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 think she might not be guilty tbh. That "expert" at the trial, holy hell.

Poor girl if she is innocent.

“However, having just watched today's Panorama episode, I'm quite troubled by the statistics coming from the Liverpool hospital where Lucy Letby worked previously.”

This is another example of what I said in my last comment above: Panorama/Moritz/Coffey, appealing to statistics without consulting statisticians or presenting the full data.

This is typical. The comment is inappropriate and you know that so it must be some other mystery nurse? That mother worked at the hospital she knew who LL was, stop trying to make out she was unsure it was Lucy. Where did she say she didn't have the nurses name at the time? I love how all LL's inappropriate comments are shrugged off as apparently normal but if there's ever a chance to pin it on another nurse you'll take it! Tells me you know very well it's not normal and are just coming up with whatever excuses you can.

The thing is that Thirlwall asked for a full record of any complaints against Letby and this wasn't published.

Maybe it was exaggerated. Maybe it was another nurse. Maybe it was a complaint as in having a word with a senior on the ward, not a formal complaint. We just can't tell. It's certainly far from proved.

What you’re saying here is that you made an early judgement based on vibes and have never read anything that might challenge that opinion. I don’t think is the behaviour of someone who is curious or interested in human behaviour let alone justice.

“My opinion on the medical evidence is let the scientific experts fight it out and try and agree (or not!) it's not like I'm ever going to be able to decipher it and know which side is right is it? NONE of us here are experts in it or have seen the medical records. No one knows which side is right, although only one side has been tested in court.”

I agree with almost all of this except the last line. The prosecution evidence was not tested in court. It was merely presented in court. It has been roundly shown to be nonsense.

“When you come at it from a guilty perspective it's too upsetting knowing what she must've done.”

Again you admit to having confirmation bias and somehow you see it as a positive trait that I am fault for lacking? Strange.

“You just need a sacrificial lamb to fantasise about saving I think.”

It’s clear that someone needs a sacrificial lamb to fantasise about. If it were me I’d choose an easier target. I’m not going to continue to make this point ad nauseum, but for the flupping last time:

I am not motivated by Letby herself. I am interested only in seeing justice being done because the stakes are very high for all of us. The End.

Yes. Even if it was proved to be true it is again not proof of murder.

I'm curious about the ventilated shifts data. I think it needs a fuller picture than the panorama programme gave (although I accept that they were probably trying to simplify it).

It says that LL was on 50 ventilated shifts and had 20 tubes dislodged, but it doesn't say how many ventilated shifts were used to produce the average of 1% for the non-LL shifts.

It doesn't say who put the tubes in in the first place - any commonality in the dislodged ones? These were all per baby/per 12 hours but it also doesn't say whether any of these were repeat incidents for the same baby or whether they're for 20 (or 50) different babies.

Presumably the data is from notes taken at the time. Is it an event that is uncommon so it's always recorded? Is it consistently recorded by everyone?

Presumably also if she'd been linked to any baby deaths or collapses at the Liverpool hospital then we'd know about it by now so the claim in this case is that she possibly dislodged babies' ventilation tubes 20 times but nothing else happened?

I was quite satisfied with the way that part was presented. It is odd, very odd, that breathing tubes were dislodged 40% of the time during Lucy Letby's shifts compared to the average 1%. Sure, we don't have the full data and they're only looking at a sample of 50 shifts but Liverpool have described briefly how they've compiled their data. So far it doesn't sound to me like something I'd just dismiss outright.
I'd like to hear more about this and the context surrounding both that work and the way the data was compiled, but I'm still quite troubled by how staggering it is that 20 breathing tubes were dislodged on only 50 shifts.

I didn’t say it was “normal”. I said there’s no evidence it is accurate and that even if it is, it isn’t proof of murder. How you don’t see the nuance between those positions is beyond me.

There's a longish thread running about this on Reddit.

She worked about 50 shifts altogether on the ward at Liverpool. So they were making exactly the same mistake as the lawyer at the Thirlwall Inquiry. For Lucy Letby, they counted shifts. For everyone else, they counted babies on shifts.

It's not unusual, unfortunately. These two journalists haven't been very reliable in their work on Letby. They go a bit sensational.

www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/s/qT8DOnq6ti

As someone who knows a bit about statistics I’m far from satisfied. It is irresponsible to make statements like that, especially on a
publicly funded network, without any indication of the full data and any statistical analysis. Most people don’t understand statistics, they anrent intuitive and what seems like common sense can be actually very misleading. That’s why it’s irresponsible, like the staff rota. It will mislead.

Exactly.

Jeepers if that reddit thread is correct then the way they presented those stats is inexcusable! Totally comparing apples and oranges.

I'd say that more conventional sources will pick up the debate, but meanwhile, this thread on Reddit suggests the calculation is wrong.

www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/s/qT8DOnq6ti

It's exactly the same claim made then dropped at the Thirlwall Inquiry after media and academic criticism.

Probably worth mentioning too for some if not for all that accidental extubations happen for all sorts of non sinister reasons, and can cluster around particular babies for a reason.

There's a comment on that thread from someone explaining why you wouldn't expect a regular rate. Looks like Letby might have had a cluster. But looking at the rest of the thread, it seems to have been exaggerated.

I'm not great at maths but im great at nicu. You can get some weeks where there are no tube dialodgements and some weeks where theres one every day. You can have two in a room on the same shift and then none while you are working for 6 weeks. You can have a baby dislodge a tube twice in the same shift. It depends on the babies and medical plans for the babies she is working. Obviously aged and gestation and where they were sedated or sedated and paralysed. But some babies are ventilated and then on sedation/paralysis for so long it no longer because effective and they end up dislodging tubes. There are some babies who you want to extubate soon so you take the sedation off and wait for them to wake up and sometimes they pull the tube out before you do. There are also sometimes recalls of the securing devices which secure the ETT which have been shown to be faulty.

Great for you, but why do you assume that I don't? I think you've incorrectly assumed that I must not be educated in maths or statistics without knowing what my profession or education is (not that I need to prove myself).

Yes that piece lent itself well to tv, but it doesn't need to be incorrectly sampled and analysed just because it doesn't feed in to your narrative. I'm questioning it too but it is difficult to.

Mangling of stats is constant in this case!

The sources do check out - linked in that post - about Letby working about 50 shifts at Liverpool.

I think you just do get a bit mistrustful when you see particular journalists constantly mangling numbers and science. I'm afraid that those two Panorama journalists are in that category for me too. Misusing statistics has been such a theme in this case. Hope you find the information you are looking for.

I didn’t mean to insult you at all. I was saying that I do know about stats like this, not that you do not.

That said, it is not about “feeding into my narrative”. It’s about presenting misleading data as if it is a statistical analysis when it is not. This is regardless of what it shows. Genuinely.

I do not have a “narrative”. As I’ve said over and over I’m only interested in justice working fairly and rigorously.

You’re right to question the data as presented. It should not have been presented as it was without any sign of actual data analysis, evidence, or rigour. The BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster.

Ah, I see. I've not watched any of the other Panorama episodes on LL.

Completely agree there should be a degree of mistrust in the pick n mix statistics they've used in this case to highly mislead previously.

That particular subreddit is very thorough in this.

Im just totally flummoxed

When it all first came to light I remembered Beverly Ailett so thought holy shit , another one and just presumed she was guilty

I didn't follow the trial to the final detail, just heard what was on the 6 o'clock news.

I think I started to think perhaps maybe still guilty but not a fair trial when others were coming forward and their views were getting coverage

The one bit of so called evidence that really started me to question, was the doctor saying Preemies do not pull out their tubes

I spent 3 years crocheting octopals for Preemies. These are the tiniest wee things, made with the smallest of hooks, a heavy tiny egg shape with six to eight tentacles . The body part is stuffed hard and heavy so the preemie cannot pull it over their face, their tentacles are for the baby to tug , hold, cuddle . These octapals are accepted all over EU in the neonatal wards for this precise reason - stopping babies from pulling their tubes

That one bit of evidence made me start looking at the trial and reading up what's come to light, via the trial, via the Thirwall enquiry .

Both programmes on the tv were bias - ITV I was shouting innocent, BBC Im more then likely to be saying - a new trial is needed

Unfortunately I dont feel she will ever get a fair retrial. I worked for the NHS for 15 years , but even I would struggle to understand all the medical/scientific jargon. She needs to be judged by peers - and that is not possible

They claim that during Letby’s shifts, babies experienced tube dislodgements at a rate 40 times higher than on other shifts. On other shifts, they say, the rate was under 1%.
They then explain how they arrive at this 1% figure: you might see one dislodgement every ten shifts, but if there are ten intubated babies, that’s counted as 100 shifts (10 babies × 10 shifts).

For Letby, they say she worked 50 shifts. But in her case, the calculation treats it as if there was only one intubated baby per shift. This means her total is counted as just 50 shifts instead of 500, making her dislodgement rate appear disproportionally high.

In other words they count the number of babies for other nurses but for Letby they only count the number of shifts. I don’t accuse them of doing the purposefully but I do criticise their arrogance on not hiring a statistician having made many similar blunders on tv and in print already.

The data is objectively wrong as well as incomplete. It is not a statistical analysis and should never have been included in a publicly funded programme.

That makes much more sense - I've just read the bit where the 1% is possibly not even based on recorded data but a target that they were aiming for.

Every nurse I’ve heard speak about this says de-intubations are very common in premature babies.