be satisfied with an exercise involving police investigatory powers.

Around this time, Dr Jayaram told human resources at the hospital that he had actually witnessed suspicious incidents with Letby and babies H and K. He had never mentioned this to anyone before. A year had passed. He later drew back on both accusations with police and Thirlwall, but obviously HR told management.

Modi's article is great, but it doesn't recognise that the consultants were not willing to go with further medical investigation at this stage. They presented a very partial view of things to the police, and then Evans contacted the police to volunteer to be expert witness. Lucy was dreadfully unlucky.

He gets a ton of vile personal abuse on pretty much every thread I’ve read. X seems to hide posts like that in the bottom of the thread, so maybe you didn’t see the worst of it. I’ve noticed occasions when people are piling up on him saying the most vile things and I get the impression from his replies that he takes it personally, which is of course what they want. That said, I don’t know him at all so perhaps that’s me projecting a bit because he reminds of my (now deceased) dad. The man deserves to be treated with respect though.

It is. Which would have been an extremely good reason to have got this right and not dragged them through years and years of renewed horror upon horror. I have deep and sincere sympathy for the parents, but this case doesn’t exist in a vacuum. This case is seismic in terms of what it exposes about our justice system and the NHS, two public institutions that we need to be able to trust.

This is of serious, vital, relevance to all of us, our children’s lives, and our own. Even those who feel convinced she is guilty should want the process to be rigorous and just, and therefore the convictions made safe, because if the process wasn’t rigorous and just here (and it wasn’t) then it could be you or yours at the wrong end of a courtroom next time.

With everything that has come out, there is simply no way that you or anyone else can honestly say they are absolutely sure that she’s guilty. That means it must be revisited. We have to, at the very least, take a look under the bonnet. We have to insist that justice has integrity in every branch and limb, because if it isn’t rigorous and just everywhere it is not rigorous and just anywhere and that is very dangerous indeed for all of us.

@ThatsNotMyTeen ”I think the opposite, I think that it’s the thickest people who think she’s innocent.”

Based on what? The 14 world leading medical experts with 500 years of the highest standard of medical experience between them? Or is it all the experts from the Royal Society of Statisticians that are thick? In fact, can you name a single leading expert from any field at all who is still banging the guilty drum? Even Ken MacDonald and Joshua Rozenberg are advocating for the CCRC to refer back to the CoA now and they were very much not like that even a month ago.

The truth is that there are zero legitimate experts making the guilty argument now. Why? Because it’s blindingly clear that this case is rickety af if not an outright miscarriage of justice of historic proportions. There is far too much riding on this for us to simply look the other way now. Not wanting a review of it at this stage, whatever form that takes, is completely nonsensical even if you’re personally certain that she’s guilty. There’s no way to handwave all of the myriad issues here if you’re honest and balanced. Insisting on the integrity of justice is the smart approach and you have nothing to fear from that. The alternative is the height of idiocy and self-inflicted harm, not just to one’s self, but to the whole of our society.

Usually the CCRC can take ten years on a good day. It doesn’t look like it will do so here though. They assembled a special team for this case last September, in anticipation of receiving an application. They announced that they’d opened the case for review the same day as the press conference, which is when they received the application pack. Pressure is on for the CCRC to claw back some credibility after the Horizon scandal and Andrew Malkinson etc. It could still take years, though probably not ten.

I don’t have a crystal ball, and it is a hefty case with a lot of detail, but if I was a betting woman I’d say there’s a good chance the CCRC will have completed their review within the next 12 months. I think that’s conservative too.

The reason I asked is this - the consultants didn’t like the RCPCH conclusions - dated November 2016 published Feb 2017 and they didn’t like the conclusions of Hawdon and McPartland. I have wondered whether they went to the police in April 2017 as a way of avoiding further detailed case reviews by a panel recommended by the RCPCH. Also, by that time they’d been told by a QC that the parents of baby C would have a case for negligence and other parents had instructed lawyers.

It’s quite easy to block people on Twitter though, he’s blocked a whole lot of people tonight.

I think the consultants genuinely thought they weren't at fault. They wouldn't have wanted police and more medical experts scrutinising their practice otherwise. They weren't to know they'd get Evans playing Sherlock.

But I think that a victim mindset had set in and they believed they were being scapegoated and were likely to have to shoulder blame. I've no doubt the issues you mention played into their insistence on making it a police matter for that reason, so yes, I agree with you.

Brilliant post thank you

The issue is not even whether LL is innocent it’s whether there were any crimes at all. There’s zero evidence the offences ever existed.