Lucy Letby - have you changed your mind thread 4

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

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

Timely!

www.theguardian.com/law/2025/sep/07/watchdog-fails-wrongly-convicted-prisoners-lack-forensic-expertise-experts-say

I'll admit it's unlikely (especially after reading the above) but would ideally need to be 100% certain as no doubt they'll argue that somebody invested enough to take confidential notes home and overstep in contacting the babies parents of her own accord might also be the type of person to sneak back into work to watch the fruits of her labour, for want of a better phrase.

Well, the issue is that (rightly or wrongly) there is a perception that she was overly invested. Whether or not that's true what we've heard is that she overstepped by contacting the babies parents, excitedly called up colleagues to inform them a baby had died, seemed unusually keen to get back to the ward after seeing horrific things that most other nurses would need some respite from, and also taking home confidential documents.

I don't know how much of this is now being challenged but this is what was initially stated so likely they will say it's more likely she'd have come in due to having a 'morbid fascination'.

But the biggest issue with this type of case for me is that the medical stuff is impenetrable to most of the general public, so we have to rely on the expertise of others. And of course there is much disagreement between the many experts.

Like, the linked article I read challenging the evidence seemed plausible. But then it took 30 secs on Google to find another Oxford professor of metabolism with 50 years experience in insulin testing, claiming that the results were undeniably abnormal and that without this being explained all the other stuff is essentially moot.

I still have no idea whether he's right or whether a baby can naturally have insulin levels 40x the norm but without the peptide levels that would usually be associated with natural insulin.

It still seems unclear to me whether the situation is that it could've been a natural phenomenon, or alternatively whether the situation is that somebody was responsible but we don't know if it was LL.

When you say she “contacted the parents” what are you referring to? I don’t recall this happening.

Handover sheets are the notes that a nurse makes for herself when she starts a shift. You carry them in your pocket as you work. Many nurses have said they have lots of handover sheets at home. I think there was one such nurse in this thread actually. It’s not the same thing as stealing confidential notes. The vast majority of them had nothing at all to do with the case.

It’s not a case of would she smeak back into work. That’s irrelevant if it would realistically be impossible for her to do so without being noticed. There is zero evidence that she did this. No one is even arguing that she did this. And if she did do this why did she poison the child via TPN bag anyway? She’d have to get the key for the fridge, hang around the fridge without being seen for however long it takes to spike the insulin bag without triggering all the tamper evident security measure etc.

What problem do you think her sneaking into the unit when not on shift solves? I think it just compounds your logistical problems tbh.

I think these are fair questions and I appreciate that you’re genuinely weighing things up and not being closed off about this. I’ll reply more fully to your points in the morning.

In the meantime I think what you’re describing here is reasonable doubt? By my measure anyway.

I'm not as well versed on all the details as many in here. However, that Oxford professor basically said that the insulin results were highly abnormal and whilst he agreed a retest would've been good he said it was extremely unlikely the results would've been anywhere close to normal.

He seemed to think that the only rational explanation was exogenous insulin as the peptide results were so low. He said that with this being considered the main smoking gun it would almost be irrelevant focusing on Dewi Evans/air embolisms whilst this is still unexplained.

That's a big issue that all of us have I think.
We don't know the facts of the situation.

What we do know now though is that the paper Dewi Evans used for his air embolism theory was completely misused.
We know they never bothered to contact Dr Shoo Lee, so we know that before they put this woman on trial that they didn't actually bother to find out the facts to the best of their ability.

So even though the insulin cases seem to be proving the most difficult to explain why should we trust the prosecutions story? Most of the charges related to air embolism and we know that they didn't bother to fact find properly there!

There's lots of other things that have been proven wrong such as Jayaram saying he went in and caught Letby even though now an email has been revealed where he said she called him in, the door swipe data was found to be wrong, in the prosecutions opening speech they tried to make out LL turned a monitor off and the nurse who LL called after that baby collapsed heard that opening speech and came forward and said it was actually 2 doctors who left that monitor off, they had apologised to her and she had complained about it.

That baby had collapsed, LL was on trial for attempting to harm the baby, yet the police never bothered to speak to the nurse who LL had called as soon as the baby collapsed??
There are so many issues with this case..

The insulin cases are the hardest to explain, but if the defence can show the CRCC that there is enough doubt in the other cases and that they would not stand up to scrutiny in a new trial then the insulin cases wouldn't be able to stand alone, there's nothing there that ties them to LL unless you're including all of the other collapses and all the other theories etc.

All they are left with then is 'highly abnormal' insulin results which are suspicious, but that is not enough to convict someone without any other evidence.

Please could you post a link?

Isn’t it the case that the insulin test results were not reflective of the clinical picture though? Both babies were fine and with those results should not have been.

Then there is the fact that the court was told that exogenous insulin was the only explanation when there was another baby with similar results who had a different explanation.

Then the very similar results produced in a quality control test by the same lab.

Then the fact that no one can demonstrate how she could possibly have done it without being seen.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that the test results were normal, but the prosecution hasn’t proven beyond reasonable doubt that they were the result of deliberate poisoning or that LL was responsible for carrying it out.

But there’s no logical basis for arguing she was more likely than any other member of staff to come in on days off due to her ‘over investment’ or ‘morbid fascination’ because nobody else has had their homes searched and texts pored over which supposedly uncovered such motives. It’s not as if everyone has been scrutinised in the same way but nobody else’s texts, internet searches etc contained anything inappropriate.

Ascribing morbid fascination to Letby depends on you already having decided she’s a killer (so what looks like laudable concern in an innocent person is flipped into morbid fascination when viewed through the filter of guilt) and then using that to argue it makes her more likely to come in on a day off is part of the circular reasoning that has dominated the guilty arguments throughout.

so you'd convict her on behavioyr alone and tgat maybe she was there.

BTW - I have lots of patient notes in my work bag at home. Oddly it doesn’t make me a murderer, and when I leave the wards (which don’t have CCTV) I also push a button to get out - so who knows what time ivd left the ward. But I MIGHT have still been on that ward (along with around 20 other people) when patient C mysteriously died….

If you have no idea which one to believe then you have reasonable doubt and this cannot come to a guilty conclusion.

‘Most other nurses would need respite from’

Emergency responders and medical staff do not routinely take time off every time people die. They can’t - the entire system would grind to a halt.

I grew up in an emergency service - my father and his crew were not forever having to take time off each time something horrific happened.

It’s fantastical to believe this happens.

Was she “unusually keen”? How do other nurses react to being present at a death?

Is a keenness to “get back in the saddle” an indicator of malfeasance? Might it equally indicate resilience, or feeling the weight of responsibility?

Ok, sorry just getting to you now!

I’m assuming you’re referring to Prof Keith Frayn? In an article in The Times? He was quoted selectively and in any case (as quoted there) he is stepping into the realm of probability, which is not his specialism. In a clinical setting, the test will only be carried out on patients for whom it is indicated, namely those with hypoglycaemia. The claim that the symptoms prove the accuracy of the test is an example of selection bias.

Key element there “if the result was unexplained” but it isn’t. No one is saying (now or ever) that the test results are normal. They are saying the test results are likely to be a lab error. People make a similar mistake when misquoting Chase, including in the recent Panorama. We know that both tests were collected by the same staff, and analysed by the same lab. If mistakes were being made that increased the likelihood of an error then a similar error is more likely to be seen again.

If the test results were correct this would be suspicious, however the babies did not suffer anything like the extreme effects one would very much expect to see from such a large dose of insulin. They were sent home shortly after. The clinical picture doesn’t support poisoning, only hypoglycaemia - which is fairly normal in premature babies.

More to the point, if the test results were accurate (we have every reason to think they weren’t, no reason to think they were) there is less than no reason to pin them on Lucy Letby. She was off shift for most of Child F’s many hours long hypoglycaemic episode, which is why the prosecution had to make up a crazy (and impossible) tpn bag poisoning story. This is simply not possible. Even NJ himself said that it was impossible for a staff member to poison a tpn bag in advance without upsetting the multiple tamper evident seals which would make tampering obvious, as that’s the whole point of them. Even if she could have snuck in as you said earlier (this didn’t happen) then she would have the same issue bypassing the tamper evident seals and would need to do so multiple times without being seen let alone caught. It’s simply not plausible.

So. Is the test result indicative of a normal level of insulin to c peptide? Of course not. No one is saying it is. It’s likely a lab error (we know the same lab did return similar errors in quality control the following month after child f’s test.

Even if it was, Lucy Letby has a watertight alibi for this vs anyone else who was on shift that day. The insulin cases don’t stand against LL if nothing else does. The test results were most likely due to lab error anyway.

“But the biggest issue with this type of case for me is that the medical stuff is impenetrable to most of the general public, so we have to rely on the expertise of others. And of course there is much disagreement between the many experts.”

Yes. But this is simply an illustration of reasonable doubt and how there are huge issues in the justice system when it comes to expert witnesses and complex scientific evidence.

There is no real oversight or vetting of expert witnesses. Not all experts are equal. It’s an issue that the best experts in any area are extremely unlikely to want to do expert witness work as it takes them away from their important front line practice and research. You simply do not see experts of the calibre of Lee’s panel in British courts. Dr Evans and co are nowhere near that level of expertise. It’s Premiere League vs pub five a side. Expert witnesses in British courts tend to be retired and not of the highest standing in their field to begin with.

Courts like certainty. Science doesn’t work like that. The system therefore rewards dogmatic charlatans like Evans who were never that successful in their field to begin with and who will say whatever supports the case of the side that is hiring them.

These are all known issues that never get fixed. We just keep stumbling into new Miscarriages of Justice instead. Almost 15 years ago the Law Commission wrote a report on this but the recommendations were not taken up.

“I still have no idea whether he's right or whether a baby can naturally have insulin levels 40x the norm” no one is saying it’s a natural result. A baby couldn’t have this result naturally. The baby would be dead. The baby didn’t die, showed nowhere near the clinical signs one would expect from such a result, and went home a few days later. The test result was faulty, as another one was in almost the exact same way in lab quality control tests a month later.

Again, even if that result were real (it isn’t) the culprit couldn’t have been LL.

I just want to address this earlier comment too @GingerPower

“Well, the issue is that (rightly or wrongly) there is a perception that she was overly invested.”

Perception from who? The tabloid press? Liz Hull’s tabloid podcast which is tainted by dirty money from Cheshire Police? It wasn’t the perception of her colleagues, the majority of whom said they had no issues with her at all, or even actively rated her as a nurse and a person, in their Thirlwall responses. Note: colleagues who wanted to speak in support of her at the trial were warned off from doing so by the trust.

“we've heard is that she overstepped by contacting the babies parents”

This simply didn’t happen. I think you’re misremembering something?

“excitedly called up colleagues to inform them a baby had died”

This also didn’t happen.

“seemed unusually keen to get back to the ward after seeing horrific things that most other nurses would need some respite from”

No, she didn’t. It’s 100% normal training in fields like intensive care and paramedicine to get back to high acuity situations asap. You’d never get through such a career otherwise. Trauma is daily and you need to get back on the horse. Jennifer Jones Key, who had the text exchange I think you’re referring to said at Thirlwall that the exchange was out of context and that she was talking about how she - a non intensive care nurse - thinks the above is weird, not Lucy Letby who she spoke highly of.

There is zero evidence that she had a 'morbid fascination'. Most people described her as kind, caring, overall v nice, and a good nurse. You’ve been hoodwinked by a clever prosecutor and trashy (and corrupt) tabloid framing.

p.s: I linked to all the Thirlwall responses from COCH staff re LL earlier in this thread (overwhelmingly they were positive) and JJK’s own description of the infamous text message exchange. I can find all that for you again if you like.

https://neilwilby.com/2025/09/08/operation-duet-no-information-held-response-defies-national-policing-standards/

Morning all,

Been following with interest if somewhat intermittently as I'm engaged in a massive operation to re-arrange my flat single handedly, and it's one of those tasks you kind of wish you never started but it's gone too far to go back 😅

I spotted this on reddit and thought I'd see what everyone's thoughts are here.

With regard to the "insulin poisonings" it's always struck me as odd that the effects on the babies didn't match the supposedly catastrophic results of insulin poisoning, and they survived, and those results were never followed up, even put of curiosity or from a best practise clinical perspective. That's always struck me as negligent at the very least.

One thing I find interesting is the plain misogyny throughout the trial. It's ironic that people use the "you just think she's innocent because she's a blonde, white pretty girl" when most of the trial was spent dissecting her character for alleged "flirtation" with a doctor, her "deviousness" - shades of pesky women upsetting the apple cart (ha), the doubling down on the idea that women can be just as bad as men, and the general flavour of witch trial as previously noted. Humiliation was a core feature of proceedings.

It just goes to show that the patriarchy is alive and well and absolutely embedded in the system. We gave you the vite, what more do you want, and where's my beer?

Sorry for the tangential rant, but the idea that women have anything like equality is laughable, and society is actually regressing thanks to the likes of Andrew Tate et al.

This case is rotten to the core, procedurally, systemically, evidentially, and psychologically.

I watched the 1st season of The Jury last night and the rank misogyny was alive and kicking there.

“Ascribing morbid fascination to Letby depends on you already having decided she’s a killer (so what looks like laudable concern in an innocent person is flipped into morbid fascination when viewed through the filter of guilt) and then using that to argue it makes her more likely to come in on a day off is part of the circular reasoning that has dominated the guilty arguments throughout.”

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel this!

Nobody who knew her said she had a “morbid fascination”. There is nothing in her history to back up such an idea either. Even the doctors who accused her didn’t say that. Her co workers mostly liked her or didn’t have a huge opinion either way. Parents generally liked her.

People seem to think there were these huge red flags everywhere when the truth is that most people thought she was perfectly nice and normal until she was accused of murdering lots of babies. Even those few that weren’t keen called her “nice”. She failed one module with a mentor who was known to be a bit hard and she just didn’t get on with her. Her next mentor liked her very much. They remained friends (and she passed the training). When I think of how many people I’ve pissed off over the years - even just in these threads! 😱

In truth, there isn’t a single one of us whose reputation is so golden, and whose social, professional, and even internet history, is so spotless, we could withstand the damage of such an inflammatory accusation. In that context, given the (literal and metaphorical) forensic digging that was done, Lucy Letby has proved to be remarkably clean.

I’ve never understood why people would think remembering things such as dates or wanting to talk through work sadness and stress is morbid.

I agree completely. In any case, the idea that people give an easy ride to women accused of crimes like this doesn’t stand up. It is well known that the opposite is true.

There’s a concept in criminology and psychology called ‘double deviance’. The idea is that when women commit crimes, they are judged not only for breaking the law (legal deviance) but also for violating gender norms and expectations of femininity (social deviance). This creates a “double” layer of stigma and often much harsher moral or judicial judgment compared to men who commit the same crimes.

We see this all throughout history. Where are all the women accused of murder (or witchcraft) who have been boo hooed over, defended, and protected by the public? They all get monstered instantly, whether or not they are guilty.