Lucy Letby - programme on ITV now

[Viviennemary]

I think this must be a new programme and not a repeat. Experts are being wheeled out to try and say Letby is innocent. I'm not convinced at all. None of them were even at the trial or worked with Letby. It's all theories and opinions..

And the problem is that the less someone understands about statistics often the better they think they understand it.

People died in the Erin Patterson case but how do you know there were definitely murders? No one saw her do anything, it's purely circumstantial no? It's conceivable it was just a terrible mistake. You can't actually prove she did it deliberately. The test results showing she wasn't herself poisoned could be wrong, jut like people dispute all the test results in the LL case. If she got poisoned herself then it's very unlikely to be murder. See how you can do that for any case?

But hey Erin's middle-aged not a sweet young nurse so you don't have any problem questioning her guilt.

“People died in the Erin Patterson case but how do you know there were definitely murders?”

Because there were several dead bodies where one doesn’t expect dead bodies vs in a NICU where sadly one can expect deaths, particularly during a nationwide NICU death spike. COCH wasn’t even the worst hospital at the time.

You are completely misunderstanding how and why the trial evidence doesn’t stand up in the Letby case. It’s different in every single way. Nobody is relying on any of the things you mention to argue for a review of the case. I suggest you read through the thread again and acquaint yourself with the point, because you appear to need a map to find it.

“But hey Erin's middle-aged not a sweet young nurse so you don't have any problem questioning her guilt.”

The only person I ever see mentioning superficial attributes is you.

@Kittybythelighthouse that still doesn't address the fact it could've been done accidentally. It seems like a case that'd be right up your street where you could deny there being any murders. But for some reason you're not campaigning for her freedom. And yes the whole insulin evidence apparently hinges on whether the test is accurate or not. If it's accurate someone was acting maliciously and injected that insulin into the babies, FACT.

People died around Dr Shipman that would've been expected to die-they were all quite old, you could put it down to other causes. He got away with it for literally years because of this reason. You can't just use that as a justification.

COCH wasn’t even the worst hospital at the time.

Why did they feel the need to go to all the trouble of stitching up an innocent nurse then?

You’re rambling now. Irrelevant cases are irrelevant. I’m not a true crime fan, though you may be, so I don’t care to explore every case out there. Sorry! I’m interested in this case specifically because of the bigger picture, about the potential deep rot at the heart of several seriously important British institutions: policing, the justice system, the NHS, the media.

You should be too, you aren’t and that’s your business, luckily for you and your rights, and your family’s rights, others are taking an interest, including me so please stop haranguing me with silly questions about totally irrelevant things.

“If it's accurate someone was acting maliciously and injected that insulin into the babies, FACT.”

Thats a big if. That said, if only the insulin cases stand and IF they are proven to be exogenous, why are we even blaming Letby for it given she wasn’t even there?

Reading all this vigorous defence of Letby you wouldn't think she has been through a rigorous trial and been found guilty. And been denied leave to appeal twice. She is a convicted serial killer and is behind bars no longer able to harm the most vulnerable babies. Thank God for that.

Reading your post you wouldn't think that many many experts are now doubting the conviction and thinking that this is an unsafe verdict in what is an unprecedented reaction, which should surely tell you that it does seem like there may in fact have been issues with the evidence/convictions and that it needs to be looked into 🤔🤔

But she hasn’t been through a rigorous trial. That is the whole point of all these threads. The evidence against her is seriously flawed. Some of the alleged methods of harm were implausible, others were impossible. The prosecution expert witness is biased and incompetent and the statistics presented to the jury were misleading in the extreme.

Yet you won’t respond or attempt to rebut these points. All you will do is state that she’s guilty because she’s been found guilty, and maybe accuse me of being a fan of a baby murderer.

And so we go round and round, with you completely unable to grasp that we are concerned there has been an appalling miscarriage of justice.

“Reading all this vigorous defence of Letby

Funny, I haven’t seen any of that. I have only seen vigorous interest in justice being shown to be rigorous and fair. It’s troubling that you don’t see the difference.

“you wouldn't think she has been through a rigorous trial”

You wouldn’t, because she hasn’t.

“And been denied leave to appeal twice.”

As has every victim of a high profile MoJ. That’s a hallmark, actually. And?

“She is a convicted serial killer and is behind bars no longer able to harm the most vulnerable babies. Thank God for that.”

We’ll see. Feel free to go and listen to some more true crime podcasts while others do the grown up job of fighting for accountability in British Justice, the NHS, policing, and the media, for the safety and security of all of our families.

Well I can get behind you if it's about holding institutions to account but we'll have to agree to disagree on whether that has anything to do with LL.

As per the other thread am bowing out now. I think there's little more to discuss for me personally and I've already probably repeated myself a lot. I expect there will be fresh discussion to be had when the police release their findings (if any) and when the Thirlwall report is out. Or if anything new comes to light. Until then take care!

Fair enough! I’m sorry for any frustrations on my end. I’d like to think we can have productive discussions even if we don’t agree. Night!

The appeals process in this country is very broken (the cynics amongst us would say by design).

Look how many hurdles the postmasters had to jump before they were vindicated. Or take Andy Malkinson, the Shrewsbury 24, Peter Sullivan, Errol Campbell or the Birmingham Six.

Nobody working within, or responsible for, the UK Justice System wants its many issues to be flagged up. Judges don’t like criticising other judges; politicians don’t want to be associated with wrongful convictions (but LOVE to be seen as “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”); and the Police and CPS want to be seen as effective and definitely not corrupt or over eager to make their detection and conviction stats look better.

Letby will be incredibly fortunate if she ends up serving less than ten years before her convictions are quashed. She’ll be released from prison having been brutalised, always guilty in the eyes of some, and with 10+ years of her earnings, pension and career progression denied her.

If she’s fortunate, she might qualify for a payout but will then suffer the insult of having money deducted from it for her ‘board and lodging’ at HM’s pleasure.

OMG....How true is this.
Feel so bad for everyone involved. Must be a nightmare for the parents.

IIRC in the report they conclude there’s no evidence of overfeeding while failing to mention that even after she’d projectile vomited more than twice the amount of milk that she’d been given was aspirated from her stomach.

@RafaistheKingofClay thank you for that. Doesn't surprise me one bit. I hate the baby G case-obviously they are all horrific, but the way she kept attacking her. I can't even read about it anymore 😢and the way the parents described the change in her after that last time. I do remember it being said that for a baby of that size to projectile vomit to such a distance was practically unheard of. I think the air embolism cases can be quite hard to understand and the insulin is debated (although there's no doubt for me personally) but how can the overfeeding be explained? And it seems it can't unless important evidence is just completely ignored.

The panel doesn't need to comment on baby G having too much milk, because the doctor who was actually treating her, Dr Alison Ventress, confirmed at the Thirlwall Enquiry that her notes referred to the volume of milk and air, not just milk.

Several nurses who were on duty that night also testified that they saw nothing unusual about the vomiting.

Here are the international panel's conclusions on baby G:

CONVICTION
It was alleged that Baby 7 was deliberately overfed and had air injected into her stomach through the nasogastric tube, causing the vomiting and clinical deterioration.

PANEL OPINION
Baby 7 had infection on the night she vomited because she clinically deteriorated with desaturation and apnoea, and had CRP rising to 218 over the next days, which are all signs of infection. It is not uncommon for the CRP to climb after onset of clinical signs when there is infection. She had vomiting
and large watery stools, which are common in enterovirus infection and would explain why the blood, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, and respiratory cultures were negative for bacteria while the CRP was high at
Arrowe Park Hospital. Large watery stools are not consistent with overfeeding.

Abdominal distension and discoloration over the abdomen are common when infants are ill with ileus and they usually disappear when the infant recovers. The abdominal x’rays showing gaseous distension of the intestines were all taken after bag and mask ventilation, and are consistent with air introduced by bagging and ileus
in a sick infant. The blood stained fluid coming up the trachea are most likely due to trauma during intubation. Chest x’ray post intubation did not show any continuous consolidation suggestive of pneumonia or pulmonary haemorrhage. She received 7 days of antibiotics and recovered after 7 days, which is consistent with enterovirus infection since it is usually a self-limiting disease.

CONCLUSIONS

1. Baby 7 had vomiting and clinical deterioration due to infection, possibly enterovirus
2. There is no evidence to support air injection into the stomach or overfeeding.

...

I'll take that over doctors who weren't there contradicting doctors who were about the volume of a baby's vomit years after the fact.

Wouldn’t it have been 1:1 nursing though? So she’s only responsible for the 1 baby she is looking after that shift and not the 9 that are being cared for by other members of staff. If you are going to include the others and extrapolate the. the absolute minimum would be 4% of ventilated shifts which is still more than 4 times the average but with the caveat that the only babies on those shifts that lost tubes were the ones being 1:1 nursed by Letby.

I’m not sure that’s going to be a winning argument.

No, the statistic is, intubations happened during her shifts, not to the babies she was caring for.

In any case, if you look at the hospital description of her trainee placements, she wasn't assigned to particular babies.

A trainee would never offer 1:1 care to a ventilated baby anyway: a ventilated baby needed 1:1 care from a nurse qualified in the specialty.

@Oftenaddled ’s winning argument is correct.

I don't know why they're even bothering to argue it-we know she took a tube out deliberately at least once because she took a photo! She's got form for it, so I totally believe the stats.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/parents-say-lucy-letby-sent-27602517

The couple, who asked to remain anonymous, now believe that Letby also targeted their little boy, after picking him out as one of her "favourites". They said the paediatric nurse would get angry if another member of staff was looking after him.
The mum said Letby once sent her a handmade Mother's Day card with a photo she had taken of him in an incubator. This concerned them as he needed 24-hour oxygen, but in the photo their son had no mask or tubes over his face.

According to the Mirror, they claimed Letby quickly dismissed their fears, saying: "I just thought you would like a picture of him with no tubes."

All sorts of red flags in that article alone! But I'm sure I'll be told because that baby wasn't in the trial it's alll irrelevant or the parents came up with it after she was found guilty.

She wouldn't have taken the tube out for a photo and then admitted to it, though. Nurses don't remove and insert tubes.

It will either have been planned removal of the tube for a procedure, trial or change of treatment, or an accidental extubation due to movement, clutching, or handling.

If the parents believe that's what she was telling them, they've obviously got the wrong end of the stick.

Do you not know the difference between a nasogastric tube and an endotracheal tube?

@Oftenaddled eh? She sent them the photo herself!

@SnakesAndArrows I actually don't, could you explain?

So if I send my friends a picture of a cake, that means I baked it? Sorry, you're not making sense.

Here is what happened. On one occasion, for whatever reason, the child did not have a tube in. There can be many reasons for this.

A nurse therefore took his photo so the parents could have a picture of him without tubes. That is a kind and thoughtful thing to do.

Hope that explains things for you.

Or nasal cannulas. There is a huge difference between an endotracheal tube (goes down the windpipe and gets connected to a ventilator to do the breathing for the patient), an NG tube (tube that goes up the nose and to the stomach, used for feeds and administration of meds that would normally be for oral administration), and a nasal cannula (tube that goes across the face with openings at the nose to deliver extra oxygen to patients that can breathe themselves).

Nurses don’t intubate with endotracheal tubes. They can insert NG tubes or hook up nasal cannulas.

Removing an endotracheal tube could well result in a very quick crash and death because the patient is no longer able to breathe. Removing an NG tube makes zero difference until the next feed/meds are needed but they aren’t nice to have inserted. A nasal cannula can be removed for a while and while O2 sats might drop a bit, it’s unlikely to cause any issue if it’s for the sake of a photo. The patient can breathe, they just need the extra oxygen for their blood levels to be where they should be.

If their baby was on 24 hr oxygen then it sounds like it was a nasal cannula and maybe an NG too for the meds etc in hospital. If their baby was ventilated, they’d have said that.