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 was always unsure whether I felt she was guilty or not. But I definitely felt it was an unsafe conviction.
I also thought the new documentary was really insightful though and did a better job defending Lucy than her own defence team did.

To the people screaming that we need to think of the families and Lucy Letby is a psychopath and so forth.
No psychologist has ever diagnosed her nor has any skeletons have been found in the closet ie physical or sexual abuse, trauma, still births, murdering animals and so forth. It’s the British media I have no doubt if it does exist they’ll find it.
Why does looking at the snippet of evidence the prosecution has given us and now a snippet of evidence from her new defence team and going somethings not right mean we are clueless or horrible idiots. You can feel for these families and still have questions. To be honest it’s actually more concerning that you don’t have questions.

After finding out she’s basically been convicted over one of the babies on Dr Jayaram’s evidence that no neo’s can pull out their own tubes, which has been disproved by actual experts and that he perjured himself by not admitting Lucy actually called him for help, makes me so uncomfortable.

I hope they can have a re-trial. It could potentially answer a lot of questions.

The idea of a jury trial is that you all listen to the evidence and then make a decision. Of course your way would be a lot quicker and cheaper, but might lead to a lot more wrongful convictions, or even wrongful releases.

i have never been accused of any crime ( mostly because I have never committed one) but if I was to be brought to trial for anything I sincerely hope you would not be selected from the jury panel to decide my fate.

By several medical experts. One being Dr Shoo Lee, the person who wrote the paper on air embolism and whose paper was used by the prosecution and who says that it was misunderstood.

You say that it hasn’t been proven in a court of law. But how can it ever be really?

Medicine isn’t an exact science. The jury wouldn’t know or understand the science behind the theories and would have to rely on what they were told by the experts.

There were no experts at the trial to disprove or offer an alternative theory and there should have been.

I can completely relate to this and understand it, but objectively it's a terrible reason to keep someone in prison if their conviction is unsafe, and it can't be how a justice system works.

Hypothetically, imagine you're falsely accused of abusing children in the school where you work. You know you're innocent, and many experts concur, along with much of the general public. There are good reasons to revisit the conviction, but because no parent could ever be completely confident that you're not a threat to children, everyone decides to leave you in prison.

This has more in common with vigilante justice than actual justice, and would result in the suffering of many innocent people.

The problem of whether Lucy Letby poses a threat to children or not must be separate from the problem of whether she is innocent of the crime for which she was convicted. And in fact both problems have a separate solution. Having her conviction overturned would likely not result in her returning to work with infants.

I think she’s guilty.

There were no experts on LL’s behalf at the trial because LL’s multi million pound defence team didn’t bring any out.

Unless it’s proven in a court of law, you can’t say it’s been proven, because she is still locked up.

I’m sorry but no. It is extremely unusual to keep over 250 medical handover sheets. It is drummed into all NHS employees for day dot that your do not ever take home sensitive patient data. You have yearly training modules on information governance and data protection, it’s not a mistake you should make. Whether people think Lucy is innocent of murder or not, the taking of notes alone, never mind the amount, is a breach of professional conduct and would lead to a disciplinary event of its own. There is absolutely no excuse, reason or mistake in her keeping all those handover sheets, transporting them when she moved house and storing them. You make a mistake taking the odd on here or there? You bring it back and put it in the confidential waste, likely without anyone noticing. You don’t keep bags of them under your bed or at your parents house.

But the circumstantial evidence they presented in Letby’s trial was flawed, which they knew.

Not only that. The jury were picked specifically people who could be off work for six months. This would automatically excluded the more critical thinking types and jobs. She was dreadful on the stand, but that didn’t make her guilty. I was aghast she got given a guilty verdict I couldn’t for the life of me think how a jury could say “beyond reasonable doubt”, unless you’re stupid it was blatantly obvious there was plenty doubt. I think the defence was poor as they didn’t use many witnesses other than plumber as presumably the lawyer thought she’d be required to be proven and there wasn’t enough evidence. I think too many people believe on jury’s the CPS have charged you so they don’t bother to deciphering the evidence. Judges should have been deciding on this case not the kind of people I have as clients who go on jury duty and decide they’re guilty as they look dodgy.

But several things have been proven.

First example it hasn’t been proven that Dr Ravi Jayaram is an unreliable witness as since the trial emails have been found, sent by he himself, contradicting his accounts.

You cannot just say that because something hasn’t been proven in a court of law that it hasn’t been proven.

Whether or not LL is guilty or whether or not she ever gets a retrial. A number of things have been proven to be untrue.

Our justice system isn’t perfect. It’s the one we have but it isn’t the be all and end all of truth.

Yes I don’t know why people keep saying it’s normal to take notes home on here when so many of us nursing professionals have repeatedly said it’s not. You are lucky you haven’t been sacked.

It may not be normal but it's not enough to give someone a whole life order.

Initially I thought she may be innocent and a victim of NHS scapegoating. I researched the case with an open mind and read the court transcripts.

Absolutely guilty.

did a better job defending Lucy than her own defence team did.

The real question is why this is the case. She had a very highly respected defence team who had solid previous experience, so why was only the plumber called to take the stand? My personal view having followed the trial is that her choosing to take the stand sealed her fate and they had to adapt.

Why were there no experts brought in to defend her. And not a single colleague witness to support her.

Its not even simply mistakenly taking them home either is it, filing them and moving them between houses is very purposeful rather than absent mindedly taking it home after a shift.

I also read (or heard) that Dr. Lee, the Canadian Dr., had only vaguely heard of the case in the UK, it was only when a colleague of his told him his paper had been used as evidence that he got interested and then found out his report had been misinterpreted and presented incorrectly. He is one of the experts on this panel now, with these other experts, saying the conviction is unsafe.

She is female young blonde and attractive of course that going to grab attention and people are going to question weather a young woman can kill a kid if she was older or male she would not b given a second glance I think she guilty as billed

It's great that your dept works like that but some don't. One of my DCs recently quit as a ICU nurse because of the "big egos" in their unit.
Totally thriving off the drama.

I am appalled that the managers at the Countess waited so long before involving the Police.
I'm appalled that they went on to £200k posts elsewhere. If they had an ounce of humility they'd be able to see how crap they were and get a job in a shop where lives aren't at stake.

I've worked for 35 years as a HCP and met so many managers who do bugger all but cover their own arses.
There are just 4 qualified clinicians in my work team, being managed by a team of 3 managers, all getting paid more than us. Who do nothing except attend meetings for the sake of meetings. Talking about quality improvements, which is a joke when the one thing that would improve quality is to get more clinical staff and see more patients. They are also responsible for managing sickness, which again would be less if they got rid of a couple of them and used to money saved to employ several more clinicians.

Is LL guilty? I have no idea but I think her conviction is unsafe.

I also hate that people trot out "the parents need closure now". Closure at any cost? Even if a woman spends the rest of her life in prison for a crime she may not have committed? That is a slur against those parents, I believe they are better than that.

It's very convenient for the NHS and the Police for LL to be cast as an evil lone wolf. If she didn't murder those babies, the implication is that neither our NHS or our Police are safe or fit for purpose.

Your example shows someone being clearly observed in the act with evidence of planning and intention. Totally different.

That's exactly what my parents did 30 years ago when my younger sibling was in ICU. Round the clock shifts, and only didn't have an adult there when one of the nurses. who was a family friend, was on shift.

I spent 4 months in that hospital, pretty much all the time as a 7 year old.

That's what it takes for peace of mind.

As an NHS professional I agree with the posters saying it isn’t normal to bring home handover sheets. In the same way, it also isn’t normal to look up patients on social media. It really is not the same as looking someone up who you’ve met at a party etc. NHS staff are in a trusted position and it’s an abuse of that position to be looking up the private lives of patients. This alone does not make LL guilty (I believe she is, not just due to these behaviours) but it is certainly reflective of her character.

Then you’ll also be aware of how often HCPs are thrown under the bus to avoid addressing operational failures.

This makes an awful lot more sense than intubating a liver 😂 thank you

I think here in the uk and all over the world no doubt once a culprit has been named and changed by police we want that person to be gulity no matter what. The police have said she did it so she must have. Families cling on to this too (completely understandable of course ) and it does now seem the evidence we all heard to prove her gulit was not the whole story. I think aside from the dangers of a miscarriage of justice at the heart of this case are the babies which is influential in why we feel so strongly about her guilt but if the conviction isnt safe which it now does appear to be the case then there does need to be a retrial, regardless to what the crime was and how ppl feel including the families.