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

Your calculation does not take into account whether one baby accounted for several or many of these. Certain babies are more likely to pull their own tubes out than others and may do it repeatedly. This is why the crochet octopuses are so helpful.

Disregard the emotive aspect of this case - murdering premature babies. Remember that the prosecution has to determine guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Innocence is the default in crime within the UK judicial system.

Take into account the prosecution evidence, all circumstantial and wrong in several aspects. Is there then reasonable doubt?

Because they have all come up with explanations that have nothing to do with what actually happened or have ignored vital pieces of evidence

Oh, the irony of claiming it is the people who are concerned with this trial who massaged and misrepresented information.

Isn't this just more "bad luck" though-what are the chances LL would get the only baby that manages to dislodge their tube multiple times? It's all stacking against her to the point she'd have to be the unluckiest person in the world-I mean sure someone has to be that person, but is that the likely scenario vs it being her own deliberate actions?

Or indeed, one baby (or set of multiples) may have had a family who struggled with handling. One child may have had a deformed palate. Letby may have been given experience with babies coming off sedation who will self-extubate.

My guess is that the 1% is artificially low, because we are not told its origin; the extubations were across multiple children on the ward, not just those in contact with Letby - because if the BBC knew otherwise, why are they bothering with this shift-counting palaver, and there were likely risk factors for extubation. This is only a guess. I shouldn't be in a position to have to guess, of course. I'll be interested to see if we get any information to confirm or deny it.

Many people who are work weary with 12 hour shifts often give those who are enthusiastic to to help the difficult cases, yes even rookies on the shift. They'll make them run round ragged and enjoy it whilst they have 'kitchen' duties and sup tea and biscuits.

Who says it's the only baby? Who says she was actually caring for the extubated baby anyway.

What are the chances? Depends on her supervisor's decisions. If they wanted her to have experience with an older child transitioning off ventilation, as one example, the chances are pretty good.

That is what we are objecting to here - the BBC giving us a small amount of data with no context and little clarity. They've fed people the opportunity to say ooh, spooky, if they don't understand statistics.

Why do you think the BBC didn't ask a neonatologists why tubes might dislodge?

@Firefly1987 With all due respect, you are asking questions and it's a demonstration of doubt.

Which indicates a reasonable doubt.

^This^

The numbers Panorama presented are still rubbish, objectively, by anyone’s honest measure. I’ve been willingly paying my licence fee since I was a student, because I value the BBC, what it used to be and what it can be.

I do not pay a licence fee so the public can be fed misleading data in order to make us tolerate an intolerable encroachment on our rights.

The bad luck here is that once they decided it was LL who did it, there was no attempt to look at plausible other explanations. I know actual nurses who have worked in NICUs have said on here it is not unusual for babies to dislodge their tubes on more than one occasion. Some babies are simply more restless or squirmy than others. And the placement of the tube is also key, which given the poor standard of care of the unit would also be questionable.

The fact (and it is a fact, not a belief or opinion) that its common enough for there to be a way of managing this should tell you something. Except you dont want to consider anything and dont seem to be able to differentiate between fact and belief.

Like many of the others on here, I am not engaging with you any more. I said it earlier, you dont seem to be posting in good faith but simply to be controversial.

The looking at Liverpool stats when she was supervised definitely stinks of witch trials. If the numbers of dislodgements aren’t high they’ll say she didn’t have opportunity as was supervised. If they are high they’ll say she did it…..even though you could argue that maybe it just shows that actually these things happen. Maybe they should be looking at numbers of occurrences nationally!

A nearer comparison would be 4 dropped syringes in 11 12 hour shifts at a vaccination centre…

Well obviously if it was Lucy Letby who dropped the syringes, we need the police on the case.

(Yes, exactly. Thank you!)

Every neonatal nurse knows that plenty of babies extubate themselves. This wouldn’t be ONE outlier exception baby. This is common. We know that Letby was never in sole charge of any baby at that time anyway. This is just more desperate grasping to take the public narrative back.

In other news, my poll in the og thread has ended. It came out 60/40 in favour of a review/not guilty. That shows there’s a strong appetite for scrutiny. Previous Letby threads and polls were very much the other way.

We still haven’t been told where the 1% figure comes from. Other hospitals nationwide? Other nurses on LL’s shifts? Hopes and dreams?!

The tube dislodgement figures are from Liverpool? You're claiming that was a poor unit now as well? Gosh more bad luck for Lucy eh, she just so happens to have worked at such incredibly poor hospitals she never stood a chance!

Like many of the others on here, I am not engaging with you any more. I said it earlier, you dont seem to be posting in good faith but simply to be controversial.

Fair enough, it makes no odds to me who you choose to engage with. I could do without accusations I'm not posting in good faith as well so suits me. As for being controversial-that's incredible really considering the subject matter and what I'm arguing for (which is NOT the serial killer). I don't usually take much notice of usernames unless it's a prolific poster, I just reply to what's being discussed-however I will make note not to reply to any of your posts going forward.

@Firefly1987

A reminder that the skill of the doctor who is intubating the baby in the first place matters. Nurses are not uniquely capable of murder.

The doctor who killed Baby Noah at COCH (story below) testified against Letby. She put this poor baby’s oxygen tube into his oesophagus (food pipe) and not his trachea (windpipe). She then ignored multiple alarms warning of this. Thus poor baby suffocated slowly while the dr turned off alarm after alarm. Can you imagine if Letby had done anything as extreme as this?

Dr James Smith, the registrar on duty during the baby K event, attempted intubation on the very premature Baby K 3 times with the wrong size tube - supervised by Dr Jayaram, who was not a neonatologist and not experienced in very premature babies. Neither, of course, was this junior dr who was allowed to attempt multiple traumatic intubations on an extremely premature baby! Dr Jayaram then blamed Letby for the extubations that were a natural result of that.

We shouldn’t be measuring extubations as though the nurse might be a murderer without checking whether or not the doctor is any good at intubation in the first place.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4518212/Baby-deaths-Countess-Chester-Hospital-probed.html

I tell you what, why don’t we give an actual statistician that data and have them run a full analysis that shows us “what are the chances”?

Oh wait. Cheshire police tried that for a millisecond and then fired the statistician for requesting the actual data.

You can’t keep avoiding stats and pretending they don’t matter while constantly evoking stats. Ffs.

Airy friend does this sort of thing all the time. Presents rubbish numbers and then says - in parentheses - “(of course this is assuming there are no other important factors)” which is the entire point. We need to know what the data is and who analysed it. It’s incredibly dishonest.

I find it fascinating the desperation with which my dispassionate quote where I have calculated some simple numbers has been attempted to be debunked.

I use a reductio ad absurdum argument (vaccines) to suggest samples of 11 can be relevant. People say the odds are different. Well, of course they are! That was the whole point. That implies the important thing is how statistically significant is 4/11 given a 2.5% chance of extubation. I calculated that as 3/10,000 or 0.03%.

I carefully qualified my calculation regarding correlation. But, if there is a correlation, the question is the cause. It could be LL! Of course, it could be a host of other factors. But, it is worthy of further investigation.

From the Times today, an interesting article, mainly from the perspective of Mark McDonald:

Barrister fighting for Lucy Letby: She’s feeling new hope

https://www.thetimes.com/article/ecb1f12b-d7c6-475d-b0c4-3862d997c65e?shareToken=1a835c98c74219b34bee84138ec500fb

‘The barrister’s approach is not for everyone. McDonald does not deny he is a publicity seeker. He says when it comes to changing the public narrative in cases of miscarriages of justice, boosting the media profile is “very important”. He says that in such cases it is “often important to win the public narrative” before winning the legal narrative…..’

I find the above interesting in light of this thread.

It's funny how the tide of tabloid trash on this subject is acceptable, but anyone writing from another perspective gets dark hints that they are writing as part of some coordinated campaign, or demands to explain their credentials or connection with the case.

Of course, we don't live in a police state, and as with science and statistics, the rules around public discussion of justice and the legal process don't magically apply to everyone but Lucy Letby.

Yes, it is terribly bad luck the LL came across a couple of Drs who went fishing for anything that Meade her appear guilting and disregarded anything else, and then Cheshire police appear to have done the same.

When you decide someone is guilty and then go looking for anything that backs up your hypothesis it fucks up the data.

Even Evans himself admitted that he had excluded one baby, baby C iirc, from the list he’d decided must be part LL’s murder attempts. He only added in in when he found out LL was allegedly on duty.

It’s called confirmation bias.

Given that the panel publicly said that they could find no evidence of harm, it appears you are saying that a group of scientists from around the world, from different specialties, who have excellent reputations and careers got together and decided to lie and say the couldn’t find any evidence of murder because they didn’t want to let LL down?

is that correct @Firefly1987 - I just want to make sure I’ve understood you correctly.