Lucy Letby - what's happening

[Viviennemary]

In the last few days I've heard conflicting news stories. One an ex coroner saying she is innocent. And another piece of news saying the Cheshire police want to charge her with more crimes believed to have been carried out at two other hospitals she worked at.

You haven’t yet grasped that if you cherry pick the events and use an elastic definition of ‘present’, one person being present tells you nothing at all.

Turns out I can post links. The statistics of this case 101:

_8eBA56_MG

But they didn't have access to all the evidence. I believe considerable doubt has been cast on their report, and indeed on the propriety of their commenting publicly in the way they did.

That's wrong. Why do you think they didn't have access to all the evidence? They were instructed by the defence which gives them access to all material.

That means if they didn't have access to all the evidence, there have been disclosure failures and Letby's original conviction is invalid.

They have access to more than the prosecution experts too, of course, because they have all the evidence given at trial, material disclosed at Thirlwall, material from the retrial, material that the prosecution failed to disclose.

They had all the information the prosecution had and more. What do you believe was missing?

I haven’t seen this, are there news reports on it? I have only seen report that referred to the credentials of the experts who wrote the report and they do seem to be extremely credible.

While the concerns in this case mainly seem to be about the quality of evidence presented, I have to say I would be fucking terrified, reading this thread, and others, to have my future decided by a group of my peers.

Public comment is perfectly permissible - not orthodox but probably a good idea in this case. Why should Letby rot away quietly?

No actual medic has cast an iota of doubt on the report, unless we are counting Dewi Evans who of course took umbrage and dismissed them before reading it. The criticisms of the report by Internet trolls have been trivial and / or ludicrous.

Have you read the actual evidence? Of the other babies who died, she was present at all but one of them. This whole thing makes me so frustrated. Babies don’t die like this. You’d expect 1-2 a year. Never this many. They stopped dying when she was on holiday! I’m sorry she doesn’t look like a murderer, but she absolutely is.

Apologies in advance if you’re a statistician, but assuming by your post that you’re not, you may wish to have a read of these. I’m sure you would prefer to be well informed. And if you do happen to have read them, but still somehow have the opinion above, please feel free to detail your rebuttal.

https://rss.org.uk/news-publication/news-publications/2024/general-news/rss-statement-on-the-statistical-aspects-of-the-lu/

And it’s how Beverley Allitt was convicted.

@SassyTurtlei got flamed on another thread for not doubting her guilt!

okay I have now read the statistics statement and a couple of articles about it. Whilst I am no statistician, I do understand the argument they make. If you have a lot of deaths you cannot from that say those deaths were murder because they were higher than you would normally expect. The higher number doesn’t by itself increase the likelihood of it being murder. So if in the Letby case, there would be an issue if the prosecution argument was:
a) there was a spike in deaths
b) this spike means that the “excess” ones must be murders
c) Lucy Letby is suspicious
d) Lucy Letby was there for 25 events. Of the 25 events she was there, nobody else was present for anywhere close to as many.
e) so she must be guilty

That is not the prosecution case. It never has been. The people saying that I don’t understand statistics and that the chart is utterly irrelevant and that I’m embarrassing myself are the ones who are showing their lacK of understanding. The point is:

a) during the period in question the consultants on the ward noticed an unusually high number of deaths.
b) furthermore, they felt many of the deaths and collapses made no sense. These are doctors with 20-30 years of experience and they were flummoxed by this and said it just doesn’t happen.
c) they made a list of all the events they found suspicious and noted that one staff member was present. LL.
d) they reported this to the police who investigated.

The difference is that the position that the deaths were suspicious did not come purely from the fact there was a spike. It came from the consultants feeling something wasn’t right. The position that it was murder not natural causes has NEVER come from statistical inferences. The statisticians writing this have clearly not read the case fully and are attributing an argument to the prosecution that was never made.

And if you can’t grasp that and still think it’s a statistics case then you might want to also campaign to posthumously pardon Harold Shipman and to free Ben Geen, Beverley Allitt and Victorian Chua. Because in all cases the spike in deaths alerted the staff and in the latter three, the fact they were always present is what made them suspects. Why is LL
different?

The evidence in the Allit case was way better, and she was/is actually mentally ill:

https://www.biography.com/crime/beverley-allitt

You have literally written a post saying you understand the statistical flaws and they aren't important as evidence and then continue to use statistics to say she's guilty. (In the same post, in this case!)

Your points a-d, for instance. a and c are pure statistics. d) has nothing to do with evidence and b) assumes a) is correct which is based on statistics! Of four points one is irrelevant and the other three are essentially statistical!

I think it was more open and shut that it was murder in the BA case due to the methods used. But in the LL case (even if people don’t agree with it) there was evidence that the deaths were murder.

Interestingly a lot of BA’s behaviour around the collapses was quite similar to LL who was:
-insisting on being with the parents/in the thick of things for the collapses
-making prophetic statements like “this one’s not going home”
-immediately getting on her phone to text colleagues about incidents
-appearing to take delight in events whereas colleagues were upset about it
-insisting on being in the room with certain babies and having to be told several times to go back and actually do her job
-searching for the parents, including when on holiday and at Christmas
-keeping photos of condolence cards
-her colour coded diaries

BA did have a history of troubled behaviour. LL not to the same extent although she had been noted for lack of empathy to the extent that she failed her placement and when she gave a big overdose to a baby and was suspended from dispensing duty, her response was to make a complaint and get the privileges reinstated. The other nurse who didn’t make the mistake but signed off on it was distraught and offered to resign. That shows quite a bit about LL’s nature and how she thought of herself and how she thought of patients.

People keep saying it makes no sense that she’d do this but she actually fits the profile of a female killer/poisoner fairly well.

Also:

The difference is that the position that the deaths were suspicious did not come purely from the fact there was a spike. It came from the consultants feeling something wasn’t right. The position that it was murder not natural causes has NEVER come from statistical inferences. The statisticians writing this have clearly not read the case fully and are attributing an argument to the prosecution that was never made.

The poster is now saying she wasn’t convicted on statistical evidence anyway but rather on some feelings of consultants - and that the statisticians raising concerns have clearly not ‘read the case fully.’

I mean… I reiterate my point that I hope I’m never convicted of a crime by a jury of my peers.

None of this remotely resembles evidence of murderer, and while I know very little about Beverley Allit, she was hardly making Facebook searches and taking photos of condolence cards in 1991. So the connections you are drawing are obviously pretty tendentious.

It's interesting to see how people resort to trivia and gossip for lack of real evidence in this case for lack of evidence that there were any murders. And no, there is no evidence of murders, and no amount of colour-coded diaries changes that.

Sorry I used a-d numbering for both of them. The bottom ones are not based on statistics.

THIS is a statistics based case:
a) there was a spike in deaths
b) this spike means that the “excess” ones must be murders
c) Lucy Letby is suspicious
d) Lucy Letby was there for 25 events. Of the 25 events she was there, nobody else was present for anywhere close to as many.
e) so she must be guilty

Here, you are clearly suggesting both guilt and the fact it was murder based on statistics. That the high number of deaths means it must be murder and not natural causes.

The below is NOT a statistics argument (and if you think it is I suggest you do more reading on what a statistics based argument is):

a) during the period in question the consultants on the ward noticed an unusually high number of deaths. Nothing to do with stats. Just context/explanation for why the consultants started to notice something was wrong and out of the ordinary. In fact, certain levels of deaths will trigger an investigation anyway. It has nothing to do with statistical probabilities of it being murder, just that something needs to be looked into to check all is okay.
b) furthermore, they felt many of the deaths and collapses made no sense. These are doctors with 20-30 years of experience and they were flummoxed by this and said it just doesn’t happen. Definitely not stats as based on their medical expertise and feeing that these babies shouldn’t have collapsed and that the symptoms were different to what they had encountered previously.
c) they made a list of all the events they found suspicious and noted that one staff member was present. LL. Again, not statistics. They had identified some of the cases they were particularly uncomfortable with and noted who was present and she became their suspect. Initially of course they thought it might be negligence and they were loath to suggest deliberate harm.
d) they reported this to the police who investigated. Nothing to do with stats.

No the behaviour listed was LL’s not BA. But BA did similar things like befriending the family and getting excited about the events. Not gossip - it was evidence in the trials and the Thirlwall Inquiry

I completely missed that: consultants feeling something wasn’t right. Well that's conclusive. 🤦‍♂️

unusually high number of deaths. ... Nothing to do with stats.

How can you claim that isn't statistics with a straight face?

What? That’s not the basis of her conviction but it’s what made the consultants suspicious.

The idea what she was excited about deaths is pure gossip and speculation.

You're describing a range of normal human behaviours with nothing to do with murder there. There must be thousands of nurses who would fit into your schema.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was NHS negligence. I've worked for the NHS for 45 years as a medical professional. It's never been so bad. I feel absolutely drained these days with the huge amount of work we have to cram into each appointment and the lack of resourses.
I've recently been a patient and my treatment was appalling. I had to spend thousands of pounds on private treatment to get mobile again and get back to work. If I'd relied on the NHS I'd be in a wheelchair now. The dreadful mistakes that were made by almost every department from beginning to end were just inexcusable.

It was evidence given by witnesses in the trial and in the Inquiry. They were cross examined on it. It’s entirely different to gossip and speculation.
I wonder if some people on here think that people can only be found guilty of murder if there’s a signed confession and video evidence of them committing the crime and everything else is just gossip and speculation and proves nothing.