Lucy Letby - have you changed your mind thread 4

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

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

I think the stroke she has in prison, which was left untreated for ten hours because prison guards decided she must be faking, probably interfered with her future health and enjoyment of life. Dreadful story.

I came here to say this too. For those who don’t know, Lucia De Berk was known as the Dutch Lucy Letby. She was a neonatal nurse convicted of killing babies in a historic Dutch miscarriage of justice. The convictions mirror Letby’s closely. They were largely circumstantial, based on bad statistics, “incriminating” diary entries, and overstated medical evidence. She also saved handover sheets, which actually played a role in her eventual exoneration.

De Berk served 6 years and lost at appeal before eventually being fully exonerated. She was 63.

nos.nl/artikel/2580396-ten-onrechte-veroordeelde-verpleegkundige-lucia-de-berk-63-overleden

Lucia De Berk was exonerated. It’s possible that some still thought she was guilty, but she was popularly considered to be an innocent victim of a miscarriage of justice like Sally Clark, Lindy Chamberlain etc.

Given that she had a stroke the week after her second appeal was denied, and was was left for 10 hours in her cell bleeding into her brain, because the prison guards decided she was faking, and that neglect left her mute and with paralysis issues, hopefully as well as she could with love and support from others.

Here’s whay happens to those wrongfully convicted over here:

https://www.thejusticegap.com/stigmatised-the-plight-of-the-wrongly-convicted-post-release/

Do you think she still may have committed those crimes?

@Typicalwave I forgot about that. I watched some of an interview with her (it was in Dutch so didn't understand it lol) just to see what she was like. Someone mentioned in the comments she'd had a stroke. I didn't realise she hadn't been treated properly for it.

No. She was left, to die. In a cell.

I don't really know enough about that case to say. Doesn't seem to be much out there about the case, because I did try and look into it a bit at one point. Perhaps most of it is not in English.

Ah shit.

I'm going to hold my hands up, I'm in no fit state to comment coherently on this as I'm just back from a memorial party for a friend of my late partners who died relatively unexpectedly after a short illness, and I've had three stiff drinks, so I'm teetering on the edge of unravelling.

But I have plenty to say about the impact of being accused of things you haven't done, and how you don't just get over it, especially if it's gone as far as it's gone for people like Lucia and Sally Clarke, rest their souls.

As for her treatment in prison, that's appalling and inhumane and as somebody else suggested unlawful.

Ye Gods, what is happening to humanity, has happened over the last couple of decades?

As I say, I'm not really in a fit state to comment, without unleashing the inner demons I fight every day, and nobody wants that.

Peace and out .....

Wikipedia covers a lot of it as a primer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_de_Berk_case

This article is in English

dutchreview.com/culture/lucia-de-berk-dutch-nurse-wrongfully-imprisoned-6-years/

This is focused on statistics and miscarriages of justice via her case

https://www.science.org/content/article/unlucky-numbers-fighting-murder-convictions-rest-shoddy-stats

Sorry to hear about your friend.

I’ve learned it’s best not to go there, especially after a couple.

Sleep well

This one is a very easy read.

https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/disappearing-pod/how-the-worst-serial-killer-in-hollands-history-went-free/

So much of it sounds so familiar 👀

Oh, the poor woman. I had heard of her case but not what happened with the stroke. It's so sad.

Eerie similarities to Lucy Letby's case. Lives just absolutely destroyed by the system, it makes me feel quite depressed.

I hope she's at peace now.

I know, right?! Very familiar indeed 👀

On that note, The Royal Statistical Society produced a report titled ‘Healthcare Serial Killer or Coincidence’ in advance of the Letby trial which warned that Miscarriages of Justice will simply keep on happening until the courts finally start being serious about statistics.

Guess how seriously the judiciary took this warning?

https://rss.org.uk/RSS/media/File-library/News/2022/Report_Healthcare_serial_killer_or_coincidence_statistical_issues_in_investigation_of_suspected_medical_misconduct_Sept_2022_FINAL.pdf

Is this the article wgere a member of yhd judiciary turns around to one of yhd authors sbd say something along the lines of ‘people don’t really understand stats, it just confuses them’

NO SHIT. They don’t understand technical scientific info either, so wouldn’t it be a god idea to find ways to help so people just doing their jobs DONT end up with their lives utterly destroyed

This paper is really so interesting. Should be required reading for all police detectives and judges.

“wouldn’t it be a good idea to find ways to help so people just doing their jobs DONT end up with their lives utterly destroyed”

You’d think?! But no. The thing with statistics is that the less you know about statistics the more you think they are just common sense. The justice system is woeful for this and apparently they haven’t learned a thing despite this issue, more than any other, having caused many horrendous miscarriages of justice and ruined countless lives.

Also the apparently common notion that it’s fine to invoke ideas like ‘coincidence’ and say “what are the chances?!” and as long as you don’t say that this is statistical reasoning you magically aren’t using statistics. Appeals to chance, probability, etc are appeals to statistics, albeit usually massacred statistics, whether or not you say the magic word “statistics”. It’s infuriating and the same mistakes keep being made over and over again.

Case in point: Cheshire Police deciding ‘not to use statistics’ in the Letby case by firing their statistician once she said “it doesn’t work like that” but continuing to…use statistics, just cluelessly. This lead directly to the infamous shift rota being presented to the jury as a visual every day during the prosecution’s arguments. Nobody called it statistics, but the implication of it “what are the chances?!” is statistical nonetheless. It’s just incredibly misleading to the point of being dishonest.

Another case in point: Panorama and their “we talked to someone who understands this data” fiasco when they clearly, clearly, didn’t.

The Royal Statistical Society sent this to multiple such parties in advance of the Letby case coming to court, but it went ignored. Statisticians have been BEGGING the courts and the CPS etc for years to listen to them on this but they never do and it just keeps happening, entirely predictably, destroying multiple families and lives.

It’s like being forced to watch the same car crash over and over again.

It is so awful. Why don't judges, police detectives and prosecutors want to inform themselves better? A course about statistics based on that paper should become required training. A compulsory module in legal and detective qualifications.

Is it definitely correct that the shift rota was shown to the jury during every day of the prosecution’s arguments? I’m sure I’ve read in a few different places that it was only shown a couple of times in total? Asking in good faith - I genuinely don’t know the answer to this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics#:~:text=%22Lies%2C%20damned%20lies%2C%20and%20statistics%22%20is%2

Obviously correctly applied and understood statistics are helpful, but there's a reason why this saying exists.....

I wasn’t being literal. From what I’ve heard it was shown A LOT though. Much more than a couple of times. Not sure if anyone has the total count but both the chart and the (also misleading) accompanying refrain “she was always there” were used heavily.

p.s: I’d argue that any commentators who are saying “it was only used a couple of times” are pro verdict people trying to downplay its role now. Likely people who said no such thing until after the reporting ban lifted and all the statistical commentary started pouring in tearing the rota to shreds.

Before that everyone was nodding safely and saying “she was always there” it was on multiple newspaper covers too.

*Nodding sagely ffs

Also, just to add, the shift rota shouldn’t have been shown in the court AT ALL. It doesn’t somehow become more acceptable for prosecutors to present heavily misleading data in court because they didn’t do it literally every day.

Absolutely fucking horrifying, regardless of whether LL happens to be one of the victims of such miscarriages of justice or not.