Lucy Letby: Have you changed your mind?

[Kittybythelighthouse]

The other thread has had a lot of really interesting discussion but we are running out of pages so here’s a new one for those who are interested in continuing the conversation.

Whether you’re sure she’s guilty, sure she isn’t, or are somewhere in between, I’m interested in hearing how your opinion has evolved (or hasn’t!) since you first heard about the case,

Please try to be respectful - this is a heated topic. Its a matter of huge public interest with a lot of strong opinions, but we are all adults and can disagree with each other in a respectful manner.

Old thread is here (the poll still has a few days left):
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5388914-lucy-letby-have-you-changed-your-mind?page=38&reply=146359313

I wish to thank @Kittybythelighthouse and everyone else for really helping me understand why there is doubt about a safe conviction

I never watched , listened to or searched out anything on the case at the time. I found it too distressing , mentally I wasn’t in a good place so avoided such news

I think it was late last year when the rumblings of discontent reached me but it wasn’t until the itv programme the other day that I started to listen in earnest and started reading up As I said on a PP , it was that I - an ordinary grandmother who has had no direct dealings with neonatal and preemies knew preemies pulled their own tubes out ( because I crochet for a charity supplying the units with octopuses so they grip the tentacles rather then their tubes

so I thought if this so called expert got that wrong , how much else was wrong ? I mean the man in the street juror has to believe what an expert says ? How does that ordinary person know what’s right ?

so then I started learning about other obvious lies , read about the other failings at the hospital , whilst I can’t judge LL , I’m getting more and more concerned that there is a serious MoJ

I also think an investigation into Dewi Evans needs to be done. Wonder what John Sweeny is at these days ?

Where LL’s records conflicted with prosecution theory she was accused of doctoring them.

Eg Baby F (I mistakenly called Baby E in a previous post) she recorded a bg reading that was around normal. So she was accused of falsifying the number to cover up her “crime” as it didn’t fit with the prosecution narrative.

@suki1964 I also think an investigation into Dewi Evans needs to be done. Wonder what John Sweeny is at these days?

He’s probably had enough of Dewi I know I have.

Dewi needs a whole enquiry to himself. Every single case he has been involved with as an expert witness needs to be re-examined.

I googled Lucy Letby's colleagues. It was quite an eye opener. She was excited by the baby deaths and couldn't wait to pass the news on in a gossipy way. And even when she was suspended from the unit she couldn't wait to get back in there. She's guilty, Taking prints of the hands and feet of the dead babies. Those poor parents. None of them have come forward to defend her.

Sorry but prints , locks of hair , photos are all normal things that are done when a baby dies in a hospital

Yes! This was literally her job!

They had a long discussion of it at Thirlwall - some hospital do it one way, some another way. Lucy Letby was a junior nurse who followed her hospital's procedures to create little handprints and footprints etc. The parents couldn't be asked to do it themselves, but they would surely treasure these things.

The doctor involved and who told the parents no need for a post mortem was given anonymity in the trial and I’m pretty sure that John Sweeney identified this doctor in his podcast as the same one who killed a baby previously by inserting an endotracheal tube into his oesophagus. And ignoring 5 signs that this was the case.

Read the victim statements. Their memories are totally tainted by Letby. Memories of your child made by the nurse who is convicted of murdering them. She showed no remorse at all apparently during the whole trial. I hope whoever it's up to doesn't jump on the free Letby bandwagon. Further careful investigation of all places she worked might bring to light more evidence.

Why would you show remorse for something you didn’t do?

She did it. Been found guilty. I agree with the verdict. You're the ones who need to prove there was a miscarriage of justice. Justice for her took a long time coming. Not one parent defended her.

@Mirabai ,

Because it showed the relevant ratio of the two substances in a similar cohort of patients. Look at the data.

There are an awful lot of people on this thread who don’t actually want to hear the other side of the argument.

Lots of single issue posters too! Strange thread

However, just hearing all the overall evidence about her demeanour, how she initially failed her nurse assessment and then went on to make an error administering too much insulin to a patient in her first role, reading all her messages (bordering upon obsession) to members of staff, her reactions to the deaths, obsessively searching for the parents on Facebook (particularly on certain dates) etc, I just get the sense that something isn’t right. The way she reacted in her police interview was off - I watch a lot of crime investigations of police interviews (!) so am quite interested in psychology and body language. It’s just a gut instinct I have that tells me she’s not innocent despite not wanting to believe someone could be capable of such a heinous act.

There are lots of cases of people who 'felt' guilty who were later proved innocent, and vice versa. Judging how someone should act in a situation is a dangerous road to go down and even experts in this area are not infallible. None of us can judge how someone should act in a situation of such stress and pressure because none of us have the inside track to every experience they have had before and the ins and outs of their temperament.

As for the messages - I wonder if, under that pressure, anyone might get a bit obsessive?

As for nursing assessments - nursing training is tough. Plenty of people struggle during it but go on to have good careers.

Yes, we all know she was found guilty. However, there are many, many people who are concerned that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

The evidence used to convict Letby has been shown to be weak and flawed in many respects. The expert witness is known to be biased and has changed his testimony after the fact. Statistics were used to mislead the jury.

This is what these threads are all about.

If you want to contribute to them meaningful in any way you could explain why you think the evidence was sound and therefore why Letby was convicted. But you won’t, will you? You will just keep on saying that she’s guilty because she was found guilty.

They're not similar cohorts, @Newbutoldfather . You can't lump two day old premature babies in with seven day old babies, or 36 week old babies with children of 34 weeks and much less. This is the case for lots of things, but certainly, uncontroversially, nothing to do with Lucy Letby, it's the case for insulin production. This is very very well known.

You also can't include children with sepsis in a study of healthy infants. You really need to stop implying you've got relevant data there.

His calculation was completely wrong. It assumes only two insulin tests were ever carried out in the whole time that Lucy worked on the ward and they were both erroneous.

Link to calculator

https://www.gigacalculator.com/calculators/binomial-probability-calculator.php

You can change the number of trials and see how the probability of getting two erroneous tests increases the more tests you run.

Of course that assumes that the error rate isn't greater than 2%. Where as the tests aren't reliable anyway in premature babies and in cases of sepsis.

It also hows how badly the defense is disadvantaged as they have no way of knowing how many tests were run and how many showed these results.

I dont have to do that. The jury listened to 10 months of evidence and convicted her. You haven't and neither did any of the medical experts. I'm not in the business of proving Letbys guilt. Its already been done to my satisfaction. Obviously it has not been to her supporters. That's up to them.

@Oftenaddled ,

‘They're not similar cohorts, ** . You can't lump two day old premature babies in with seven day old babies, or 36 week old babies with children of 34 weeks and much less. This is the case for lots of things, but certainly, uncontroversially, nothing to do with Lucy Letby, it's the case for insulin production. This is very very well known’

The day of life is days after birth. These babies were all in NICU and had an average gestational time of 27 weeks. So at 7 DOL, they are still not healthy and still very tiny. The criterion for inclusion was a birth weigh <1.5kg and the mean birth weight was actually <1kg. They were in a tertiary NICU and, indeed, 6 of the babies died, so I am not sure you can say they were any healthier than the babies LL was taking care of.

But, hell, let’s not get data get in the way of making a point!

@Newbutoldfather I would LOVE to hear the other side of the story from you.

Specifically, whether you stand behind your "perfect" maths calculation that there was a minute chance of both insulin tests being faulty, now that it has been shown to you that those two unusual test results were found by someone trawling through years of medical records specifically looking for unusual test results?

And if you don't stand by that, how does the removal of that piece of "evidence" affect your little pile of shit-becoming-gold-by-sheer-volume? Do you have a number in mind for how many pieces of that shit can be removed before the alchemy is reversed and the "evidence" reverts to being just a pile of shit?

Seven days of life is when experts stop measuring for congenital hyperinsulinism, which is very common. That's why your study starts at seven days. The expectation is that the children have adapted to life outside the womb. Letby's cases were younger in days than this.

Some cohorts of premature children are more prone to hypoglycemia and some to hyperglycemia in the first week, depending partly on gestation, and the people who designed the study will know that.

Please stop with the attempted sarcasm. If you are a scientist at all, you know perfectly well that you can't pick numbers from one dataset and apply them to another.

One week old children of any gestation are not relevant to Letby's insulin cases. Healthy children (not suffering for sepsis) are not relevant to Letby's insulin cases. You seem to be trying to do neonatology by guesswork and handwaving.

This data is not relevant and not worth our time.

@HeadbandUnited ,

‘Specifically, whether you stand behind your "perfect" maths calculation that there was a minute chance of both insulin tests being faulty, now that it has been shown to you that those two unusual test results were found by someone trawling through years of medical records specifically looking for unusual test results?’

The maths was perfect (which is hardly hard to be fair, given it is basic sub gcse level probability!) and I carefully qualified it regarding correlation.

But I don’t think someone has shown me that people trawled for that data. As far as I can read, it was data taken after one of the babies collapsed, not a random reading. But, If that is incorrect, I stand ready to be corrected (with a link to factual evidence).

‘And if you don't stand by that, how does the removal of that piece of "evidence" affect your little pile of shit-becoming-gold-by-sheer-volume? Do you have a number in mind for how many pieces of that shit can be removed before the alchemy is reversed and the "evidence" reverts to being just a pile of shit?’

No, I don’t. And trials aren’t that scientific. Juries are told to weigh a lot of evidence and come to a conclusion, and it relies a lot on the wisdom of crowds. But the jury did that, and it wasn’t appealed based on new evidence or a failure of law.

If the review board send it back for another trial, I will respect that. If they done, will you?

@Oftenaddled ,

Are you a neonatologist then?

Yes, but that evidence has been demonstrated to be seriously flawed. A full review is needed.

The jury had no way of knowing that it was flawed - partly because the judge withheld some information, and partly because they were simply not competent to understand the subject matter. Most people would not be.

It curious that you permit no doubt in your mind about this and hold what is essentially a faith-based position.

I'll see what I think of any rationale presented by the CCRC or court of Appeal, naturally.

Thanks Suki! Have you listened to John Sweeney’s podcast on this case? It’s called ‘was there ever a crime’ - I thoroughly recommended it! He does delve into our friend Dewi…