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

It looks more damning, doesn't mean it actually looks damning though.

It could have gone from a scale of 0 on a 0-10 scale of damning to a 1 on the scale when added together, doesn't make it actually 'damning'.

There’s literally no evidence of deliberate harm.

The insulin and the overfeeding is evidence of deliberate harm. Instead of taking it at face value you tie yourselves in knots as to why the evidence is all wrong or not enough proof. The tube dislodgements and morphine overdose could be accidents but when put together with the other evidence points towards deliberate harm. As does the air embolism and other injuries.

In rape cases theres frequently plenty of evidence - and yet many walk away Scott free or it doesn't even make it to court.

So do you agree with them getting away with it or not? Is it only serial killer nurses that should get off?

For the tenth time, she had the final decision but will have been heavily advised.

And for some inexplicable reason you think one of the best defence barristers in the country suddenly decided to throw his client under the bus when it's his job to present her in the best possible way?

You definitely wouldn't be and if you were deliberating as a juror and weren't engaging in good faith and just kept repeating 'you only think this because she's blonde/white/whatever' you could also be removed as a juror. You can't just tell people why they think stuff over and over.

I haven't said that in weeks-the last time it happened someone else brought it up and I just agreed with it. I wouldn't have to argue that anyway because literally all the jury were on the same page re guilt for most of the charges! I said you're not looking at all the evidence, which is true or at least how it appears for a lot of posters. I'd just be reiterating what was advised by the court to do and put the pieces of the case together.

Yes it's keeping an open-mind because we're basing that on how poor the evidence was in the first trial. If the evidence in the new trial was more damning I know I personally would be very open to changing my mind, and I think pretty much everyone is the same.

Well I really hope that's true.

I'm not ignoring them. I'm not convinced by them. Even when they're all put together. To you they are damning, to me they are not. To you you think certain things such as asking if they had the feed bags was damning

That's one of the least damning things. But yes it's a very odd question to ask if innocent. If the police had the bags and she was innocent they obviously wouldn't have any signs of tampering or insulin so the police wouldn't even need to be questioning her about it. It's a complete non-starter to accuse someone of poisoning feed bags that have no evidence of having been tampered with. So of course they don't have the bags. Or alternatively they do have them and they DO show tampering. Those are the only possibilities.

As I said repeatedly I am a firm believer in Blackstones ratio that it's better that 10 guilty go free rather than one innocent be locked up, so personally I will never agree that if you can't get the standard of evidence I would normally expect to see that they should be locked up on a lower standard just because it wasn't possible to get more concrete evidence.

So you feel the same about suspected rapists going free then? How do you 100% prove rape wasn't consensual sex between two adults? To me if there was enough circumstantial evidence along with the woman's testimony-the man should get put away. I think your burden of proof would somehow be much lower in a case like that. But maybe you'll prove me wrong.

It wouldn't suit the prosecution for her to be innocent - so they do their best to make sure she doesn't appear to be. However had each bit of evidence been looked at on its own terms the whole case would have collapsed pretty quickly. Whether you look at it all together or not there is very little evidence for there actually being a serial killer outwith dear Dewi's over vivid imagination.

@Londonmummy66 but no one wants there to be a serial killer or would think it would be a credible explanation without ruling everything else out. I've still not seen any good reason for these consultants, Dewi Evans et al and the police to be so intent on just stitching up one nurse. It makes no sense.

She did it all, and more. We have data from her previous hospital and people are still not believing it. This isn't down to Dewi Evans, nothing to do with him (I don't think he's involved in the current investigation either) it's in plain black and white with the tube dislodgements. Like yeah I could think of multiple explanations for that like I could with anything-maybe someone else snuck in and dislodged those tubes, maybe she had the wriggliest baby in existence, maybe she's super unlucky, or just maybe it's the simplest explanation that she did it deliberately. Just because the data isn't perfect doesn't mean it doesn't still say A LOT.

And for some inexplicable reason you think one of the best defence barristers in the country suddenly decided to throw his client under the bus when it's his job to present her in the best possible way?

I don't think he decided to throw her under the bus, I just think the defence was inadequate. And I'm not answering questions about why because we've done this to death so don't ask.....

I haven't said that in weeks-the last time it happened someone else brought it up and I just agreed with it. I wouldn't have to argue that anyway because literally all the jury were on the same page re guilt for most of the charges! I said you're not looking at all the evidence, which is true or at least how it appears for a lot of posters. I'd just be reiterating what was advised by the court to do and put the pieces of the case together.

I'm not just talking about that one though, if it's not 'you just think that it's because she's blonde', it's 'you think that because you just don't want to believe she could do this' or 'you think that because you're so overwhelmed with the evidence' etc etc...you just keep dismissing what people are saying and responding with stupid theories. A judge could discharge you in that case if the other jury members reported.

It's not true. You just think it's true because you will not listen to other peoples reasons or rationale. You don't have to agree with them but you refuse to accept different opinions and instead make up reasons for why they believe it.

That's one of the least damning things. But yes it's a very odd question to ask if innocent. If the police had the bags and she was innocent they obviously wouldn't have any signs of tampering or insulin so the police wouldn't even need to be questioning her about it. It's a complete non-starter to accuse someone of poisoning feed bags that have no evidence of having been tampered with. So of course they don't have the bags. Or alternatively they do have them and they DO show tampering. Those are the only possibilities.

It's not one bit odd, it's perfectly normal. I told you that I have done it myself.
Conversations move fast, you ask the obvious questions and you're not thinking oh if they're suggesting this then they must have or not have x or y. You just ask the obvious questions. Now perhaps you wouldn't, but many others would because there is literally nothing odd about it.

So you feel the same about suspected rapists going free then? How do you 100% prove rape wasn't consensual sex between two adults? To me if there was enough circumstantial evidence along with the woman's testimony-the man should get put away. I think your burden of proof would somehow be much lower in a case like that. But maybe you'll prove me wrong.

Actually, I've always said I wouldn't sit as a juror on a rape trial, I've been raped myself, I will always believe the victim but then I am firm about my belief in Blackstones ratio so it would weigh heavily on me that it hasn't been proven beyond reasonable doubt so if there might be a small chance I was wrong if it was a he said/she said scenario. There are some rape trials where the evidence would 100% convince me but as you don't get to find out what the evidence is prior to sitting I would explain my rationale and hope to be excused.

Also a close family member reported a sexual assault recently, there is strong evidence in this case, so if it goes to court (it might not, not because of lack of evidence) I am certainly hoping for a guilty verdict. But even dealing with this upsetting thing in my own life and also with my close family member doesn't make me think I'd accept a lower burden of proof as a juror in a rape case.

So once again, like every single other time, your assumption you made about me was incorrect.

I've still not seen any good reason for these consultants, Dewi Evans et al and the police to be so intent on just stitching up one nurse. It makes no sense.

Dewi - wants to keep his "almost never lost a case" record as an expert witness - despite the fact that is absolutely NOT how an expert witness behaves as a Court of Appeal judge has criticised him for.

The other consultants - want to blame everything on one nurse rather than their filthy, poorly run under supervised department as then they might end up in the shit (rather than just having it back up the sinks...)

Dewi - wants to keep his "almost never lost a case" record as an expert witness - despite the fact that is absolutely NOT how an expert witness behaves as a Court of Appeal judge has criticised him for.

Then he wouldn't pick a case where the defendant is most likely innocent would he? Unless you're accusing him of lying about the evidence just to get her sent down, which I assume you're not doing.

The other consultants - want to blame everything on one nurse rather than their filthy, poorly run under supervised department as then they might end up in the shit (rather than just having it back up the sinks...)

None of that explains what happened to the babies. It's actually the serial killer that tried to blame the unit for her despicable crimes. A poorly run unit doesn't overfeed babies, give them air embolisms, insulin poisoning, road crash like injuries, throat injuries etc. Only baby killers do that.

I don't really think we can pin down everyone's motivation in all this. I've never been terribly interested in the question of not knowing Lucy Letby's motivation for her alleged crimes. I've other reasons for believing she is innocent.

But if I had to guess at Evans's motives, I would say he belongs to a group of people who are fully signed up to theories about Munchausens by proxy, assumed no smoke without fire when he heard of the case, and presents as unwilling to question his own conclusions or to listen to others. So, a combination of groundless suspicion and hubris.

A poorly run unit doesn't harm / kill babies in the way Lucy Letby was accused of doing, but it can of course harm and kill them in other ways.

Then he wouldn't pick a case where the defendant is most likely innocent would he? Unless you're accusing him of lying about the evidence just to get her sent down, which I assume you're not doing.

But he'd volunteered himself for the case before he saw the evidence and promoted himself as never having lost a case. Hardly the view of someone who was impartial?

It's actually the serial killer that tried to blame the unit for her despicable crimes. A poorly run unit doesn't overfeed babies, give them air embolisms, insulin poisoning, road crash like injuries, throat injuries etc. Only baby killers do that.

And the independent report into the unit that the judge wouldn't allow the jury to see. And the specialist panel have suggested that the other problems are less likely to have happened than substandard care.

Not to mention the fact that expert witnesses are not supposed to ‘’pick’ cases as role of prosecutor or defender @Firefly1987- that isn’t their role. Theyre supposed to be completely neutral

@firefly1987- you now seem to fancy yourself as an accomplished veteran of criminal defence.

Ivd posted this before, but I’ll post it again for your benefit

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/02/07/lucy-letby-case-the-problems-with-expert-evidence/amp/

I have not been convinced of her guilt from the start. I have worked in the NHS and seen how poorly it can function.
I find it increasingly frightening that Letby has been sentenced to life as the case unfolds further and she has no opportunity to use what comes out after the trial.

Hi there.

Yes, I agree with your concerns about the height of the bar that’s required for grounds for appeal - the judiciary donot like to look again at cases. They prefer jurists to get it right. But how csn they get it right in such a flawed system?

It’s never going to be perfect, but statisticians and the law commission have been banging drum on expert witnesses abx complex technical evidence for somd time and no body is listening.

It’s almost like a fucking stool at this point.

https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/expert-evidence-in-criminal-proceedings/

https://rss.org.uk/news-publication/news-publications/2022/section-group-reports/rss-publishes-report-on-dealing-with-uncertainty-i/#:~:text=The%20report%20also%20calls,'

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/15/expert-witnesses-are-weakest-link-in-english-justice-system-says-wrongly-convicted-surgeon

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Sharon-Segal-When-expert-evidence-goes-wrong.pdf

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/02/07/lucy-letby-case-the-problems-with-expert-evidence/amp/

‘Overfeeding’ 🤣🤣🤣 - the baby has. Have you ever seen a newborn whos unwell vomit? It’s likd something oug ig yhd Exorcist.
No I do not agree - because the evidence I’ve seen is far more shonky than the evidence I’ve seen in a lot of rape cases - for example sperm and injuries.

There isn’t one single bit of physical evidence in this case. Just bad stats, and Chinese whispers. And a pushy, angry little Welshman who ‘never loses a case’ to keep his daughter in horses and his son in fast cars.

The motivation I’ve become most interested in as this has gone on is that of those who are determined to double down on their pro guilt stance. There simply isn’t a rational argument that the evidence used against her was adequate, so they go round in circles, relying on soundbites and blatant and disingenuous misrepresentation of what has come out. It’s impossible to seriously contemplate all the new material and argue that there’s nothing to see here in a rational way, so they sound increasingly deranged. I just don’t understand their position.
Obviously nobody wants serial killers walking free, but highly capable medical and statistical experts were listening to the court reporting in real time and saying what, that doesn’t sound right, to the extent they tried to intervene. Since then, those early concerns have been demonstrated to be entirely justified.
I get that some people aren’t very clever, but even if you start out believing that the prosecution allegations must be the truth and therefore she must have done these things, there’s clearly something else going on when it’s explained over and over, ad infinitum, how it really works, and there’s so much credible material literally handed on a plate which is either ignored or hoops are jumped through to misrepresent it or brush it aside. Baffling or sinister, I’m not sure.

Has anyone listened to the most recent Double Jeopardy podcast where they talk about the Liz Hull and Caroline Chesham interview with Dr Mike Hall?

Interestingly one of either Ken or Tim says that the word around the bar at the time of the trial was that the defence experts were actually in agreement that deliberate harm had been caused to at least some of the babies (rather than just not being able to rule it out as per Dr Hall’s current position) and that’s why none of them were called. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but I think it’s fair to say that they would both be in a position to be getting quite credible ’whispers’.

I've been sitting on my hands lately because between my train wreck of a life and the state of the world, the risk of going postal in written form grows by the day, and I don't like being vicious. I can be, but it's not nice, and I try to incorporate a modicum of humility into my conduct.

So I'm going to try and write this in manner that conveys what I feel a need to say, without belittling or being "unkind".

I've said before it was the liver injury and the "force of a car crash" injuries that pulled me properly down the Lucy Letby rabbit hole. Because I'd heard that before. During my own case when I was falsely accused of deliberately causing multiple metaphyseal fractures in my 5 week prem son.

It sounds terrible, doesn't it? But my son at that point was 6 weeks old in the real world, or 1 week if you recalibrate for his slight prematurity. He had passed his six weeks check with flying colours. Only two "fractures" showed vague symptoms, which I sought appropriate medical advice for, and the first resolved itself and was dismissed as insignificant by the doctors themselves. They neglected to mention the "not iron" anaemia they picked up on blood tests and which might have provided a clue, but hey ho, here we are.

Please for the love of God / Baphomet / the KPop demon king or whichever deity fliats your boat, Firefly, do some actual bloody research.

It's all out on Google. First thing I did when I heard "liver injury" "force of a car crash" and "on a neonatal unit" was to go and find out a few things for frame of reference. Size of an average neonate liver - 5 - 7 cm. In a preemie, anything from approximately 2.8 cm up to 6 cm. Get a ruler or a tape measure and actually look at that. Look at its location in the body. Partly under the ribs. Surrounded by fat, tissue, other organs, covered by skin.

Now tell me how, just how, an injury could be inflicted with "the force of a car crash" and such precision as to cause life threatening devastation yet show no external signs? Nor impact on the surrounding areas?

You cannot say "it doesn't matter how, we just know she did it" because at that point there is no point in having a justice system that relies on any sort of actual evidence.

There are far more plausible alternatives to inflicted injury by blood thirsty serial killer nurse, including inflicted unintended injury by inept doctor.

The point remains this conviction is unsafe, particularly on this count, because if you can't propose a coherent mechanism for the crime you're essentially saying she did it with her Vulcan mind meld skills, and that's really not scientific is it?

So tell me Firefly, how did she do this particular injury? How? Without leaving a trace? No bruises, no damage to other organs? Just the INTERNAL bleeding?

I'll wait.

Thank you

thank you so so much.

‘Force of a car crash’ was what got me, too. Tgere is no way in hell that injuries that great caused by external force wouldn’t have left external signs. Now, unless Baby O was autopsied by a pathologist in receipt of PIP bevause theyre registered blind (and all the other professional who came into contact with Baby O after that capsule hematoma occurred), I an at a loss as to how the external signs wouod have been missed.

ducking stool

Im going to murder my autocorrect

I reckon we'd all be up for murder thanks to that particular bit of technology 😁

Irony is the number of times mine has changed an intentional "fuck" to "duck", presumably as it thinks I don't mean to be offensive, and it's not ladylike!!

Phil Hammond's account of the leaked pre-trial agreement by experts suggests that the position was more nuanced than that, but it would certainly be enough to account for those rumours:

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/specialreports/lucy-letby-28.pdf

Hall seems to have considered accidental air embolism possible for Baby A. That is presumably because of the risk factor of rapid removal of UVC line by doctors attending the child. It's a phenomenon difficult to rule out, since symptoms aren't distinctive unless tests are done ante-mortem (and they weren't).

I'd always assumed Lucy Letby's solicitors hadn't found experts able to dispute the claim that the test results meant exogenous insulin, and Hammond's account confirms that. This was also indicated even in early 2024 by Hall's reaction to the undisclosed files on baby Y, in interview with the New Yorker. Baby Y had similar test results but there was no charge in this case, and Hall stated that if the defence had had this information, it might have changed their strategy. So they didn't have full information to give their experts.

Still, we know there has been plenty of work on the insulin cases since, and we know there's nothing in particular linking them to Lucy Letby in particular, since the whole argument was that bags could be spiked in advance. Double Jeopardy are coming up with this outdated gossip rather late in the day.

Yes Hall said there were no major disagreements between the other defence experts and the prosecution experts on that podcast. Says it all really doesn't it. All we have left is Mike Hall who can't even commit to saying there was no deliberate harm. No wonder none of them were called! But yeah it's all Ben Myers fault 🙄

I think I'll go with the doctors assessment that it was practically unheard of for a child of that size to projectile vomit that far.

“I can’t recall a baby vomiting as far as the floor, I certainly can’t recall a baby vomiting that distance. It is quite extraordinary, there is something very, very unusual going on for (Child G) to throw up in this way.
"There can be only one explanation. (Child G) received far more than 45ml (of milk) down her nasal tube before she vomited.

She wasn't unwell either, they were celebrating her 100th day of life remember. And she'd been at the Countess three weeks by that point.

And once again something happened the minute a parent left-

The girl’s mother said that on another occasion she had gone to get a coffee when Letby was taking her daughter’s bloods, the court heard.
When she returned the baby was “freaking out, screaming and just looked so puzzled”, she told police, and Letby was stood over the cot with another colleague.
Child G ended up in intensive care three times after being transferred from Arrowe Park to Letby’s ward, the jury was told.
The girl’s father told police he had noticed a change in his daughter following this incident. A statement read to jurors said: “When she had the vomit I could see that she was different as she didn’t respond to my voice the same any more.”
The father said he asked doctors if there was a virus on the ward because another baby girl – known as Child I – in the same room had fallen ill in the same period. Child I is one of seven babies allegedly murdered by Letby between June 2015 and June 2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/01/lucy-letby-tried-murder-baby-celebration-banner-court-told

So, for example, let's imagine that Lucy Letby spent half of her eleven shifts caring for a three-week old, low birth weight child with a vomiting bug and seizures. This child would be very likely to extubate compared with a two day old without these characteristics.

Yes but presumably that was taken into account-that wouldn't be unexpected. I mean you proved that by saying it's "very likely" a child that was vomiting would extubate. So it wouldn't be included. It was actually less than 1 in 100 where a tube would become dislodged unexpectedly so they were being kind to Letby even saying 1/100 to her 4/11. Tubes also dislodged more often than average in 2012 but nowhere to the same extent as I expect she didn't have the opportunity. Also she most likely escalated over the years. Why is the convicted serial killer the only one with these terrible stats? Keep doubling down instead of just admitting maybe you're wrong.