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.

I agree, I think she’s guilty as hell. But there are lots of people who are challenging this. If more work needs to be done to shut them up then it needs to be done.

Why? She’s had an appeal. Why should she have more time and resources devoted to her because she happens to have the attention of a load of middle aged male daily Mail journalists who harp on about her every week? The appeal did involve a review of the evidence. Read the judgment.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Letby-Final-Judgment-20240702.pdf

She commissioned several experts as part of her defence yet didn’t call them because they didn’t say what she wanted them to. The fresh evidence she wanted to call at appeal was actually tested by the judges even though her appeal was unsuccessful. The expert quickly corrected his claims and again didn’t help her position because he wasn’t saying what she was suggesting he was. None of the neonatologists who have signed letters have fully reviewed the evidence.

Im not sure why people are so convinced she is innocent because all the evidence suggests otherwise. Lots of people in prison say they are innocent.

What you are really saying (in legal speak) is "Its no longer in your head beyond reasonable doubt". Eg confusion == doubt.
What we originally had was one set of medics saying she was guilty who were paid quite a lot by the state for their opinions (so biased sample to start with). Now we get many medics from around the world and the UK saying no murders committed and doing it pro-bono.
If you feel confused you are saying in legal speak "Its no longer in your head beyond reasonable doubt"
Confusion == doubt.

She hasn't had an appeal. She's been denied the opportunity to appeal, twice.

The expert you are talking about must be Shoo Lee? He didn't correct his claims. He stuck by them and is now working free of charge for the defence. He is adamant that there is no evidence of deliberate harm.

The neonatologists defending her have had full access to the same medical evidence as the prosecution - that's because they've been instructed by the defence and the law requires full disclosure of relevant evidence to the defence.

You are not presenting objectively accurate information in your posts on this thread, generally.

I must admit, initially I assumed she was guilty. The fact she was young and blond didn’t undermine my assumption that police and prosecution knew what they were doing. Yes, the crimes were shocking. No, I didn’t immediately assume miscarriage of justice was underway.

I don’t know why so many people have worked hard to cast doubt on it, if there is no issue.

I mean obviously both things can be true- she could be guilty AND the case could be unsafe due to flawed understanding of those involved.

It’s important to follow this through so that future tragic deaths are recorded and investigated correctly at the time.

The average member of the public is not on the jury so their doubt means nothing at all. I could have doubts that Ted Bundy was guilty but that means nothing.
LL commissioned various medical experts who were paid (also by the state but through legal aid). This came out in her appeal - she had been serving various medical reports on the prosecution in the lead up to trial. She didn’t use any of them at trial. The only reason why is that they didn’t say anything that helped her case and they didn’t refute the prosecution case. She requested an appeal based on fresh evidence which turned out to be non-existent because the expert wasn’t in fact able to refute the prosecution case.
There were also two trials - the initial one and the retrial on one of the counts and each time the jury heard the evidence and unlike the armchair detectives, they were sure that she was guilty.

Those poor families!
They had poorly babies. The babies sadly didnt pull through. No, they were murdered. No, they died because of shoddy hospital management and poor practice….

Awful.

She appealed and was found to have insufficient grounds for a full appeal. The court heard her grounds and found there was no prospect of success. Why should the legal system afford her so much extra indulgence because some people can’t seem to accept the outcome of her case?

@OurBeautifulBaby- like the world class paediatricians whose research they wrongly interpreted? Those nobodies??

No they died because some psycho who also hoarded hospital notes in her bedroom and obsessively searched their families online decided it would be fun to repeatedly attack them. God knows why. Luckily she is where she belongs now - in jail.

Everyone has a right to have their case heard if there are sufficient grounds for appeal. You don't get to block it because you don't like it.

She hasn't yet had an appeal.

Why were none of the world class paediatricians witnesses at her trial? She did instruct them but elected not to call them to give evidence and didn’t want the jury to read their reports. Why would that be?

You misunderstood me.
I was empathising with the families having confusion cast on what happened to their babies, not doubting the verdict myself. I should have included an extra sentence on the end ‘…no, it was murder after all!’.
Regardless of the truth of the matter, those families have been put through additional trauma.

They hadn’t done all the research at that point.

But that's what her defence team was for and why she had a trial. She's kept the same team, why if they were so incompetent? She could have suggested that hwr therapist was calked to refute this given she'd supposedly been told to do this

She had a full hearing seeking leave to appeal. You can only have an appeal if you have grounds for one - you don’t just get one because you want it. Three judges heard evidence including live video link evidence from Dr Lee before concluding that a) she should have brought any fresh evidence at her two trials (she had instructed experts) and b) even if they were persuaded that she could appeal on it, Dr Lee’s evidence didn’t help her and was consistent with the prosecution case. Had there genuinely been fresh compelling evidence I am pretty sure they would have allowed her to bring it at appeal but it wasn’t compelling. The judges listened to what Dr Lee said (in person, not just reading his report) and weren’t convinced by it. I’m not sure what it is you want? For a judge to be compelled to overturn the conviction even though there is no evidence to suggest it should be?

Errr wtf. Of course they had. Why didn’t they use one of the expert reports they had sought? The ones they had served on the prosecution. If the new evidence was so compelling why didn’t the court of appeal judges who actually heard from the witness by video link think it was?

Sorry yes I did misunderstand. I thought you said “No they weren’t murdered”. Apologies - it’s probably too late to edit now.

She didn't instruct the world class pediatricians whose research was used for her original trial. It wasn't obvious at that point that they would be needed, and it's doubtful legal aid would have covered international expertise. International experts only became involved after the sentence.

Sorry but you are making a lot of inaccurate claims on this thread. It's okay to have an opinion but if you need to offer false information to support it, people really can't be expected to take it seriously. I notice you're not addressing these points when people make them, just moving on to other claims.

Nobodies? You mean that panel of world experts?

Really sensible post. I don’t know if she’s innocent or guilty (and much of her behaviour such as taking medical notes home is questionable) , but it’s really important to establish the facts of what happened in every case on that unit. Both so the parents have the full truth and for necessary changes to be made to clinical practices to prevent potential future harm. For a fair trial for Lucy too. Bearing in mind the ongoing Ockenden enquiries, it is clear that there are problems in maternity services in the U.K. It is hard to interpret arrests and resignations within management, either they failed to stop Lucy sooner, or they presided over negligent units.

If it cannot be securely established that babies were harmed by intentional actions rather than medical errors or natural causes, I don’t see how a murder trial can proceed on that premise.

It is astonishing to me looking back she was ever convicted on such flimsy circumstantial evidence. I would really like to know the reasons why she’s been denied appeal (twice), but I note both appeal applications were considered before Dr Lee’s panel findings were announced so hopefully her team are working on a new application.

Lots of new medical research since 2022, some of it on specifics around air embolism and insulin that are very relevant to Letby's case.

New scientific research gives good grounds for appeal. Obviously we wouldn't want people locked up based on outdated theories. That is how Sally Clark, who had been imprisoned because two of her children died unexpectedly (cot deaths) was released - new scientific research.

She will be buried, never released. It will be too damaging for all agencies involved to admit they fucked up. They won't allow it to happen.

More the fact that the prosecution witness Professor Sir Roy Meadow was struck off for negligence and was entirely discredited as his theory was a crock of shit. It also led to other verdicts being overturned and children being returned to their parents.
I don’t think there has been the groundbreaking leap in science in the past couple of years that you suggest.