Lucy Letby: have you changed your mind - thread 3

[Typicalwave]

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

I think Hodgkins memory of it probably just got distorted over time. No one needs to be lying.

If anyone is lying Hodgkins had cause to want to apportion blame elsewhere, as she was under a microscope at Thirlwall. De Berger had no reason to lie about it, but besides anything else it can’t have happened in the first place. De Berger had no power to fire any consultants or do anything else. She was just a therapist.

Legal action is exactly what was in order - it's a pity management engaged with Mr Letby at all (and it was obviously their choice to do so). If they hadn't tried to soothe things over, Lucy Letby might have had effective legal advice at that stage, instead of lots of well-meaning people trying to balance her interests with the institution's.

That’s a good point. If anything the Letbys were very much the type to trust the process and follow the rules. I think they fully expected that if she just told the truth everything would be okay. She didn’t even have a solicitor with her during her police interview.

Was it not in the consultants' gift to say to the coroner so that a proper autopsy was done? This would have triggered whether or not a case to answer.

If the Consultants didn't have the courage of their convictions to do that, how could management stand over unfair dismissal?

They say they only discovered the strange blotching could have been air embolism with hindsight- but surely they could and should have said very clearly to the coroner at the time - what do you think is causing this strange blotching across several recent cases? To try to establish cause, even natural causes would surely be fundamental to ensuring safety for other infants on the ward, regardless if infection, contagion or deliberate harm.

I'm not sure it's practical to have "dozens of medical experts" in a trial that already lasted 10 months with very technical medical info. Once again, your expectations just seem really out of touch with reality.

No it doesn't need countering. If you're so convinced she's guilty and never getting out then countering it is actually keeping many of these conversations still going. If you weren't on here 'countering' then the threads would just contain the new news as it happens and then probably brief discussions about that and then the thread would die until there's a new development.

Maybe but surely it's better to have an in-depth discussion from both sides on the evidence rather than just the same 5 posters saying "it's a miscarriage of justice because the expert panel said so". Just sounds like you want an echo chamber if you don't think it needs countering.

I can understand that it can be offensive to the babies involved and their families, but there is a very real chance that is a miscarriage of justice, in which case that needs to be rectified.

No there isn't a "very real chance" and the only way you will accept it being "rectified" is to let the baby killer out. You're not interested in anything else.

I don't give a fuck if it's offensive to the police/court system/judge or jury.
For the police and everyone involved in the judicial system that's their job, they get much praise and they often get criticism along with that, at the end of the day they're dealing with peoples lives.

I don't like the police either but I can at least give them respect for dealing with such a harrowing case for years. And why would you say that about the jury?! Oh lemme guess, they sent poor innocent Lucy down so they're on your hit list too.

For those who have doubted this from early on or when the New Yorker article came out, all that we've seen since then is more and more and more rebuttals and experts coming out and doubting it so obviously doubts will get stronger, not weaker.

Except for the fact we know the police have sent off a new file of evidence to the CPS and 3 senior managers were arrested for failing to protect their babies by leaving a serial killer on the unit for a year. As for the New Yorker article-the Americans shouldn't even be getting involved in our criminal justice system. They don't know anything about the case and they have enough problems of their own I'm sure.

You won't accept anything

I've not seen any of your side say Lucy did a thing wrong either. Even the handover sheets got a "well no she shouldn't have taken them BUT every other nurse does the same thing" it's all minimising and excuses so yeah I'm going to call that out.

I think there are a few posters here with bad experiences of the police, courts or hospital and it might slightly be clouding their judgement.

I don't care what's practical or not tbh.
I'm not even specifically talking about this happening during the court case, it could have happened at the investigative stage.
and as has been said on this thread, if this does end up being ruled as a miscarriage of justice it's the type of case and monumental fuck up that will lead to reform, so what you deem as 'not practical' may well be what ends up happening in cases like this.

Maybe but surely it's better to have an in-depth discussion from both sides on the evidence rather than just the same 5 posters saying "it's a miscarriage of justice because the expert panel said so". Just sounds like you want an echo chamber if you don't think it needs countering.

You're not offering in-depth discussion though......
You just rant and rave about people supporting a 'baby killer'.

No there isn't a "very real chance" and the only way you will accept it being "rectified" is to let the baby killer out. You're not interested in anything else.

Yes there is a very real chance. And once again you're not correct with your assumption.

And why would you say that about the jury?! Oh lemme guess, they sent poor innocent Lucy down so they're on your hit list too.

Wrong again

Except for the fact we know the police have sent off a new file of evidence to the CPS and 3 senior managers were arrested for failing to protect their babies by leaving a serial killer on the unit for a year.

Considering the standard of evidence was so poor for the first cases, until the new evidence is revealed then I'm going to assume that it's similarly poor.

As for the New Yorker article-the Americans shouldn't even be getting involved in our criminal justice system. They don't know anything about the case and they have enough problems of their own I'm sure.

Journalists can report on whatever they want. I'm not from the UK either btw. I'm still allowed to have an interest in the case.

I think there are a few posters here with bad experiences of the police, courts or hospital and it might slightly be clouding their judgement.

And there are many who haven't had bad experiences.
But for those who have, that doesn't mean that their judgement is clouded, just that their eyes were open.

Ha, "clouding our judgement" (sic). Or having the scales (of justice?) brutally fall from our eyes.?

Thing is, for those if us to whom this applies, we have seen and experienced first hand poor practise, both deliberately and careless "errors" and by being on the rough end actually know what our adversarial system entails, and how badly it can go wrong.

We want it to be better, and truly represent justice for actual victims, rather than alot of ifs, buts and maybes thrown around by dubious "experts" and bean counters tapping their watches because it all costs money you know..., and theatrical grandstanding punch drunk on the power of silk and misogyny.

Just because I'm rightly bitter about my experience doesn't mean I completely lack objectivity, and I may remind you that "medical research" became my very much unwanted speciality in order to secure my family's future and well-being. Pre Internet too, so I've earned some stripes and gained knowledge i could easily have lived without.

I won't be patronised by anyone who hasn't walked at least half a mile in my shoes, and the scars I bear show a battle won, although the war was out of reach, and yes, the psychological impact lingers. Part of it includes being doubly, triply careful about what stands as fact and what is feasible, and in this case, what has been postulated is inherently unfeasible.

I would really welcome hearing from someone well informed and able to engage with the detail of the evidence who has a completely different opinion on this to me. Come to that, I don't definitively think Letby is innocent, just that on the strength of evidence it really looks that way. But we don't seem to get that on these threads. Just the same dogged misunderstandings, red herrings and generalisations of what others think and why they think it (the blonde female thing). It's boring and adds nothing.

@kkloo

You're not offering in-depth discussion though......
You just rant and rave about people supporting a 'baby killer'.

When you dismiss everything I bring to you what do you expect. I could bring you all the evidence of insulin poisoning and you'd put your hands over your ears and go "lalala the test was wrong". I asked a million times how other staff know what happened an hour before they were notified of something wrong with a baby and a million times I got back "Lucy's testimony matched with all the other staff" 😆yeah of course it bloody did if she didn't tell them until that time.

Considering the standard of evidence was so poor for the first cases, until the new evidence is revealed then I'm going to assume that it's similarly poor.

Not poor in the jury's eyes. And you can't blame it on the consultants or unit if some of it happened at Liverpool. What other excuse will you come up with?

Journalists can report on whatever they want. I'm not from the UK either btw. I'm still allowed to have an interest in the case.

I'm arguing with a bunch of Americans, explains a lot really. British people aren't generally known for believing in conspiracy theories.

”If the Consultants didn't have the courage of their convictions to do that, how could management stand over unfair dismissal?”

Precisely this.

Alot of people on several threads about contentious issues seem to have unusually heightened emotions tonight - is there a full moon? Or is it Bank Holiday gin consumption?

I recommend reading the book "unmasking Lucy Letby" or listening to the Daily mail podcasts about each baby. I'm working my way through them again for the first time since the trial. I think it's hard to go over the evidence without focusing on a specific baby and what happened, so it becomes more of a general thread. If we went through them all I think that would change a lot of minds but of course it's more than the scope of any one thread. That's a major problem really. People looking at evidence in isolation only.

You're really showing yourself up here. Not sure why anyone still replies tbh!

How so? Look I have nothing against Americans but they didn't get interested in this case until way after the trial. It'd be like if I suddenly started claiming one of their serial killers is innocent and the American justice system conspired to put an innocent person away. A bit offensive and arrogant of me to think I know better no?

“No there isn't a "very real chance"

Eh there obviously is a very real chance that this is a MoJ or we wouldn’t be having this conversation!

“surely it's better to have an in-depth discussion from both sides on the evidence rather than just the same 5 posters saying "it's a miscarriage of justice because the expert panel said so".

I agree that it’s important to have the conversation. It’s a gross misrepresentation to say that anyone has argued that “it's a miscarriage of justice because the expert panel said so"

Can you point to a single pp that has claimed that?

“I've not seen any of your side say Lucy did a thing wrong either.”

It’s like you expect us to meet you halfway and agree that she’s a bit of a baby serial killer. We don’t think she’s a baby killer. We don’t think this because literally none of the evidence stacks up. You’ve failed to produce any item of evidence that does. Literally nothing. Every time you try and we have cogent and sourced arguments you just ignore all the evidence you don’t like and again reiterate the fantasy you’ve been sold about an evil serial killer preying on babies.

We don’t think the handover sheets are evidence of serial killing because:

1. The vast majority of them had nothing to do with the case.
2. Only some of the indictment babies were referenced in handover sheets.
3. Handover sheets have been greatly overstated as “stolen medical records” when they are actually quick notes a nurse makes for herself during her shift.
4. Loads of nurses do in fact say that they also have taken plenty of handovers home, but we aren’t rounding them up as serial killers.
5. Lucia De Berk started to keep her handover sheets once she knew she was under suspicion. The info on those very handover sheets helped to exonerate her. I can well believe that Letby, finding herself in the same situation did the same thing.

Most of all, if they were evidence of serial killing she would have got rid of them or hidden them better since she knew full well the police were investigating her. We are meant to believe that Letby was devious and covering her tracks at work, which is why there is piss all evidence that she did anything, but that she’s dopey enough to leave incriminating evidence in bags for life in her house, knowing full well that she was under investigation? Please.

Your usual ridiculous assumptions. Suddenly you've decided everyone who doesn't agree with you is American? It's just pathetic.

And you still don't understand that three different medical staff showed timings an hour later including a midwife whose records coincide with the mum's phone call, thus clearly reinforcing said phone call as taking place an hour later. It's painful.

What you're 'bringing' is what everyone has already heard and considered and didn't find it that convincing, particularly in light of everything that has come out since then.

She hasn't been charged with or convicted of anything from Liverpool.

I'm not American....wrong again 😂

“I recommend reading the book "unmasking Lucy Letby"

Which version? Because they’ve had to make corrections several times. You realise this book was written by the same people who made the Panorama that also had to issue corrections? I’ve read it btw.

“or listening to the Daily mail podcasts about each baby.”

Oh dear. The podcast where one of the makers was recently discovered to have had her sticky mitts in Cheshire Police’s cookie jar while making this podcast? Good grief.

By the way, I have listened to it. All the way through. It’s biased in the extreme.

You keep labouring under the assumption that we haven’t got a clue about all the details while simultaneously ignoring everything we produce from Thirlwall and trial transcripts. Most of us have listened to the silly podcast and we have read the silly book. We’ve also read and listened to everything else which is why we can produce evidence and make arguments whereas you seem to just parrot whatever the Daily Mail podcast said. Perhaps you should engage with something that challenges your views instead of mindlessly reinforcing them?

You could start here: www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

Or here if you prefer podcasts: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLisbmqPbVDrYRuFmluXVm5YDQhoRo5Pw2&si=qVRyTHxXutWEsejm

Why do I get the feeling you won’t though?

I only listened to 2 episodes of that podcast, because I wanted to hear exactly what was said, because people were making out that they wiped the floor with the statistician and also with Mark McDonald.

It was embarrassing.

They couldn't understand why some of the questions were relevant to the statistician, I mean basic questions... and they acted like she was the thick one for thinking they were relevant.
And with McDonald she made a fool of herself because he was trying to tell her she didn't know what 'waiving privilege' meant, and it cut back to the studio where they were like 'of course we know what it means, it means he can't even speak to Myers'. 😂

Amazing that some people can listen to something and get it so wrong about which side had a clue what they were talking about and which didn't,

“but they didn't get interested in this case until way after the trial”

1. What are you basing this on?
2. Why would it matter? Plenty of journalists *did* follow the whole trial and they still think it was a farce, because it was. Josh Halliday would be one.

As it happens, several big American miscarriages of justice gained extra traction in the UK because British journalists, writers, or campaigners got directly involved in keeping the cases alive or reframing them for a UK audience. Some examples:

1. The West Memphis Three (Arkansas, 1993)

British investigative journalist Marina Hyde covered the case extensively in The Guardian. The documentary was produced out of the UK film ecosystem and lots of big UK musicians got vocal about it too.

3. The Central Park Five (New York, 1989)

Jon Ronson often used the case as an example in his work on moral panics and false confessions, tying it to similar UK themes.

4. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter

British newspapers consistently highlighted Carter’s wrongful conviction and he became something of a folk hero in the UK.

5. Scottsboro Boys (Alabama, 1931)

Revived in the UK by a Donmar Warehouse musical (2013-2014) British critics and theatre-goers reinterpreted it for a modern UK audience as a case study in systemic injustice.

6. Troy Davis (Georgia, executed 2011)

Amnesty International’s UK branch was central in publicising his case. British writers like George Monbiot wrote repeatedly about it in The Guardian.

7. Steven Avery / Making a Murderer (Wisconsin, 2015 Netflix release)

The documentary spawned numerous UK books, podcasts, and spin-off journalism dissecting the American justice system for British audiences. The Times and The Guardian ran long-form investigative features comparing Avery’s case to UK miscarriages like Sally Clark or the Birmingham Six.

Was it offensive or arrogant for British people to get involved in these injustices? Or was that just journalism?*

*It was just journalism.

Maybe because they're always bringing an AMERICAN article up? Just a thought! We don't tend to read the New York Times over here.

And you still don't understand that three different medical staff showed timings an hour later including a midwife whose records coincide with the mum's phone call, thus clearly reinforcing said phone call as taking place an hour later. It's painful.

There was more than one phone call. What's painful is disbelieving a mother's testimony because it makes the serial killer look bad. What's also painful is people thinking all this stuff wouldn't have been gone over with a fine tooth comb and not one person noticed that the mum's phone records (supposedly) didn't match to everyone else's'? And then check to see if they were "in a different time zone" 🙄please. No it was one of the Letby fans who suddenly came up with that, strangely enough. But if it's so "painful" then by all means get onto Ben Myers KC and let him know he's incompetent and you know better 😆

And you still don't understand that the timings are not even that important because Lucy denies the ENTIRE conversation with the mum (which dad backs up) not she just "can't remember", she's VERY insistent that never would've happened. That is the important part, which is why posters are refusing to acknowledge this.

@Kittybythelighthouse wow I've never heard of any of those cases...

Was it offensive or arrogant for British people to get involved in these injustices? Or was that just journalism?*

Depends if they were writing a balanced article or a completely one-sided biased one.

Liz Hull couldn’t wipe the floor with a mop. She’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

Journalists, proper ones, are interested in the truth. If an investigative journalist has done an investigation and comes to the conclusion that a trial was a farce and the evidence is shonky it is, primarily, their duty and their job to report that.

The New Yorker is internationally renowned for its fact checking. It’s an extremely prestigious publication, respected the world over. They don’t print trash journalism - unlike The Daily Mail who have consistently been on the wrong side of literally every miscarriage of justice ever.

@Firefly1987
You're not special just because you followed a trial from the start.
Even Dr Shoo Lee didn't get interested in it until afterwards.

And the New Yorker was just the first to print, at least one of the British newspapers had been getting a story ready to go too for after the ban was lifted.

You act like it was all just fine and she was locked away for life until those pesky Americans stuck their noses but even British journalists had been speaking to experts etc behind the scenes through the ban. And then when the first articles started to be printed more and more people were willing to speak without being anonymous.