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.

I am watching the documentary now. It does indeed raise questions.
However as a non medical expert viewer, I’m still in the same position I’m having to accept what the experts are telling me because I don’t know different.

Also, there is no need to counter the arguments of these people because the trial has already taken place. For example, the medical statistician argued that the chart showing she was present for all the significant incidents but that there were significant incidents that she wasn’t present for and that data was not included. That is indeed damning, however the documentary does not explore this further at all which was frustrating.

It will be interesting to see what happens moving forward. If there is a retrial, will a host of equally qualified experts continue to maintain there is evidence of her guilt?

This is my feeling. She was not convicted by a jury of her peers, because her peers are neonatal nurses and doctors, not lay people.

It’s in the ITV documentary.

I do wonder if she might be autistic, which is why she hasn’t reacted in the way people would expect. A close relative has ASD and keeps documents from work (not personal related) in bags despite having a shredder.

I could imagine them responding in a similar way to LL, sitting blankly etc, while they are doing a lot of thinking their facial expressions do not show this.

Also it might account for why she wasn’t super popular at work/ a stickler for detail/a bit off. Although I assume some kind of exploration would have been done to see if this was the case.

You don’t need anybody to see someone murdering another person to convict them of that murder - we all know that. What is so remarkable about this case is that the small amount of circumstantial evidence is flawed.

Something always felt ‘off’ to me, from the very beginning. But that is nothing, just a feeling and obviously not evidence or even based on evidence. I have a tendency to think in terms of what would make a good story. I remember watching a documentary way back where Ravi Jayaram was being interviewed and my brain went on this ridiculous flight of fancy where I thought ‘What if it was him? That would make a great novel.’ Obviously I spend far too much time listening to crime audiobooks! I don’t think it was him, just to be clear, but there was something about how he spoke that was just too sincere and earnest and planted the seed in my head. I do remember wondering if Lucy Letby was a scapegoat. I didn’t follow the trial much and wasn’t particularly surprised when she was found guilty. But I have been following all the subsequent reexaminations of the evidence and there seems to be a very compelling case for an appeal. I am biased I suppose, in that I don’t automatically trust doctors due to my own personal experiences. I think many of them would do absolutely anything to save their careers. And the same goes for administrators higher up the chain. I am also biased because, being from NI, I don’t have blind faith in the justice system.

This is not the USA. We will NEVER know all of the evidence. Everything we hear in "documentaries" and the news will always be a portion of the evidence. Only those in the court and the jury will know everything and they will not be allowed to discuss certain evidence, names etc.

There are living children involved the CPS will never allow the full evidence to be revealed or published.

I always thought she was not guilty, and I feel even more strongly now

I've been bullied and ostracised at work. I know just how evil people are. They are nasty.

It's so clear the workforce here collectively decided to blame her for these deaths, to avoid being blamed as negligent as a whole.

She's so vulnerable. I was also vulnerable when being bullied, and blamed for things that weren't my fault. Thank goodness i wasn't in charge of lives. I pray she is protected and loved by her family.

I also pray for the mothers of these babies who died at the hands of a shitty hospital.

I'm not longer someone who bleats on about nhs doctors being heroes. They're heroes depending on your social standing, nothing else.

I think she reacted ‘oddly’ because she was pumped full of anti depressants and probably completely numb.

The thing that troubles me now is the manipulation of evidence and presentation of it in an incriminating way. The testimony of her colleagues and mentors. There seem to be the seeds of a disturbing cover up. I fear justice hasn't been served and there may be a more awful betrayal in the form of a terrible neglect and incompetence by the hierarchy and clinical neglect. The closing of a unit is not done lightly. The awful thought that one person has been scapegoated for that whilst guilty others have escaped justice is shocking. I wasn't sure before but I'm really unsure now. There was a lot of media hype at the time which was perhaps a smoke screen. So very sad and unfair to all concerned.

Cannula, not ETT

Here's the summary by the expert panel on this case.

To, be fair, it seems to be something that may have exacerbated an existing crisis.

The hospital described this as an attempt to aspirate.

PANEL OPINION

Baby 15 collapsed because the subcapsular haematoma ruptured causing acute major haemorrhage into the peritoneal cavity sufficient to cause a near halving of the haemoglobin level. Subcapsular liver
haematoma is the result of “traction” or “shear” forces applied to the thin, fragile liver capsule through the hepatic ligaments. In Baby 15, this was highly likely the result of the extremely rapid delivery, which
is a well-recognised cause of birth injury. Bleeding into a subcapsular haematoma is characteristically initially slow because it is contained by the pressure of the enveloping liver capsule; in these early stages
the clinical signs are insidious and difficult to recognise. High pressure ventilation decreased venous return to the heart and contributed to liver congestion. The slow, deterioration is then characteristically
followed by acute collapse when the capsule ruptures, releasing free blood into the peritoneal cavity.

The significance of the rising heart rate and falling pH before the terminal collapse were not recognised.

The blind abdominal insertion of a needle during resuscitation may have penetrated the right lobe of the liver, causing further injury, noted by the pathologist as parenchymal haematoma and laceration. Blunt
direct trauma to the right abdomen or chest is implausible because it is very difficult to generate the kind of forces required to produce the observed injuries in a liver protected by the lower chest wall.
The gaseous distension of the intestinal tract was likely due to air swallowing and insufflation during non-invasive respiratory support. The suggestion of injection of air into the circulation is conjecture.

From the first expert report linked at: https://lucyletbyinnocence.com/#shoolee

Exactly. Yes, you are allocated your patient. You sign for drugs, so that is accountable. IV drugs are double checked but oral drugs aren't. But nursing is a team event. It just isn't as simple as 'Lucy was on duty'.

Another example from ICU/HDU. One nurse might have been allocated patients 1 or 2. Another nurse is allocated patients 3 and 4, and a third nurse is allocated patient 5. If patient 2 needs to go for an urgent scan, it may not be nurse 1 who can take them, because they're not transport trained, for example. So the staffing gets swapped for that period.

So yes, you could say 'These nurses were on rota and allocated to these patients', but you couldn't say for sure who had done what and when, several months down the line.

This. I’ve also screenshotted 3 posts from last night that echo my thinking. There isn’t enough evidence that the babies were deliberately murdered and I fear that LL was the convenient squirrel. In my personal opinion corporate manslaughter charges against some of the managers and consultants would be appropriate however.

What I will also say though, is that I don’t think LL had the right psychological profile to be a neonatal nurse and this does worry me. My own background is in a different critical care specialty and the way we do our best for patients is by working as a team and providing quality, evidence based care and treatment. People with main character syndrome don’t belong. I have always had an instinctive mistrust of any HCP who inserts themselves with the sickest patients and thrives off the drama. Repeatedly taking home hundreds of handover notes doesn’t just breach confidentiality, it’s psychologically unhealthy.

Im not convinced that LL was safely convicted, but she isn’t anyone I would want to work alongside.

I am convinced from seeing the information and documentaries that she provided the perfect scapegoat and cover for a lot of people embroiled in a mess.

Before the trial I thought she was innocent because she was entitled to that presumption.
After the trial, I thought her guilty on account of her conviction.
If any appeal is successful then I will change my mind to the extent of its success in overturning the original verdict.
Why do you need any further opinions?

I was on jury duty once and it was clear to me the man was guilty. However there wasn’t enough evidence to prove it brd. I had to say not guilty. I still think about it many years later. Not a nice place to be.

LL the jurors obv had enough evidence to say guilty. On that basis alone, I think she’s guilty.

LL the jurors obv had enough evidence to say guilty. On that basis alone, I think she’s guilty.

Like the jurors had in the Sally Clark trial?

I think the recent debacle in Fife, though not on the same scale, and an employment tribunal not a murder trial, proves this point. A cabal of consultants ganged up on an experienced nurse to support another doctor. The other doctor even tried to claim the nurse had endangered patient safety ( turned out she hadn’t) and he ‘doctored’ his so called contemporaneous records of their encounters which were accepted without question by the cabal. The Fife verdict is still awaited but it will be interesting to see if any of the doctors concerned are even reprimanded let alone dismissed.

There will always be exceptions.

You are correct. A doctor himself was made to apologise to LL herself. Its well known and I've not even watched the documentary!

Sally Clark case is desperately sad but in that case ’the court had been told by Mrs Clark's QC that they had believed there was no evidence of infection. In fact, it appeared that the evidence had been known to the prosecution pathologist, Alan Williams - but not to other medical witnesses, police or lawyers - since February 1998.’

There’s no suggestion that the prosecution has withheld any information in the LL case.

They told the jury that babies had died from air embolism and insulin overdose when this was later proved inconclusive or not true at all

By who? It hasn’t been proven in a court of law.

They are saying that the CCRC may read the medical analysis that way, because it's the same evidence (medical files) but a different analysis. Obviously that's a big concern for them.

The documentary doesn't go into it but they did submit other, new evidence also. And they have new research underpinning the medical analysis, which the CCRC would normally accept. Still, there are no guarantees and I think that is what they wanted to emphasize - strictly speaking, the law could agree the new analysis could be correct and still refuse to consider it.

I don’t think that Ravi Jayram is a reliable witness. He said in court that he caught LL ‘practically red-handed’ harming a baby. Then an email surfaced where it emerged that he was only in the nursery because LL had called him in for help as she noticed the baby was deteriorating.

Yes, she could have done something before he arrived and I get that. However, it still calls into question his credibility.

And that chart!! I said to DH the very first time I saw it that it was ridiculous. Of course she was there for every murder/attempted murder. Those were the ones she was being tried for 🙄 There were extra deaths/collapses where she wasn’t even there.

If I’d been on the jury then I don’t think I’d have been convinced ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.