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.

Here is an article showing that the police / prosecution were unwilling to commission the work necessary to put the statistics in context, as @HeadbandUnited outlined

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/10/lucy-letby-police-cps-handling-case-raises-new-concerns-about-convictions

And yet, it's worth remembering, the judge instructed the jury that if they found Letby guilty of some charges, they could consider it more likely that she was guilty of others, even without knowing how she had committed the crimes. If statistics were not to be used in this case, nobody told the judge .

No it is not. No more than saying Bob had his head bashed in which was murder and so did Linda and it was also murder and the only person who was in the area on both occasions and had the opportunity was Gary the handyman so we think it was him.

It’s placing her at the scene of the crime every time, once you are satisfied that it was a crime. It’s called circumstantial evidence and people are convicted on the basis of this all the time. If you say it’s murder, the question is who did it on a crowded ward. But if you can show that one person was there for all of the cases that you think were murder then that would be (circumstantial) evidence it was them. Yes in every collapse, it could (although unlikely) have been someone else but it’s for the jury to decide whether they think it was LL.

Statistics based arguments are ones where they say “there is 1 chance in a million that this was not murder” (Sally Clark) or that “the statistical likelihood of a baby dying on someone’s shift is 100,000 to 1” (Lucia De Berk). That was never argued.

plus of course, in her applications for appeal, LL has never mentioned anything about flawed statistics being used because it never was.

“And yet, it's worth remembering, the judge instructed the jury that if they found Letby guilty of some charges, they could consider it more likely that she was guilty of others, even without knowing how she had committed the crimes. If statistics were not to be used in this case, nobody told the judge”

Not statistics. This is something called similar fact evidence (SFE) where you decide someone is guilty of one offence on the basis that they are guilty of another so it shows a pattern of behaviour. It’s nothing to do with statistics in the sense that the articles cited suggest. Normally SFE or evidence of previous convictions is excluded because it is more prejudicial than probative. However the judge can allow it which he did here. So if you are sure that she killed Baby A, you can use that fact to decide whether you think she also killed Baby B on the basis that she is a person who kills babies.

That is a minor statistical exercise, yes. But your Linda and Bob case doesn't depend on it, so doesn't (need to) depend on statistics.

If Gary was the only person in the area with the opportunity for both Linda and Bob, would you not be able to prove he has killed Linda without knowing about Bob, and vice versa, assuming the evidence that the head was bashed in by another human being is reliable?

Now try that for baby F, for example, where somebody is accused of poisoning an IV bag at an unknown time, with no eyewitness or forensic evidence. Why is the culprit Letby, rather than Dr Brearey, Tony Chambers, Nurse W, the plumber, or a random visitor? Could the case of baby F have been tried as a stand alone?

And the pattern of behaviour comes back to statistics - the data saying Letby was there.

What articles cited? I think you are mixing up two things here - articles people are citing on various aspects of Letby's case, and basic facts about what statistics are which you won't necessarily find in those articles.

Normally SFE or evidence of previous convictions is excluded because it is more prejudicial than probative. However the judge can allow it which he did here.

Which should really be ringing alarm bells.

Could the case of baby F have been tried as a stand alone?

Yup, back in the day when they hung people they would sometimes only try one count of murder where there were multiple victims. Clearly if you're hanging someone you only need one conviction.

That was very sensible IMHO and there was zero danger or multiple weak cases being accumulated to create a falsely strong case.

It’s placing her at the scene of the crime every time, once you are satisfied that it was a crime

Once again - that is not the sequence of events. Lucy's presence was used to determine if an event was determined to be suspicious. Evans' initial review of the data included multiple suspicious incidents that were later deemed to be non-suspicious because Lucy wasn't on duty for them. The data was polluted right from the start.

To use your Bob/Linda/Gary example, it's more akin to it being decided that Bob and Linda both falling off a staircase that had a faulty bannister must have been murdered by Gary because Gary worked there.

There was certainly no natural or innocent explanation in the case of baby E, who suffered massive blood loss due to gastrointestinal trauma and bleeding caused by an attack. This was determined to have been caused by ‘rigid’ medical equipment. His mother found him with blood on his face and she said that he had suddenly started screaming when LL went to ostensibly attend to him. These babies are so small, they can’t even make much noise unless they as in extreme pain.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-63624914.amp

It was raised as a ground of appeal in the permission hearing that the judge had allowed it. The court of appeal considered it and found it was an appropriate direction to give. So someone has reviewed that decision.

One of the overlooked bombshells of the Thirlwall hearings for me was the detail of how the hospital looked for "unexpected" collapses after the consultants raised suspicions.

There is no definition of an unexpected collapse and there was no practice of noting or counting them, you see. So they couldn't just call up a list of unexpected collapses and see who had been on shift.

They undertook two smaller scoping exercises that had problems of their own, but how did they survey the whole period?

They did a word search on their medical records for the word collapse near her name!

It would make you despair of humanity sometimes, this case!

The "suspicious" evidence in this case was - baby screaming, blood around mouth. Letby, as his nurse, was present but was not touching him when his mother attended. Obviously there are many natural explanations for a dying child bleeding and crying that don't involve murder. Otherwise, Letby would have been suspected on the spot, instead of the case of baby E being scooped up and added to the charges late in the investigation.

No, initially the suspicion was raised based on the circumstances of the collapses. Dr Evans did not become involved until LL had been arrested and identified as the only suspect.
I am not sure what your issue with it is or what difference it would make if you had a table showing every single death or collapse in the hospital. It’s still the case that these particular cases were deemed suspicious and Dr Evans testified that they were deliberate. What difference does it make if you have a different table that shows other events if you don’t think those other events were suspicious (whether she was there or not)?

And of course once she is identified as a person of suspicion you are going to examine every incident where she has been involved to see if something was missed. As was done in Harold Shipman’s case once he was suspected of one murder - they reviewed all his patients who had died but only charged him with murdering some of them. What if HS had objected to that and said that because some of them were natural causes and took place when he was nowhere near them it was unreasonable to look into all his cases?

Is your argument that it was murder but it wasn’t LL and that a differently drawn table would have shown that it could have been someone else and that the deaths left off were also potential murders? Or is your argument that none of the cases were murder at all and were all due to natural causes or negligence? In which case why does it matter if LL was there or not? If it wasn’t murder, she isn’t guilty is she?

Or are you saying that the police and consultants were unfair in focusing on LL from the outset and never considered anyone else? In which case, tough. The police can use whatever way they think fit to investigate and identify suspects (as long as it doesn’t breach the law). They can investigate someone based on their neighbours saying they’re a bit dodgy.

And the only evidence for this is from the mother and I'm pretty sure the mother didn't say anything until after she realized Letby "was a murderer". (Will welcome correction if I'm wrong.)

Yeah but this was evidence heard by the jury and they concluded that she was guilty.

I think ultimately it comes down to people not liking the decision made by the jury. No outcome short of a complete pardon with no retrial will be sufficient for LL’s supporters. If you have a retrial and Dr Lee and his experts give evidence and the jury still prefers the prosecution evidence you will get the same arguments made that people don’t think it was murder.

Here is the international expert panel summary on baby E

Baby 5 (Child E) was a 29+5/7 week, 1327 grams birth weight, twin 1, male infant, who was born by semi- elective
Caesarean section for twin-twin transfusion syndrome, with oligohydramnios. Antenatal ultrasound showed dilated small
bowel loops and absent/reversed end diastolic flow. Baby 5 required bagging at birth and continuous positive airway
(CPAP) for apnoea. He showed signs of infection with low white cell and neutrophil counts, and high blood sugar, which
were treated with antibiotics and insulin. Chest x’ray was clear. Four days later, he developed respiratory distress
(desaturation, chest recession, oxygen need) and bilious aspirates from the nasogastric tube, but the abdomen was soft
and not distended. He had two episodes of massive gastrointestinal bleeding with at least 25% of estimated total blood
volume aspirated from the nasogastric tube. He was given normal saline but 40 minutes later, he suddenly deteriorated,
with desaturation, poor perfusion, low heart rate 80- 90/min, and purple patches of discoloration over the abdomen. An
hour later, he collapsed again and died despite resuscitation efforts.

CONVICTION

It was alleged that Baby 5 died from inflicted trauma causing upper GI hemorrhage, and intravenous injection of air,
causing air embolism resulting in collapse, patchy discolorations of the skin and death.

PANEL OPINION

Baby 5 was at high risk because he was preterm, had twin-twin transfusion with oligohydramnios, and his antenatal
ultrasound showed reversed end diastolic flow and dilated small bowel loops. This meant blood was being sucked out of
the fetus at the end of each cardiac cycle, and the intestines were likely damaged before birth. The 2 episodes of massive
gastrointestinal haemorrhage were most likely due to in-utero hypoxia causing stomach or small intestinal ulceration,
and erosion into an intestinal blood vessel; or to a vascular abnormality like Dieulafoy’s lesion, which can cause life-
threatening hemorrhage. His 25% blood volume loss was likely an underestimate because more was likely lost in the
intestines. Emergency transfusion with group O negative blood should have been immediately given earlier during
resuscitation. Since 20% blood loss causes shock, and Baby 5 lost much more, this was fatal. Patchy skin discolorations
are caused by dilation and contraction of small blood vessels in the skin in response to hypoxia, which can occur in many
conditions and are not diagnostic of air embolism. .... If air was deliberately infused through a central venous line to cause air embolism, the line will have to be
reinfused with fluid to prevent detection. Collapse from air embolism occurs instantaneously. It is doubtful that this can
be achieved quickly enough before other staff in the unit respond to the collapse.

CONCLUSIONS

1. Baby 5 died from massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage due to either intrauterine hypoxia causing stomach or intestinal ulceration or a congenital vascular lesion.
2. Emergency blood transfusion should have been given much earlier.
3. There was no evidence of air embolism
4. Post-mortem should have been requested

[One of the consultants who later accused Letby told the parents no post-mortem was needed]

[Link to combined summary document from https://ripe-tomato.org/2025/06/05/lucy-letby-baby-codes-neonatal-unit-classification/ , section 2]

This isn’t correct. Suspicion was raised by the spike in deaths and the consultants association with LL’s presence. “She must be doing something”. Evans sifted through case notes looking for suspicious aspects of deaths/collapses and has admitted that he didn’t do this blind. He boasted that he identified deliberate harm within 10 minutes of reading the first set of notes that he was given to review.

The amount of blood that baby E lost couldn’t have been an accident - that was agreed on. So someone did it on purpose. So it was murder.

Did anyone raise the alarm on this at the time given it was so obvious it was deliberate harm? Were the appropriate reports made?

You're not making any sense. People die naturally from internal haemorrhage every day, all over the country.

Baby E had an obstretic history that made him especially vulnerable to this. Unfortunately, the consultant who was at his deathbed was so sure the death was by natural causes that she persuaded the parents not to have a postmortem - otherwise we would likely have direct evidence of the cause of death. But she knew the child bled to death and certainly didn't suspect murder.

One of the problems is that there was a growing awareness in the department that babies were dying in strange circumstances. At least one person in a managerial role repeatedly refused to listen to the concerns about Lucy Letby that were being raised by doctors. And staff were told that they should apologise to her.

People were actively trying to cover up what she was doing and refused to get rid of her.

Okay I really have to go back to work now and stop replying to this 😂
I actually am thinking maybe just to shut people up and stop the incessant opinion pieces, give her another retrial and let her call her experts and let them be cross examined and see how they stand up to that. Then if (which I’m confident she will be) she is convicted, nobody can say she didn’t have a fair trial. Yes it would be giving her extreme special treatment not seen by any other defendant but if it shuts people up 🤷‍♀️
You'd probably also need to let out the other killer nurses because they were also suspected and convicted for being present in a high number of unusual deaths. One of them was caught with a fucking syringe of the drugs used in his pocket but he’s also bleating on about “flawed statistics” being used (and is also represented by LL’s publicity hungry new barrister Mark McDonald). Unfortunately the CCRC have been knocking back all his applications as his case is as bullshit as LL’s but let’s let him out too. I mean why not. Seeing as pointing out that the defendant was there for all the incidents you’re accusing them of is now apparently making an argument based on statistics 🤡

No, you’re not making any sense. The haemorrhage was caused by a hard object.

So why did the consultant persuade the parents that a post mortem was unnecessary?

There is no specific amount of blood loss that means murder. If my abdominal sorta ruptures, as they can, and I bleed to death here in my armchair, the police will not be conducting a statistical analysis of neighbours who have a house key and weren't at work this morning. It will be a natural death. Just as baby E died a natural death, with his condition exacerbated by delayed treatment.