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.

Because I've posted it. If you felt a belief in LLs innocence was important, you'd check. So at minimum you're asking it of people whose views you don't know.

It is, ultimately, a daft question.

@EaglesSwimwas making an analogy: her experience of what is basically a telling service for childcare was that dire she’d consider LL a safer option, kind of like Hobsons choice - I believe.

It’s been fun, @nomas.

Sadly I have limited energy and choose to use it wisely.

Yes it's a good review @Oftenaddled. This thread is invaluable for many links and I look forward to the link to a new thread. Thanks to @Kittybythelighthouse for keeping this this thread on a sane footing.

How would I know what you posted in a thread with 950 posts?

That I should check with you before saying you wouldn’t leave your baby with LL is so ridiculous as to be laughable.

I am feeling sad (and a little alarmed if I'm honest) that there are so many people who seem to have the attitude that it doesn't matter if there was a miscarriage of justice. Like someone's got the blame so we can all just move on.

I find it incredible that people aren't bothered even if new evidence comes to light. Surely ANY suspicion over the evidence should be thoroughly looked into? Especially in a case this serious, where, if the verdict was wrong, and it was bad medical practices, history could repeat itself.

What are people afraid of? If the verdict was right, evidence should still be able to back that up. If the evidence can't back it up, that verdict should never have been reached in the first place.

I’ve made a new thread www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5390441-lucy-letby-have-you-changed-your-mind

Thanks for all the discussion!

She said she would leave her baby under a watchful eye with LL over an agency nurse, and yet when reminded that LL can’t be under a watchful eye all the time, she kept posting So what?.

If I kept posting ‘So what?’ you’d tell me I was ’trying to drag the thread into a mud slinging match’ yet it’s fine when someone who agrees with you does it.

The hypocrisy is palpable.

Here’s a draft BBC complaint for anyone who wants to complain about the financial conflict of interest + mangled stats in last night’s panorama:

The BBC Panorama programme on Lucy Letby, presented by Judith Moritz and Jonathan Coffey, breaches impartiality and accuracy rules. Both journalists co-authored a commercially published book (Unmasking Lucy Letby) which promotes a guilty narrative. The Letby case is still under CCRC review, so having the book’s authors front the BBC’s coverage creates a clear conflict of interest under BBC Editorial Guidelines.

The programme also presented a “40 times higher” breathing-tube dislodgement rate for Letby, comparing it with a “less than 1%” rate on other shifts. The method shown was mathematically flawed: for “other shifts” each intubated baby was counted as a separate “shift equivalent”, but for Letby’s shifts only one was counted per shift, even if several babies were intubated. This inflated her apparent rate. No statistician appears to have verified this. These breaches undermine public trust and demand Ofcom investigation and a public correction.
www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint

I agree with you. There’s clearly way too much doubt and the stakes are far too high for all of us to ignore it.

Just making sure the new thread link doesn’t get buried.

Thanks! It’s been a good discussion, if a little heated at times! Thanks to all who remained respectful and measured.

Links to the Private Eye reports on this case:

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

Dr Shoo Lee’s expert panel: https://www.youtube.com/live/ctwulAqke5I?si=HuozT5ILee-2Uh9B

Yes exactly this 👆

Another great resource - I've linked to a page earlier, but he has a whole series on Letby - is the Jolly Contrarian, who blogs on Criminal Law.

https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=Category:Lucy_Letby

Actually, no.

I wouldn’t say that.

I’d say I have found your approach and contribution through this entire thread to be:

dogmatic
belligerent
opprobrious
vacuous

She wouldn't have been convicted without proof. If it wasn't strong enough then she wouldn't have been convicted. However if lies and fabricated evidence was planted, then that's different. Needs a retrial to establish if that's the case.

Leaving my explanation here for newcomers of how the stats in last night’s panorama were objectively bad maths with no statistical oversight:

The stats are 100% wrong. It’s not even a question. The maths are simply wrong. They obviously did not consult a statistician and the BBC has a public duty to be accurate, particularly about matters of serious public interest. I’ll try to explain it simply here:
They claim that during Letby’s shifts, babies’ breathing tubes came loose 40 times more often than on other shifts, where the rate was said to be under 1%.

To get that 1% figure, they count each intubated baby separately. So if there are ten babies on a shift, that’s counted as ten shifts for the calculation.

But for Letby, they didn’t count it that way. They treated her 50 shifts as if there was only one intubated baby each time. That makes her total look much smaller: 50 instead of 500, which pushes her calculated rate much higher.
This is totally egregious and shouldn’t happen on the BBC. They should have consulted a statistician. Even an A level maths student would have done a better job. Ffs.
Again I urge everyone to complain to the BBC:
www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/submit

Nice go with the thesaurus, but I notice you swerved my point, as you know it's true.

Quite agree. And seconding the recommendation not to engage with posters who just want to post back and forth with nonsense. It really clogs up what is otherwise an interesting discussion. Nomas is more than capable of drawing a sensible conclusion I'm sure (but is choosing not to).

I didn't think she was guilty at the time, and had assumed she had been scapgoated.

On the data problem @Kittybythelighthouse highlighted above, there's a reddit discussion that might answer any deeper questions. If anyone is complaining to the BBC, it will be worth checking that thread against any response:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/comments/1mnadmh/bbc_panorama_getting_the_maths_wrong/

Good call. That subreddit is really well researched.

Might be an idea to post the links in the new thread as well - complaint to the BBC, blog link and Reddit link. Many thanks 🙏

Your source is a reddit post and a statistician's tweet who himself has said 'It is difficult for any health professional or statistician to understand what the headline figures mean.'

So how can you say unequivocally that it's 100% wrong?

And Private Eye