Lucy Letby: have you changed your mind - thread 3

[Typicalwave]

New thread for those following or wishing to comment - originally started by @kittybythelighthouse.

Thread two here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5390441-lucy-letby-have-you-changed-your-mind?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Thread 1 here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5388914-lucy-letby-have-you-changed-your-mind?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Thanks for this, @Typicalwave

Just listening to quite an interesting new interview with David Davis, who is confident that the legal system won't insist on strict application of the "new evidence" rule. I hadn't realized before I started following this case that he has campaigned on quite a number of similar issues. Good clear stuff:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=rlTe1feUm0M

Overturning a conviction like this typically takes ten years, at least, says Davis, and every miscarriage of justice I can think of bears this out - he mentions the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Andrew Malkinson, the postmasters ...

I think she’s guilty.

What evidence leads you to believe guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

I’ve never understood why.

I don’t want to derail your thread but your comment jumped out at me. I went through a trial last year as a victim and the jury decided on a not guilty verdict. The police said to me afterwards that one of the issues in there opinion with jury trials is that a lot of people don’t understand what beyond a reasonable doubt means and that everybody has a different opinion on what constitutes as reasonable.
They told me it happens all the time, they think they’ve got a really tight case but if you get a bad jury you don’t stand a chance of getting a conviction.

I’ve not followed the case very closely and not read all the threads (sorry). Did Letby ever say why she kept those diaries?

I’m sorry to hear you have been though a tough time.

I appreciate your comment.

If ugly could be argued that a guilty perpetrator got off because a jury didn’t understand what ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ means then the opposite to could be argued, an innocent person can be wrongly convicted.

Its up to the judge to ensure the jury understands what that means.

Yep, I think it’s probably more common that guilty people are found innocent rather than innocent found guilty but I’m sure it happens.
My trial lasted a while and during my conversations with the police I’m off the opinion that being a juror should be a trained job, it should be judged by people who are paid to be there so they don’t rush the decision because they don’t want to come back the next day and should have some experience in the sort of trial they are being asked to judge.
In Lucy Letbys case the jurors should be people who understand the medical issues that arise with premature babies.
I haven’t looked to closely at the Letby case but are you of the opinion that if Lucy Letby didn’t work at the hospital those babies would still have died, or do you believe she was just bad at her job and the deaths were avoidable but not intentional?
Do you believe she didn’t have a fair trial, has new evidence come to light since her conviction?

Sorry I can’t edit, but to answer the question no I don’t think they’ve proved she’s guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
I do find it weird she kept those diaries and stalked the parents social media- but she seems a bit ‘odd’ socially? Maybe work was her life and she was overly involved, no social life, curious about families. I don’t know.

I think people mean two different things when they talk about her diaries.

The first is that the police planned to present evidence that she used a special code in her diaries. But they were contacted by nurses saying it was just the usual abbreviations they use for their shifts: things like LD for long day.

Nurses posting here have said it is normal to keep a record like that of what kind of shift you worked when with what babies, because that's how you make sure you have been paid for your shifts.

So they never used the diaries in the end after all.

Didn’t she keep diaries that said things like, I did it, I killed them ect?

The other thing people sometimes mean is the notes Lucy Letby wrote to herself on post-its. They included things like "I am evil. I did this" but also things like "I am innocent. I have done nothing wrong".

She told the court she wrote down the way she was feeling under pressure. Since then, it's been reported that this is the advice she had from professionals like her counsellor, and her school friend has explained they were taught to write down negative feelings to get them out of their heads

There's an article explaining some of that here:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/03/i-am-evil-i-did-this-lucy-letbys-so-called-confessions-were-written-on-advice-of-counsellors

I now believe she didnt have a fair trial, yes, and I do not believe the circumstantial evidence whoch the prosecution heavily relied upon stacks up.

There were some loose notes where she says she scribbled down how she was feeling in dark times. Here's a graphic from the Guardian article I linked in my last post. You can see she says a whole mixture of things. In the ITV documentary aired a couple of weeks ago, her friend Dawn explained they were taught this as a way of managing stress at school:

archive.is/2025.08.02-171317/www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/school-taught-lucy-letby-and-me-to-write-down-our-darkest-thoughts-mnvdg8v9t

I've come across it too, as part of the ACT therapy system.

You definitely get the impression she was very invested in her work.

I always think of her working all those extra shifts because at her age, I used to volunteer to do all the Saturdays. I was young and keen and energetic and a people-pleaser, and I wanted to do well at work. If things had gone wrong on Saturdays, I'd definitely have been in the frame!

I have followed the trial very closely. I started off being 100% sure she was guilty. Following all the folk who have said she's not I found myself wavering. Listening to all the recent podcasts/documentaries I'm fairly sure the verdict is correct. A lot of the pro LL people are not that knowledgeable or articulate. I Think DE has his faults, but he strikes me as someone who knows what he's talking about. Why weren't there more witnesses for the defence?

Here is the best possible explanation I've read for why the defence didn't call more witnesses: https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=Lucy_Letby:_the_missing_defence_evidence

Thanks for starting a new thread! I was not online for a few hours and the old thread filled up very blimmin quickly!

I don't think Dewi Evans knew what he was talking about at all. He has changed his mind on methods of murder.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/20/my-kind-of-case-intense-focus-falls-on-lucy-letby-trial-expert-witness

The man whose research he used said he is getting it wrong.

He said on the recent Panorama Documentary that he didn't believe it mattered how the babies were killed. That is going to do the prosecution case an awful lot of harm, since it was his job to tell the jury what were the most likely causes of death

Welcome back, @Kittybythelighthouse !

No worries. Thought I’d better go ahead and start one

I would say that there are an awful lot of very knowledgeable people who have criticized the case against Letby or offered statements in her defence, @beccahamlet The "Jolly Contrarian" blog has done a list:

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

There are far more experts, far better qualified, on the side of the defence than the prosecution.