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..

The judges remarks are shocking @PaterPower

I also found that the scenario where Letby is said to have spiked the feeding bag and left it in the fridge and a nurse just happened to have picked that one ludicrous.

No wonder the, by now weary, jury took weeks to decide and in some cases returned majority verdicts.

My heart breaks for the families. A hellish rollercoaster for them.

They’ve lost a child/children soon after birth. Harrowing enough. Been given an explanation for the death. Possibly, in some cases, had worries about the adequacy of care. Then been told of suspicions their child was deliberately harmed. Had to sit through a lengthy murder trial and media circus. Have a jury confirm their child was murdered. Then, see growing public arguments and evidence there may have been no murder.

Endless retraumatisation.

To be clear, it's not zealotry to criticise anyone making a media circus out of a criminal convinction, especially involving multiple baby deaths.

And it's not zealotry to criticise an involvement of an incompetent MP to front a campaign.

I still do not understand where the sympathy comes from towards LL's Defence team and supposedly not being able to pull it together due to lack of resources. The issues were hanging over LL since 2015. It took a long time for the case to make it to court, I am finding it hard to believe that there was a struggle in putting a robust Defence case together in those circumstances - unless it's not possible to do so. To see a bunch of experts suddenly coming out now in on orchestrated way, a relatively short time after the case had finished, with their alternative scenarios is very odd and questionable.

I also want to make it very clear that the maternity care in many trusts is shocking, as shown by many reviews, including Donna Ockenden's. Clearly things must change. But what I don't think should happen is jumping to a conclusion these were the only reasons for the increase in baby deaths. Let's not forget CoC commisioned several internal reviews before the criminal case, all of which criticised certain practices, but also stated they were unable to explain the increase in mortality rates even knowing of CoC's own issues.

Would you spend the rest of your life in prison for something you didn't do because you felt sympathy for the parents?

Letby would not have had a defence team until late 2020, and I doubt that her expert witnesses were assembled before 2021 at soonest. She would have had solicitors present when questioned after her earlier arrests (I hope) but she was only charged in November 2020.

I don't think it would have helped much, in preparing the defence, that Letby had had these issues hanging over her since 2015 or 2016, because she had no way of explaining events and preparing a defence. The prosecution hypothesised invisible crimes at any convenient time. How could she defend against that, and how would she know what caused the deaths, which is a matter for pathologists and medical experts?

Once charges were announced, experts could not come forward in the press. They had no reason to at first anyway. They didn't know what the prosecution would be claiming. During and after the trial, up to the end of the retrial, various experts did contact lawyers and politicians to express their concerns, but they could not do so in public. That would be contempt of court, and publication / broadcast would be blocked.

That is why you might have the impression that experts all appeared suddenly in a short time. They were unable to speak out in public in the UK until about this time last year. Journalists were sitting on stories. The New Yorker article could not be accessed online from the UK.

You see that your impression of events comes from the fact that the media and public figures operated under restrictions while the legal process ran its course. Of course there are good reasons for that. But it is all the more important then that the media and experts are able to comment and critique once we complete the legal processes, and that we don't wait passively for justice to happen in the dark. To cast light on these issues is not a media circus.

Parents whose losses are, sadly, irreparable, whether due to murder, negligence, or natural causes.

We can save other parents such losses in future by making very sure we've explored what really happened in Chester. I suspect many were saved through the management decision that taking Letby off the ward wasn't enough, and it must be downgraded despite pressure from the consultants to keep admitting vulnerable children.

While I understand the point of the posts complaining about the media circus particularly given how bloody awful it must be for the parents, I am also rather open mouthed at this considering what a media circus the police made of the case from the beginning, with the triumphalist Operation Hummingbird documentary, briefing favoured journalists, and more recently letting out prejudicial and unevidenced claims about what they have found in other hospitals where Lucy Letby worked.
Media circus is apparently ok when it’s directed against Letby, less so when it’s in her defence?

What evidence points to her guilt

Her written confessions. The suspicions of colleagues which were raised again and again and again and brushed under the carpet by hospital management. The massive increase in baby deaths when she was on the unit. I would be utterly amazed if she is innocent.

Exactly. Worth remembering too that the police were briefing journalists who they had paid from public money for media training for this specific case. The journalists (Caroline Cheetham and Liz Hull if the Daily Mail) never declared this. They used the Letby proceedings to launch their Trial podcast, now run on a subscription model as a money maker for the Mail.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/11/letby-podcaster-in-conflict-of-interest-row-over-payments/

Investigative journalism, a serious, respectful documentary, and press conferences drawing attention to the miscarriage of justice aren't much of a media circle at all in comparison.

The increase in baby deaths was put down to sicker babies being admitted . The ‘ written confessions’ could be explained by trauma and just getting everything out on a page that she was accused of . Colleagues , Jararayma was proved not to be credible and certainly I haven’t heard from her nursing colleagues who were suspicious. I think the ghost of Harold Shipman has given heightened awareness that things go wrong but it’s incredibly rare to have a serial killer of babies , especially when there appears to be no evidence other than circumstantial . She needs a retrial . I think that will be hard though when specialists can’t agree .

And what about the other babies who died when she wasn’t even there?

I suggest you watch the new documentary.

These are outdated myths at this stage.

Confessions are notoriously unreliable, and found scribblings - scribbled alongside claims of innocence! - don't even qualify to be described as confessions. Only the media, not even the prosecution, has described Lucy Letby's distressed doodlings this way.

Only two of Letby's colleagues have admitted to suspicions before she was removed from the ward. These were the two consultants who led the campaign to have her removed, and who have proved unreliable in their description of events. Against that you can set the many testimonies of her nursing colleagues, published by Thirlwall, to say they had no suspicions whatsoever.

Several maternity hospitals will see a spike in deaths equivalent to Chester's every year. We should have another 99 Lucy Letbys under suspicion or in jail by now, ten years on, if that indicates murder. It doesn't, of course.

I would be utterly amazed if you had read this thread or viewed the documentary. There were no written confessions - there were some post it notes and doodles that have been taken to imply that, but are very definitely not confessions. She has consistently said she is innocent. The colleagues suspicions - you mean like the doctor who lied on the stand and said she hadn't called him when she had? Is she also reponsible for the massive increase in baby deaths at hospitals that she has never set foot in? What about the deaths where she wasn't on duty?

I don't know whether she is guilty or not, but we are a long way off there being no reasonable doubt. She has been convicted on statistics that are deeply questionable, and circumstantial evidence that is equally open to massively different interpretations. If her guilt is so clear, then why are so many people with impeccable professional qualifications questioning it? This is not normal or common. Usually child killers are consigned to the innermost circle of hell without any further questions being raised. The very fact that this remains such a live debate and on an international basis says that many people are not satisfied that it is as clear cut as we are being told.

To be fair, there isn't a single qualified specialist not involved in the first trial who disagrees that the accusations were unfounded. Phil Hammond has been asking one to come forward for months. Nobody has been willing to endorse Evans's claims. It's not specialists disagreeing - it's like an under-8s football team challenging a premiership club.

I lost a baby and it’s truly heart wrenching but to be accused publicly of horrific things you haven’t done, dragged through a lengthy trial and then convicted all the while knowing you’re the only one who knows you didn’t do it and then hearing not only will you never be freed but you’ll be subjected to hatred and violence for the rest of your life because nobody knows you’re innocent would be the stuff of nightmares and I suspect more traumatic than the parents who have the chance to rebuild their lives.
LL will never be safe to walk down the street, even if she’s found innocent because there will always be doubt and the things written about her and the hatred will never be undone.
Her life has been taken too and if she’s innocent where’s her justice?
She’ll never be freed because it would be too upsetting for the families but if she’s innocent why should she just take one for the team so the families don’t have to be put through an acquittal.
She hasn’t chosen that sacrifice, it’s been forced upon her because she’s one person and nobody cares about her because even if she’s found innocent they know they’ve already destroyed her life beyond repair.

Why on earth would they? They don’t have access to the evidence, and even if they did she has been convicted so what would be the point of entering the fray? It’s really naive of Phil Hammond to think that any credible expert would come forward in these circumstances.

Additionally, none of the prosecution witnesses have publicly distanced themselves from any of the evidence considered at trial, and as far as I’m aware (although happy to be corrected on this if wrong), nor have any of the witnesses instructed for the defence apart from Michael Hall?

Hammond has just asked whether they'd agree that Evans's account is plausible. Sure, lots of people wouldn't want to get involved. But facts are facts. No qualified experts outside those originally involved in the trial have come forward in support - just economists and randoms on twitter anointing themselves experts.

The documentary showed very clearly, of course, that Evans himself has changed his mind under pressure since the trial. But apart from that, all the qualified commentary is from the other side. How could scientific minds take this man seriously?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/20/my-kind-of-case-intense-focus-falls-on-lucy-letby-trial-expert-witness

In case anyone is coming to this ‘fresh’ after seeing the documentary, I would really recommend reading the Court of Appeal’s judgment. It provides a good high level summary of many of the key points covered at trial, and also discusses Dewi Evans’s suitability as an expert witness - https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Letby-Final-Judgment-20240702.pdf

I believe Lucy has been stitched up to cover the failings of bad management. The "star witness" who had been retired since 2009 had his evidence trashes to pieces by some of the world's top neonatologists

Again, how could they possibly offer any opinion without seeing the evidence? It would be an absolute fool’s errand to do so (although that doesn’t appear to have stopped some of Letby’s supporters, eg neonatologist Svilena Dimitrova..)

I don't disagree with your comment (which is very measured, btw).

However, in terms of experts, it is the role of her Defence Counsel to familiarise himself with the charges and appoint suitable experts. If there are finances available to do so now, where did they come from? How is it known they were not available before? Why are some posters stating with conviction that it was not possible for LL to appoint or benefit from suitable expert advice for the purposes of the trial? If there is a valid reason and it's known then I take that on board, but as it stands I don't understand on what basis some of the comments are being made in that regard.

You'll note that plenty of medical professionals have been perfectly happy to chime in saying that you couldn't kill a baby with air injected through a nasogastric tube to the stomach. Can't find any who have agreed that it is even a hypothetical possibility. And that's all that's asked. You don't need the medical records.

Sorry, but it's all one way traffic, apart from the trolls on twitter

But who said the police didn't make their own media circus? I didn't see any posts stating this?

I think the handling of any case of this gravity that smacks of sensationalism by anyone is inappropriate, no matter which side they're on.

She also wrote she's done nothing wrong. Her employer appointed counsellor encouraged her to write things like this out.

The ward manager/her manager doesn't think she did it. The other nurses didn't think she did it. A lot of the drs initially didn't think so - hence the "oh no, not lovely Lucy comment" from one of them. Remember she was having some sort of relationship with one of them who was married and I get the impression she was serious about him but he was having a bit of extra marital fun.....did he panic and find a good way of binning her off?

The statisticians have said the increase in deaths might be nothing more than a statistical anomaly. At worse it could be general poor care and practice, too many sick babies/not enough staff. I worked in a maternity unit once that had no maternal deaths in 20 years and then 3 in a few months....nobody was killing the women.