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.

Do we think Gareth Pierce fancied all four of the Guildford Four or just one of them?

No

People like those in the panel would not have been accessible then. The paradox of the expert witness system is that actual top drawer experts do not want to do expert witness work. They don’t want to take a year out of front line practice and research to work for the courts, particularly not courts halfway across the world.

I thought she was guilty, bur after the documentary I'm more on the fence or maybe innocent. The evidence is definitely flawed. I keel coming back to those poor women whose babies died of SIDS but were wrongly convicted of murder because of seriously flawed evidence.

I'm starting to think she's a scapegoat for the NHS shortfalls.

@Givemethesun just to answer your question my baby spent 6 weeks in NICU. He was at one of the most renowned in the UK. You can't sleep at thier bedside we could sit next to him 24/7 but could not sleep at his bedside , they did have rooms for families who had travelled far.

A lot of the Dr's and nurses were wonderful , and saved my babies life . Some, I hated leaving my baby in the care of. During our stay we sadly seen mistakes happen, when my baby was moved to low dependancy care it was one nurse or healthcare assistant to 3 or maybe even 4 babies , they were very understaffed and it was clear to see. I'm so glad my baby is home now and feel so blessed .

I do think nurses could have easily harmed the babies without it been seen by another nurse.

No I think what happened is people just read it somewhere and thought that sounds legit and then they just repeat it themselves.

For some bizarre reason people are just unable to accept that many people are not convinced by the evidence put forward and the verdict.

It is pretty uncommon for there to be cases where so many people believe that there was a miscarriage of justice, not just ordinary people but also experts, so rather than people stopping and thinking 'hmm maybe there is something to it' or even 'well I still think she's guilty, but maybe there is something to the other arguments ' they do these mental gymnastics and say oh it's just because she's blonde.

I never 100% thought she was guilty because it just doesn't add up. I used to get absolutely flamed for ever bringing my doubts up.. but good to see many more people are now sceptical.
Where's the solid evidence? There never was any. I kept waiting thinking something was being held back and there was a genuine reason they'd arrested her.. but there's nothing other than she was in the vicinity when these deaths took place. Yet there's other deaths that took place that she wasn't there for which apparently aren't being investigated.. honestly I get the impression it was just a terrible hospital

I have never believed she is guilty and still don’t. Having worked for the NHS i can well believe she was stitched up to cover up failures by doctors/managers.

This ‘they just fancy her’ line doesn't wash when you’re talking about world class medical experts from all corners of the globe. They aren’t getting involved for no reason.

As to her behaviour, that’s a dangerous way to judge anyone. People behave differently in highly emotional contexts.

Her texts - did you listen to the daily Mail podcast by any chance? If so no wonder you feel that they are flat and scripted. They were actually totally ordinary. Quite boring really. My granny probably has more suspicious content in her messages.

I thought the corporate manslaughter was brought because they hadn’t acted quickly enough to stop Letby harming more babies.

She is also being investigated for deaths at another trust. It seems unlikely that both trusts would be part of a big conspiracy to hang their poor practices on her.

I think both that Letby is a murderer and that there were flaws in the trust that allowed her to slip under the radar and keep killing.

It is very disrespectful to the families of the murdered babies to suggest Letby was innocent. Their instincts should be trusted and they know better than anyone what went on.

If it was a man convicted of these crimes, or a more ‘unattractive, older woman,’ I don’t think the public would give a second thought about the strength of the conviction.

Too late to edit my other post, but wanted to edit it to say it's rare that there are so many who believe that there was a miscarriage of justice or that the conviction was unsafe.

Seeing the way many people talk about Lucy Letby is quite alarming. People saying they have no interest in new evidence, they just know in their gut she must be guilty. That she didn't pull what they consider the right facial expressions so she must be guilty, that she's blonde and youngish therefore anyone who thinks she isn't guilty must fancy her, that she looked up patients families on facebook, etc.etc.etc. And that's beside some of the actual people involved in the trial who seemed to just make things up. It's genuinely making me rethink my entire opinion on the justice system, it's making me wonder if there are a huge number of people wrongfully convinced that we don't know about. Many people genuinely do not seem to give a shit about evidence or justice. I think people are a lot more emotion driven and a lot less logic driven than I had naively supposed.

I’m not actually sure what your point is here, but you’re clearly very emotional about it.

Do you really think I’m “so invested in someone convicted of murdering babies” that I’m questioning the conviction? That’s wild! On what basis do you think I love baby murderers? Don’t you think it’s more likely that I’m genuinely not convinced by the flimsy evidence presented in court vs a panel of high level international experts?

This for me too. If I had to go with gut and guess then I would say I do think shes guilty. Dont ask me why. Theres no rational reason bar a culmination of off feeling.

The conviction feels unsafe to me but I wasn't on the jury and I'm not privy to all evidence

Do we know yet when Dr Shoo Lee was first contacted?

Bear in mind that Dewi Evans and Dr Ravi Jayaram both signed letters in support of Roy Meadow who wrongly convicted Sally Clarke and Angela Cannings (the SIDS mums). Dewi Evans also called on Dr Ward Platt to be an expert witness in the Letby case, but he died before the trial. Dr Ward Platt had backed Roy Meadow’s junk logic that multiple baby deaths in one family must mean smothering, this was a baseless, pattern-matching theory that helped send innocent mothers to prison. The conviction collapsed when proper science and genetics were brought in, but the damage was done. Sounds familiar.

I think shes guilty because you can understand someone getting stressed about making mistakes and losing a patient, and the feelings of inadequacy. I don’t think that would lead people to view themselves as evil. Something more was going imo but people just don’t want to believe that a young woman just like themselves / their daughters is capable of such crimes.

I've said I think her guilty and I do.

Not because of her flatness or lack of emotion. I can well believe that an innocent person would shut down in the face of this accusation. I genuinely believe that my daughter would in this situation and she would elicit no sympathy.

I always felt for Louise Woodward when she appeared to be convicted, in part, because of a lack of emotion. And I felt her conviction was wrong.

No-one from Letby's life stepped forward for her. No other nurses, not the doctor she was allegedly involved with. The circumstantial evidence appears overwhelming. The way she tried to interact with the parents of deceased children with a sense of excitement is disturbing. She shouldn't have had the handover notes, certainly not to that level. Her desire to get straight back in to the sickest babies jars as unusual behaviour. There is so much more.

The police worked the case by creating corridors of information and not talking to each other whilst a team each took a baby to investigate. Then when they put the evidence together they all came back to Letby from their independent enquiries.

And I get the argument that the NHS cover up. I've worked in it since the early 90s. However, in my experience they cover up by closing ranks and working together, denying the problem. Not by phoning the police and asking for help.

I genuinely don't want to see an innocent person in prison. I haven't seen anything to convince me her conviction was wrong. But, if a team out there can convince the justice system to look at it again and have convincing evidence, then fair play to them.

Nope. I can well believe that a young woman could be capable of those crimes, IF I was convinced by the evidence.

If the evidence was more convincing then these threads just wouldn't exist, we wouldn't be talking about her, everyone would have accepted the verdicts.

”To convict a jury has to be sure the person committed the crime.”

Yes, but that’s not in question. I gave a ‘guilty 100%’ option. “Not guilty” means the burden of proof hasn’t been reached - I.e that there is reasonable doubt.

”Not proven” is often called the “bastard verdict” because it can carry a lingering stigma, as people may think the jury suspected guilt but couldn’t convict.

She also took an unprofessional level of interest in the families of her victims. Searching them on Facebook etc. Some of the things she said to parents after their babies died, like trying to push for babies to be bathed… A best case scenario is she is neurodivergent and doesn’t understand that the things she says and does are inappropriate. Crushing on doctors and making opportunities to be around them. Constantly inserting herself into situations where she had more time with sick babies.

Let’s just assume she was just crap at her job and that it was fully the negligence of her bosses to not just move her to a different area of the hospital with less responsibilities. If her being alone with all those babies and being crap at her job contributed to their deaths then she still bares a lot of responsibility for their deaths in my eyes. She should have realised her limits and change careers.

It's a strange case.
I don't know a lot about the conspiracies
but assume that she is guilty.

Completely agree - and something I hadn’t really thought about is when is a jury not fit for purpose. I would consider myself to be a fairly intelligent, well read person, but on watching the documentary found of course I had to believe every expert because I have nowhere near enough knowledge to apply the critical thought that I would to say, the victim of a stabbing and then the accused hiding clothing and dumping a murder weapon. So of course a jury almost had to believe the expert - they had no means by which to question him. Also a very unusual nuance to have a scenario where it could be this person, it could be someone else, or it could be nobody at all and a tragic system failure.

the whole thing is horrific for all the families of everyone involved and if she’s not guilty for LL herself.

Does she have any supporters I.e colleagues who worked with her, friends, someone she was in a relationship with?