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.

A while ago I dealt with a lot of clinical negligence claims , this case took my attention early on and I always thought she was a scape goat. I think the more I learn the more I believe it to be the case . It’s very common for nurses and other similar nhs clinicians to get the blame when systematic mistakes are made

I think she is guilty.
She always seemed so flat....blank.Even when being arrested etc.Surely someone innocent would be crying and screaming in despair trying to protest that.
And the text messages she wrote seemed scripted and too matter of fact.

I think in all honestly, it's easier for people to beleive she is innocent because of her background, ethnicity and appearance.
She had such a normal persona.
But we all know killers can hide in plan sight.

@placemats yes but she had no medical experts challenging the prosecution which struck me as bizarre in the least or a really very poor and lazy defence.

No. My point was reasonable doubt. You are invested enough in someone convicted of murdering babies you have questioned her conviction.

Own it. You think she’s innocent. Don’t worry about the families and babies she’s convicted
of killing. Screw the parents. Your idea is far more important than their feelings.

I’ve always felt she was guilty. I didn’t necessarily think she’d be convicted. But I am glad she was. Nothing I have read has led me to change my mind. Not that public opinion is of any relevance, nor is the word of “experts” touted by her PR/legal team and not subject to cross examination in a court of law.

I don't know. I could believe she wasn't guilty more easily than I could believe she was.
If for no other reason, why would she want to cause such pointless destruction and grief. It doesn't make sense.

I fully agree with you. I used the term ‘not guilty’ because that is how your opinion would be measured in a legal context. You’re saying that the prosecution didn’t meet the burden of proof. I didn’t want to split up all the votes in favour of a review of the case by having multiple options that all mean ‘not guilty’ in a legal sense.

I think this is a fair point. Would the safety of the conviction in this case be attracting anything resembling as much attention if the nurse involved was a middle-aged black man rather than an attractive young blonde haired white woman?

Sadly, I think we all know the answer to that. When people look at pictures of Letby they see their daughter / sister / friend / girlfriend / colleague. They don’t see a mass murderer.

She was likely on strong antidepressants/antianxiety meds, and if it were me, I would try to calmly put forward my case to give the best chance. When she was arrested, this had already been going on a long time. Screaming and wailing is not the only way to react and that would have been picked apart too.

The issue to focus on is the facts of the case, not her flat affect, which is anyway easily explained.

I assumed she was guilty at first as she had been found guilty and naively thought that was that. After reading details of the case I think it's pretty likely she isn't guilty and may be being used as a scapegoat for a failing hospital.

I would say everyone behaves differently in these situations - it's the fight, flight, freeze or fawn reaction that we all go into.

If you think her reaction is important, you might want to take into account that she was on anti-depressants and has a thyroid disorder.

I'd say too, we don't know how she reacted when the police said they were arresting her inside the house.

If I was being led away from my home in handcuffs, in my pyjamas, at the crack of dawn, I don't think I'd be making any noise. I'd feel humiliated. And it's not as if the police would take any notice.

It hasn’t been reviewed twice. Two applications to appeal were refused, Refusal to appeal is, by the way, a feature of miscarriages of justice, not a sign that the convictions are safe.

”Even her new legal team have admitted that they haven't submitted anything to the CRCC that wasn't available to her initial defence team.”

Where are you getting that from?

This is interesting but also very concerning. There was one particular case though were a Dr was describing her as standing by as the alarms were going off and she was not doing anything…. As a nurse I could challenge that very easily. Tbh I think I still think the lack of witnesses by her defence is what convicted her.

She's as guilty as F.

Her behaviour is psychopathic/sociopathic.

The no emotion expressions are tell tale signs.

So she's guilty because of her reaction to being arrested and not because of the evidence by the prosecution put before the judge and jury?

I disagree with your interpretation. To convict a jury has to be sure the person committed the crime. (That is what beyond reasonable doubt means). You're adding a shade of meaning to it that isn't there. The verdict that equates most closely to what you're saying is the Scottish verdict of "not proven".

Guilty. But it’s an unsafe conviction.

There was only circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecution. Expert witness Evans gave circumstantial evidence.

She told the police she would have been observing the child as her first action, but she couldn't remember the event.

Then this year, an email emerged to show she also called a doctor for help, the same doctor who testified that she didn't raise the alarm:
https://unherd.com/newsroom/hidden-email-casts-doubt-on-lucy-letby-verdict/

This incident has had a lot of attention recently, because the same doctor claimed it was impossible for an extremely premature baby to dislodge her own tube. Apparently that's very wrong, so there's a strong possibility Letby is being blamed for a routine event.

The ITV documentary looks at all this.

Because these experts are very highly regarded professionals based in Sweden, Canada, Tokyo, etc. One of the issues with expert witnesses in British courts is that only retired or mediocre/poor “experts” who are not in demand professionally, even want to do expert witness work. Experts working at the front line of research and practice in the world’s best institutions do not want to take time away from that important work to be expert witnesses in courts. The Law Commission wrote a report about this problem in 2011 but the advice was unfortunately not taken on board.

In short, the defence could not just ring up The Karolinska Institute, arguably the best research hospital in the world, home of the Nobel prize for medicine, and ask a senior neonatologist to be an expert witness for a random nurse in Chester who might be a serial killer. People like that are on board now because Dr Lee was so appalled that he brought their attention to it. They are working on it pro bono out of professional and moral integrity. It’s an unprecedented intervention that can’t be waved away.

I really feel from reading all these online comments that being blonde and reasonably attractive has if anything counted against Lucy.

It is only ever people who think she is guilty that mention her appearance. Either to say that the only reason people think she is innocent is because she is blonde or to say that they can tell she must be guilty from an expression she did or didn't have.

I have never seen a single comment from anyone who believes her to be innocent that refers to the way she looks. Have literally never read, she just doesn't look like the type of person who would murder babies or similar, cited as a reason for her innocence.

Not sure what is going on here. Is it an idea that only people who look a particular way can be unfairly treated or scapegoated? Or perhaps a self protective mechanism as if it could happen to a person like her it could happen to any of us?

Must be lesbians 😂

I followed the trial pretty closely at the time. I thought she was guilty.

I thought the jury did a thorough job by working through it case by case and they didn't convict her of everything. So they clearly looked at the evidence for each baby. The subsequent trial convicted her of further murders.

I think she probably could have mounted a stronger defence, I don't know why she didn't.

I still think that her conviction meets the beyond reasonable doubt criteria at this point.

The people I really feel for are the parents of the babies.

I totally get what you’re saying. What you’re describing here is reasonable doubt. The answer to that is a proper review of the case. It needs to be put to bed properly one way or the other.

Have you been to many funerals? I've seen the bereaved in pieces, just holding it together, outwardly calm, smiling and socialising.

I'd never judge people on how they show or don't show emotions. Different cultures, training, temperaments, even before you consider how much neurodiversity, mental health conditions and medication can affect the way we come across.