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.

All this has been gone over again and again yet it keeps popping up.

She didn’t search “many times” for the parents. She searched once or twice and that’s it. Meanwhile she searched for pretty much everyone she met in daily life. Something like 3000 Facebook searches for people in salsa class, old friends, someone she met in the pub etc etc. Only a handful were for the parents. Like many millennials she perhaps had a social media addiction.

She didn’t keep shift records. She kept handover sheets. Nurses actually create handover sheets themselves when changing shifts. Technically you’re meant to dispose of them in the confidential waste bin, but MANY nurses have said that they too end up with loads of handover sheets at home and procrastinate on shredding them. I work in a different industry, but we have a similar daily document that contains confidential info. I have loads of these myself for the exact same reason. In addition, out of 230 ish handovers only 20 ish referred to any of the babies (and not all of the babies) in the case.

As to writing that she’s “evil”? Those notes were written after her first arrests by which stage she was in therapy and had been taken off the ward. If you’re familiar with CBT you’d recognise the pattern of writing down what you think others think of you. If the notes were incriminating why didn’t she dispose of them? She had plenty of warning and knew she was being investigated. Her house had already been searched previously (nothing like this was found that time strangely enough). She also wrote “I have done nothing wrong” on the same note.

Threads going on for more than 25 pages? And that's just one. Why don't you sum up for me.

you have to wonder why you've got your settings on 25 pages rather than 7

but also why didn't LL search for any details online as to how to kill babies with insulin or air injected, or why writing on paper "I'm innocent" on paper never got much attention by the press

Why is it my responsibility to sum everything up? Anyway, I just did.

Since summed up. Thanks. You wouldn't necessarily get rid of something incriminating if you felt guilty, if she is. It's still not clear-cut to me. At very least her actions are confused and confusing, which is not helping her case. If there has been a miscarriage of justice it should naturally be righted. But for now I'm sitting on the fence about her.

Surely you’re a million times more likely to get rid of something if you know you’re guilty? Or if you’re even a fraction as manipulative as she would have to be for a guilty narrative to be true? You wouldn’t get rid of them though if you know you’re not guilty and it hasn’t occurred to you that things like notes made in therapy or handover sheets stuffed in bin bags will be used as evidence of guilt.

Either you’re interested or you’re not. If not don’t expect others to summarise the issues for you.

See attached image from Caroline Oakley’s statement to Thirlwall. Literal sewage - human faeces - leaked through the ceiling into the NICU. Unimaginable that it wasn’t shut down right away.

The nurse’s statements were uploaded by Thirlwall last night but this morning they took them down again, probably because not all the anonymised names were redacted. They should be back up within the week.

Mumsnet isn’t sure about the image yet, so in the meantime here’s the text of the relevant portion of her statement.

“I did not know what the rash was, I thought it must have been related to sepsis: I do not know if I saw the same rash on another baby or if I was told or read about it in another baby's medical notes. I can recall wondering whether the rash had something to do with the previous leak through the ceiling in Nursey 1 near to where Child D was nursed. I cannot recall when the leak was but to the best of my knowledge, it contained soilage which made me wonder whether that had anything to do with the rash”

The new defence team is playing a masterstroke. By leaving no doubt they will mount a ruthless and robust defence, plans for further trials and conclusive inquiry findings to reinforce the narrative lie wasted. They have stalled Hummingbird, neutered Thirlwall and put the CoA and CCRC on the back foot. Sub judice and reporting restrictions will no longer be freely available to suppress opinion and concern. They have seized the initiative.

I find the implications for Thirlwall very interesting.

I hadn't realized until recently that both Dr Jayaram and Dr Evans went public with calls for some of the hospital managers to face charges after Letby was convicted.

That was already looking unjustifiable through Thirlwall. Now it's in a shambles.

The defence team is clear about offers of help coming in from all quarters. These might include the quarters who will start referring doctors to the GMC, complaining to NHS bodies, putting the police under the spotlight, maybe even pursuing prosecutions.

It's worth popping over over to Reddit and the Lucy Letby Trials forum for a very comprehensive and detailed analysis of Baby K and how Dr Jayaram remembers things..... and how often and how differently.....

Here’s a link www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/s/84iPe0JQo1

And here’s an archive link to today’s Telegraph story about the statements from nurses at Thirlwall, which were uploaded by Thirlwall last night but taken down again this morning for some reason. archive.ph/kmC1e

It's interesting that someone either on this thread or the headline one claimed to know plenty of people in Chester close to the investigation who are certain of Lucy Letbys guilt, and others have said "all the nurses they know" thinks she's guilty. These statements rather undermine those assertions.

It's absolutely staggering just how biased towards the prosecution every angle of this case and the Inquiry have been allowed to be.

That's a great piece - beautifully written, fully referenced. I'd love to know how anyone could read it and not feel uncomfortable about Letby's conviction.

Definitely worth a visit to reddit

Direct link:

www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/comments/1irru42/who_what_when_why_how_the_evolution_of_dr_ravi/

I've always found the fact that the coroners reports stated natural causes on all the babies, yet suddenly someone (who?) decided that they had been murdered based on (from what I could tell) was purely circumstantial evidence (she was on shift, she acted strangely, she took home handover sheets). I've said from the start that it wasn't anywhere near enough evidence for a "beyond all reasonable doubt" conviction and I suspect her defence team thought the same too. They maybe assumed they had nothing to defend as there was no real evidence. If she is innocent I can't imagine how it feels to be convicted of such awful crimes.

Wow. That's crazy. Thirlwall is trying to manipulate us into making us think she's guilty. Unbelievable.

To be fair I reckon they probably forgot to redact names that should bf anonymised. I noticed last night when I read through that many names that should be blacked out weren’t. The same thing happened with the CoA first appeal hearing document. It’s wild, but I imagine they’ll put them back up once that’s been taken care of.

I think it’s was the opposite way around. First the drs ‘noticed’ (misinterpreted) stats and probability (ie have you noticed that Letby is always there?) Then (over a year later!) Evans is brought in by the Cheshire police. More fool them though, they are too trusting and use the accusing drs to investigate the case too, poring over old records etc. As a result, Evans is given a cherry picked data set which he duly finds evidence of murder within 10 minutes over a coffee. He’s then paid up to 2 million to be an expert witness and the rest rolls out quite nicely with cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, sunken cost fallacy, and group think.

Another interesting explanation as to why Myers didn't call defence witnesses:

https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=Lucy_Letby:_the_missing_defence_evidence

It's similar to the others I have read but spells out the problems more extensively.

As this shows, the courts are not interested in the truth. Instead, it's who twirls the glitziest procedural dance. For this reason, I think the new defence team may have jumped the gun in triggering the CCRC too early. They need perhaps a further expert panel on the statistics, another on the confessions, maybe more. This would force the judiciary into a political, not a procedural decision.

That's a good point, but McDonald revealed in interview last year that Professor Jane Hutton has been working on the statistical case, and the Telegraph reported that an audit had been completed last year.

I don't think a statistical panel doing a press conference would work well. It's not a subject the media or general public handle well. Peter Elston was at December's press conference but was asked no questions. So we can assume a lot is happening outside the press conferences.

There's no reason to think the medical reports are all the CCRC is getting from McDonald. I think he was right to focus on them for the major publicity - no murders, no killer.

I think too that it's easy to overlook how extraordinary and unprecedented it is that a panel of international experts should come together, free of charge, to assess a case that most had previously not heard of. That really was worth a press conference.