Lucy Letby: have you changed your mind?

[Kittybythelighthouse]

I’ve been sensing a shift in opinions on the Lucy Letby case and I’m interested in hearing from people who have changed their mind either way.

Did you used to think she was guilty and now you don’t, or you aren’t sure? What changed your mind?

Also vice versa: did you used to think she was not guilty but then changed your mind to guilty? What convinced you?

The reason I’m using the term ‘not guilty’ rather than ‘innocent’ is because courts don’t prove innocence. Not guilty is a legal conclusion about whether or not the state met its burden of proof.

So when I first heard a nurse had been arrested I thought how ridiculous. That they’d never be able to prove that the deaths were murders as they weren’t considered murders at the time and there would be no evidence.

i listened and read the daily trial coverage and didn’t think they’d find her guilty although i was beginning to have doubts about her lack of guilt.

At the time of the verdict I assumed she must be guilty as I wanted to accept that the jury would have heard more than me and I like to believe in the justice system.

but it was fairly soon after that I went back to thinking this really didn’t add up. I’ve expressed doubts on here quite soon after the verdict and was totally piled on by others. I do think more people are beginning to think this could be an unsafe verdict.

do I think she’s innocent? I’m not saying that.

Could I find her guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Definitely not.

None of the panel of experts who have come out have been paid.
The insulin theory was comprehensively debunked by them, the test used was not appropriate for babies. No smoking gun.
The doctors on that ward were out of their depth and one had accidentally killed a baby by intubating the liver.
The stats provided on when she was on duty were totally misleading ( they picked the cases they wanted and excluded any babies who collapsed or died when she was not on duty)
The confession was a note she had been encouraged to write in counselling.
Dewy Evans asked the police to be their witness and his evidence is a mess.
I really believed she was guilty before but do listen to the full press conference from the panel of experts. Its horrifying. This was a bad hospital and I feel for those families.

I've not changed my mind. I always thought her convictions would turn out to be unsafe. I still do. My mind is more towards a consultant high up being responsible and her as the useful idiot who was easy to set up.

This is the problem isn’t it. I’ve seen other posters here in the past clearly state that she might not be guilty but if there’s the slightest chance she is then better to find her guilty and lock her up than risk her getting off with it. Often coupled with a desire to protect future patients/babies. But that isn’t how our justice system should work. Did anyone on the jury have the same mindset?

Anyway people should be glad to know she wouldn’t be able to return to work even if released tomorrow. She will be off the NMC register. She was struck off but Even if she hadn’t been she needs to do 430 hours worth of work in the last three years and obviously hasn’t done. So she can’t rejoin. She could apply for a return to practice course but I doubt she would. If she’s innocent she wouldn’t want to put herself at risk again. I’m sure the nmc could find a reason for not allowing her to rejoin the register, such as having hand over notes at home.

I didn't follow the case as closely as some of you have and haven't read up on the expert witness information post the trial but your comment relating to the Sandie Peggie's case against NHS Fife is absolutely spot on. My jaw regularly clanged to the floor and became unhinged whilst watching all that unfold. Utter madness.

But that aside, if LL is innocent, is the 'hive mind' saying she has been made a scapegoat by consultants and managers who have tried to cover up their own incompetencies, poor medical care and lax management?

I think this is quite a dangerous position to take, basing opinions on what we presume someone’s reaction would be. If I’d been fired from my job, struck off working in my chosen profession ever again and was sitting through a trial with a particularly crap defence team, I think I’d be a bit blank too if I’d given up hope.

A friend was heavily involved with a case of gang rape in our town a few years ago. The men were all acquitted and the main reason was on the cctv the victim could be seen calmly exiting the building - no signs of distress or panic. It just struck me as so ridiculous because I know if that were me, I’d be trying my best to leave calmly too because I’d be frightened that if they suspected I was going to tell the police, they’d drag me back in there.

I have no idea whether she’s guilty or not guilty. But it’s always sat uncomfortably with me that the entire conviction was on circumstantial evidence, and that a significant number of professionals far closer to the case than we (the public) are, have raised serious questions & concerns.

I do think long term she’ll be freed. I do see a world where this gets overturned. But I cannot help but think about those poor families who lost babies for whom the justice system has failed. A conviction should be something that proves beyond all reasonable doubt, and provides closure. The families don’t have that with this circus.

I’ve got boxes of stuff here that have move with us several times and never been opened. That’s not unusual!

She was found in a court of law. This isn’t about a random being blamed.

I used to be convinced of her guilt and have debated from that position with people on here before. I used to think Letby supporters were simply contrarians and a bit deranged but after a while I began to see that they had a point. Subsequent media articles and the recent TV documentary have reinforced my belief that she did not receive a fair trial and I think she was badly let down by her defence team who did not bring in any witnesses for her defence (except one - a hospital plumber). They could have done much more to challenge the prosecution evidence which now in retrospect seems quite flawed.

It was an open Sainsbury’s bag of just handover notes. Easiest thing to chuck when doing a clear out.

I agree that handover notes on their own is not enough evidence but they do help paint a picture of her mindset, together with the relentless Facebook searching of the families (even on Christmas Day), the taking pictures of the condolence card she sent to the parents of the baby, and the diary entries of the initials of the babies.

I'd be more persuaded if she had only the handover sheets of the babies she is convicted of killing.

Funny because I’m also a midwife, have also worked in nnu and I think she’s innocent. As do all of my nnu nurse ex colleagues that I’ve spoken to.

as a midwife do you really think it’s possible to kill a baby by putting air down the ng tube? Enough quantities to cause a problem, while nobody sees you doing this? Knowing how thin the ng tubes are and thinking how long would this take? Bearing in mind how much normal babies can gulp in air when feeding and they don’t drop down dead but instead get tummy ache and/or bring their feed up.

But you shouldn’t chuck them out, they’re confidential. I often have handover sheets in my pocket and get home so I make a stash and when I have enough I burn them as I have a fire. Colleagues without a fire bring a bag back to work and put them in the shredding bin, so maybe she was doing this and waiting till she had a bag full to bring back.

During trial I was sure she was guilty. The information that has come out since is enough for me to say it is an unsafe conviction. This is largely based on the panel of experts that reviewed the baby deaths.

However, I am definitely on the fence. I am as open to her guilt as I am of her innocence.

Agreed they should be shredded. But she had a shredder at home and didn’t shred them. And then denied she had a shredder, even though the police found it.

I think the expert wrote the medical paper which Evans based a lot of his medical evidence on. And he says that Evans has misinterpreted his paper.

So if you’re saying he’s not expert enough why did Evans use his paper? If you’re right and he’s not an expert then her conviction is still unsafe as his paper shouldn’t have been used for evidence 🤷‍♀️

Mark McDonald was quite clear that when the experts agreed to look at the case they said they’d only do so on the understanding that if they thought she was guilty then they would publicly say so. Lucy Letby had to give permission for them to review the evidence knowing that and she still said go ahead. So no I don’t think her defence have paid people to say what they want them to say.

you could argue that payment angle against Evans. He was handsomely paid by the prosecution to say what they wanted him to say.

But that still doesn’t make her guilty of anything other than being disorganised and possibly unprofessional. Like a previous poster said she had handover sheets relating to loads of babies, the major of whom were still alive. So the angle of them being some sort of morbid trophy doesn’t ring true for me.

@Spookyspaghetti It is very disrespectful to the families of the murdered babies to suggest Letby was innocent. Their instincts should be trusted and they know better than anyone what went on.

This line of reasoning is completely crazy. You can't refuse to question an unsafe conviction because it feels better to have it all squared away and someone blamed. It is not disrespectful to insist on a burden of proof. There is no evidence to say LL caused the deaths, and multiple world-renowned experts have come together to argue that they died of natural causes and the hospital was substandard.

I’m of this view.

the evidence used to convict her may be flawed, but it doesn’t make her innocent.

so to answer OPs question, I think she should have been found not guilty based on the evidence. But I’m still quite certain she did it. But this is based on @MixedBananas views. It wasn’t the bosses who plucked this from thin air- her fellow colleagues found her behaviour strange and reported her. And I take a lot from that.

to be fair to her. I didn’t think the notebook confessions proved anything either. That could easily have been something like survivors guilt.

so when you look at the evidence against her, there’s lots of holes.

Intubating the liver?! That doesn’t even make sense. Do you have an article that refers to this please? I’d be interested in reading how someone put an endotracheal tube into a liver.

I watched the ITV ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ programme where they said that the chart with her on duty at every incident was actually incomplete and there were other incidents that didn’t feature, so the data had been manipulated. That in itself has made me doubt the conviction. Plus her defence didn’t offer any expert testimony to challenge the case against her? Shocking.

Before it was the notes where she had written “I did this” that had me convinced but now I’m not so sure. Seems that now it is gaining some momentum some of the people who testified are changing the evidence they gave? The doctor who said she must have injected air for example. Now that has been challenged he has re-written his report. And the Consultant who said she was standing over the baby and hadn’t called for help, it transpired he was there because she had called for help and she was waiting for him.

I think she deserves a re-trial.

None of us have any real idea whether she is guilty or not. That’s the truth.

I had doubts from the beginning. Purely because it would be so highly unusual for a nurse to murder babies, because initially there were no ‘murders’ just a high number of deaths. The prosecution then needed to find ways that the babies could have been attacked.

When she was convicted I believed that, well she must have done it.

However having at her the ITV documentary Lucy Letby, Beyond Reasonable doubt. I have doubts again.

The rota sheet was dodgy as hell.

A lot of the theories regarding how the babies were murdered/attacked gave been disproven. For example the high insulin/injection of air have been disproven by other expert. Evans used Shoo Lees paper on air embolism but Shoo Lee is saying that he misunderstood it and used it out of context.

The consultant who said he caught he red handed was proven to be lying as they found an email where he’d admitted she’d called him for help.

The ‘confession’ notes where notes she’d written following therapy and she’d also written notes saying she’d done nothing wrong.

I would suggest that anyone who it’s any interest watches the documentary. The are serious doubts over the prosecution evidence.

I don’t buy all of the “oh she’s blonde and pretty so no one believes it”. Other people say she’s got the eyes of a killer. It’s all a load of bollox. The fact is that female serial killers are highly unusual. However not impossible, and you can’t tell just by looking at someone.

She was certainly exhibiting some strange and suspicious behaviour by all accounts. Such as taking medical notes home, behaving inappropriately with families. But it’s all very circumstantial.

It’s a highly emotive and sad subject and I believe that people want someone to blame. Whereas it is possible that there were no murders, simply poor care and a hospital that wasn’t coping. A nurse who could be a bit odd/socially awkward in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Only Lucy Letby will ever know the real truth.

I agree with this.

I haven’t seen anything about her “fellow colleagues” reporting her. Where did you get that from?