Lucy Letby - have you changed your mind pt. 5

[Typicalwave]

New thread

Part 4 here - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5400564-lucy-letby-have-you-changed-your-mind-thread-4?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Originally started by @kittybythelighthouse

And what about the investigations you choose to do in your own time?

Same, really. Only interested in the truth.

No, that just doesn't follow.

The experts must have been aware there was a potential miscarriage of justice. Otherwise, there's no way they can have access to the records, since the defence needs to instruct them. They were being asked to look at these records in their free time, for nothing, which is something you can recruit people to do in a good cause. So Lee explained the good cause.

None of this presupposes that they would find no evidence of deliberate harm. They might represent her last hope, if she was innocent, or they might find evidence of deliberate harm, in which case there's absolutely no reason to believe they were asked to suppress it.

This is the only way experts can engage with the evidence for a potential miscarriage of justice in the UK. If there's no potential miscarriage of justice, there's no defence instructing them and handing over the files. Once they have their task, their integrity comes into play. And we have been told that they had the assurance they wouldn't be under pressure to suppress evidence of deliberate harm.

We aren't dealing with children here. Of course they would have known they were dealing with a potential miscarriage of justice, and of course they wouldn't expect to give their time if there wasn't a real and urgent need for it. There is simply no way Lee could have recruited the panel without this information. But professionals with integrity would still have been perfectly capable of calling out evidence of deliberate harm, if they had found it.

If scientists are so easily overcome by their emotions that they are only interested in the agenda their emotions dictate then we’re all fucked.

It’s ridiculous to suggest they're incapable of pursuit of the truth Becsuse they may or may not have feelings.

Im undergoing fairly extensive pelvic surgery in the next few months - I seriously hope my surgeon can hold themselves back from the brink

Or what @Oftenaddledsaid, with far more patience than I

Most miscarriages of justice are exposed as there is either new evidence or new science though. In which case I can understand an expert who feels they are in possession of either of these might offer themselves up with a starting position of concern that something could be wrong with the conviction. But that’s not the case here as the panel’s report is based on new opinions on the same evidence.

In framing his call to action as the new experts being potentially her ‘last hope’ he’s quite clearly setting out his own stall and it could easily be read that he’s not looking for any opinions that agree with the prosecution.

He’s got other form for this, as seen here. The only evidence that he knew was wrong at the point he’s referring to was around the way his paper was misinterpreted, but the CoA had already been clear that this hadn’t been material to the convictions. He had not seen any other evidence to be so sure that there were other errors and certainly not to suggest that she shouldn’t be in jail (plus it would have been out of the scope of his expertise for him to have an opinion on a fair bit of it anyway).

The applicability of new science to any particular case can only be established by examining the evidence. And the relevance of yet to be explored questions - like Chase and Shannon's - likewise. We shouldn't be in a situation where we have to consider how we pick apart pseudo-science rather than an outdated knowledge base, but we are.

I am not so sure that the pattern for miscarriages of justice is at all as you suggest, though of course willing to accept it's sometimes the case. But when I think of the Birmingham Six, for example, we see the same pattern - a suspicion that the science is wrong followed by examination of the evidence.

Shoo Lee was under no obligation to agree with the scientific judgement of the Court of Appeal, of course, and by engaging with them and that element of the case he had seen more than enough to be able to state that, in his opinion, the evidence "wasn't quite right". A modest statement, and it simply shows that he had "form" for expressing concerns about the conviction. Of course he did . There's no great cover-up here. You are sensationalising a perfectly obvious and routine course of events.

I think Chase and Shannon are the only panel members suggesting new science (although their report is as yet unavailable and untested). The rest are just offering different opinions on the same evidence.

And the CoA’s judgement wasn’t scientific, it was based on what had already been considered at trial. Eg this excerpt from the transcript of Dewi Evans’s evidence shows that discolouration was not a determining factor in reaching a diagnosis of AE.

There were, of course, already two explanations for the deaths/collapses before the expert panel started. The prosecution's explanations were already a second opinion to the original medical notes/postmortem examinations, which found natural causes.

The panel were also free to consider the wider picture of the conditions on the ward, the staffing levels and experience. Their brief was to try to use the data to find out what happened to the babies, not to prosecute or defend LL. They wanted to study the obstetric data from the mothers, which I believe was not available or considered at the trial.

As far as I can see, the only way that the mother's details aren't relevant to the condition of the very early days of premature babies in hospital is if you're sure that whatever happened to them was caused deliberately.

So if Evans wasn't using the skin discolouration (and therefore the Shoo Lee paper) and he wasn't using the xray with the air in it which was taken before LL had seen one of the babies, WTF was he using as evidence other than "the baby died"?

Neonatologist pointing out another incident of the press presenting normal as abnormal https://x.com/neodoc11/status/1969685579806712227?s=46

If the rashes / discolouration weren't considered material to the diagnosis of AE why did they need a research paper that covers them, and why were they referred to at all?

If death is the only evidence required for AE why have any research into the phenomenon at all?

Obviously it's just padding things out to make for a more interesting trial....

The whole trial boiled down to : Death plus Lucy Letby = murder.

(Even if she wasn't always there, because obviously she's a witch....)

Have to say I saw the DM article referenced and pretty much facepalmed. It's a blatantly attempt at stirring up the emotions of the public in case too many people start questioning her convictions. The headline is so dramatic, and irresponsible I think.

As for the boxes, I'm glad these practises exist. There are generations of women traumatised by complex situations in childbirth regardless of outcome, and it's about time they were given compassion and understanding.

Is there any evidence that baby E's Mum's phone company was on the wrong time zone?

I believe he used a checklist, as well as reference to a number of papers and resources other than the Lee & Tanswell paper.

I would also like to know this.

Given that the midwife on a separate ward spoke to baby E’s father on the mothers phone and wrote yhis down alone with ither events abx her contemporaneous notes are almist exactly an hour out to mums recollection of times (which whrn giving evidence at Thirlwall, she states are from her obtaining the call records frok her phone company) abx that the Drs and Leybys notes also match up with their respective timelines, it’s fairly obvious which times are incorrect - mums.

Sorry, I gave had a look for this information. Can you point me to the midwifes testimony?

Thank you.

Yes, Lee had no reason to be reassured on the science by the CoA judgement, so obviously there was no reason for him to trust the scientific judgement of the prosecution experts or those who relied on these experts to convict. He was more than equipped to make a preliminary assessment before seeing the full evidence.

Chase, Shannon and Lee are the only people I know to have conducted new research in this case (yet) but even the summary reports reference post-trial publications for other cases, and I'd be surprised if there aren't more in the full length reports.

In the same way, the forensic evidence used to convict the Birmingham Six wasn't undermined by new science, but by a new examination of the evidence using known science.

I think you are erecting a rather arbitrary barrier to justice here, if you are suggesting that experts shouldn't involve themselves when they suspect poor application of known science, but only if they suspect new science would be applicable.

Let's recall that people like Neena Modi were contacting the defence during the first trial to express their alarm at what they were reading in press reports - because the reports clearly show illogic and pseudo-science. There's no reason - and no way - for people like Lee to suggest that they were entering the field cold with that much nonsense - about Lee's own work in some cases, in the public domain.

https://x.com/william26139338/status/1969129182027219001?s=46

O' Quigley's argument is pretty solid. When he calls the chart "fake", what he means is that the patterns among the other staff show that there can never have been a starting sample not already based around Lucy Letby's shifts, if the number of cases examined is to produce the eventual spreadsheet of suspicious incidents.

I'd be very interested to hear more of the discussions from NICU professionals after the talk.

I’ve asked to see if there was a video taken that could be released

I need to know more about this. Does this mean that the babies showed other symptoms characteristic of air embolism and talk of rashes was irrelevant?

Are there any transcripts of Evans’s evidence pertaining to air embolism?

The Court of Appeal Judgment provides a good summary of the prosecution evidence. See paragraph 39 onwards in particular re air embolism - https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Letby-Final-Judgment-20240702.pdf

I’m still struggling to understand this.

The judgment repeatedly states that there was a mysterious never-seen-before discolouration in the babies Letby was convicted of killing by injecting air into their veins. However, it’s unclear why those discolourations are so important.

Has anyone (here or elsewhere) read all the other papers referenced? I suppose if they identify characteristic discolouration the Lee and Tanswell paper becomes irrelevant. But surely I can’t be the first person to ask this.