Lucy Letby - have you changed your mind thread 4

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

With thanks to the original poster @kittybythelighthouse and @Tidalwave for continuing the discussion.

I suppose he could be concluding that the child had been poisoned and also had hyperinsulinism that needed treating for months, but deciding that the diagnosis of hyperinsulinism was wrong is… odd.

You said that Letby wasn't even there. I'm saying do we know this for sure.

Yes, we know this for sure. For child F, Lucy Letby worked until 8am or so and went home. The bag was changed unpredictability at about midday - problems with site of the line.

Mere facts don't seem to constrain him, do they ...

It just doesn’t make sense to me that she would have poisoned both bags on the off chance that they'd need a new one. And obviously only those two, without knowing which would go to that baby. And that nobody would have noticed they were tampered with.
Regardless of the test results, it falls apart when you look at it with any common sense and ask if it's actually possible.

Svilena Dimitrova weighing in on the assay tests: https://x.com/neodoc11/status/1963982397969498340?s=46

There is more than enough reasonable doubt. That’s how our legal system is supposed to work.

It’s quite a reach

Wow. That's pretty powerful.

Yes we definitely know that for sure. She was off shift several hours when the TPN bag had to be changed etc. There is no confusion about what shifts anyone worked because there are everyone’s supporting contemporaneous notes etc too. That’s not about door swipe data. The door swipe data was meant to ‘prove’ who was where and when while on shift.

Throughout the first trial the door swipe data was used to ‘prove’ when Letby was ‘alone’ on the unit, except after she was already convicted of multiple whole life orders it turned out that it proved no such thing. It had been completely mislabelled by Cheshire Police’s data analyst. She had used it as though people swiped in and out, when of course one only swipes in, not out.

This created issues in the Baby K retrial, because it meant that Letby wasn’t alone going by the timings provided by Dr Jayaram in the first trial. In the retrial Dr Jayaram changed his recollection of the time of the event which he had previously insisted was “emblazoned” on his memory forever. Funny enough his new recollection happened to match up with the corrected door swipe data, just as his old recollection had matched up with the incorrect swipe data. Even the Court of Appeal questioned his testimony. Nurse Joanne Williams didn’t agree with his version of events either, but Letby was convicted again nonetheless.

Looks like he’s Ben given a massive benefit of the doubt, doesn’t it?

I think @GingerPower is getting at the fact that LL could have come in through the keypad whilst off shift.

There’s no evidence for that either and it seems extraordinarily unlikely that LL slipped in off shift, working on no sleep mind you, and managed to poison TPN bags without being noticed or disturbing the multiple tamper evident seals. It’s incredible how skilled this killer nurse was at never being seen doing a single thing wrong in a tiny and crowded NICU, despite needing to engage in incredibly risky behaviours in order to commit these murders.

The entire point of the (quite likely impossible) TPN bag poisoning was to account for her not being on the ward at the time. If the prosecution could have made an argument that she slipped in, they would have. If she had somehow managed to slip in without being seen by anyone why did she bother with all this convoluted bag poisoning? Why not just a direct injection? It would certainly be much quicker and less likely to result in being caught, since this scenario requires her to be on site when off shift either way. Particularly since NJ himself argued that pre poisoning TPN bags was not possible (5th June ‘23 cross examination LL) in order to keep LL in the frame while on the 18th May he argued the exact opposite, again in order to keep the frame firmly on LL. It’s exactly the kind of circular logic seen in witch trials.

Sure, you can say “but maybe she did slip in and wasn’t seen!” and perhaps it doesn’t bother you that there’s no evidence for it, because you have a gut feeling that she probably did it. But at that point you’d be admitting that you’d be willing to excuse any failure from the prosecution as long as the target continues to be drawn around LL.

@GingerPower is this really what you think though? If so, is this the standard of proof that you’d be happy to have applied to yourself or a loved one?

Quite. Attempting to put someone at a certain place when there’s zero evidence to suggest it at all, no video evidence, no one saw them, no forensic evidence, etc etc.

I’ve always thought, if Lucy could have come in when off shift then logically you have to accept that so could anyone else, so the whole business of her being a suspect because she was there (already dubious) simply evaporates and you would need to go and dig up everyone else’s gardens, spend months going through their texts, etc.

Exactly. Without the "evidence" that she was there consistently but nobody else was and if there's no direct evidence, you've either got nothing or you're relying on analysing her character to justify picking her over someone else.

I know that a "not guilty" doesn't prove that someone is innocent, but if you've decided there was deliberate harm and then you find out the accused physically could not have done that harm, surely logically you have to start looking for someone else that did do it?

What do you all think will actually happen next? And how long will it realistically take?

Well, nobody really knows what will happen next of course. First, I think it’s extremely likely that the CCRC will refer it to the CoA. I personally think that the case is so deeply flawed in so many ways that the CPS won’t want to retry it. They would struggle to get experts to support DE’s claims (for a start) and would otherwise be embarrassed, on an international as well as a national scale. For this reason I think it’ll go the way of Sally Clark, Lucia De Berk, or Kathleen Folbigg. There’ll be an exoneration of some kind and it won’t involve a lengthy retrial.

Historically it takes perhaps 10 years for a MoJ to be corrected via the CCRC. That tends to be speedier with more publicity (for better or worse that’s how it has been historically). The amount of heat on this case, the CCRC, and the judiciary, might mean that it doesn’t take quite as long as that.

Of course, I could be wrong about the above. I will be astonished if it doesn’t end in a release though.

10 years wow.

Another thing about the judicial system. It shouldn't cost 100k for court transcripts. It shouldn't and the fact it does is insane.

I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't end in release given some of the decisions the CoA has made in the past. Cases that have been referred back by the CCRC and the new evidence/issues have just been dismissed.

I fully get where you’re coming from, but those cases don’t generally have huge amounts of publicity. This is very different.

👏transcripts could easily be automatically generated these days.

I can understand that the system needs to be careful regarding legality and accuracy of such a document when made available but surely something could be done to make them available for far more reasonable prices.

It’s not exactly conducive of the concept of open justice is it?

Lack of decent funding via Legal Aid
Incredibly difficult appeals system
Lack of access to your own court transcripts
If appeal successful, lack of access to compensation and adequate post imprisonment support.

Its embarrassing

That's why you can't really criticise Lucy's barrister for holding press conferences. It's probably the only way for her to have any chance of getting out.

I mean I don't know Colin Campbell's case in detail. But there seems virtually no evidence for murder in all but one of his convictions. But whilst the CCRC sent it back the CoA just waved it away again.

This one has so much potential for embarrassment. If it is a MOJ then as was discussed earlier it's the biggest and most amateur in a long long time, and for it to have happened in this day and age is shocking.

Even if she did in fact do it, the standard of evidence that put her away was shocking so getting the guilty verdict was just luck.

So much potential for embarrassment among the NHS/CPS/police/justice system etc, and if the CRCC doesn't put it forward then in future I think they're on the 'embarrassment' list too, because it's not going to go away.

However I wouldn't be as sure as you that they'll refer it on this time, and personally I feel like she may have to go down the inadequate defence route in future.

Exactly.