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

I watched the new C4 documentary last night, including part of the second episode. Why does Dewi Evans keep saying that he's "never lost a case?" He was an expert witness not the barrister for the prosecution. Also, as more and more experts come forward with evidence that contradicts his findings, he still seems to believe that attack is the best form of defence to the point of paranoia - they're all out to get me. One of the craziest things he claimed was that because Dr. Shoo Lee and others were in Canada or the USA they didn't understand the UK system. Nothing to do with the facts that they are experts in their field. He also tried the class war, claiming that people didn't like the fact that the trial and everyone involved in it were not "rich" people from the "right background" from the south east. He even claimed that the fact that he is Welsh counted against him. Ridiculous. In the end, I think we all want justice for the families involved and, if this also means correcting what increasingly appears to be a miscarriage of justice for Lucy Letby, then this is what must happen.

One of the things Dewi Evans ignored with all that bluster about Americans and Canadians is that at least one of the expert panel is British, and she and at least one other work in the NHS. In fact, Professor Neena Modi has been responsible for guidelines around staffing and working in neonatal wards.

I am amazed at how people just feel they can open their mouths and say whatever they feel like to justify themselves, when it is so immediately obvious that they are just objectively wrong.

If I were close to Dr Evans, I really would be advising him to stop talking to the media. He's not helping himself at all.

I was also confused about why the box was included - at most it is evidence that some further communication skills training might be needed, which is not uncommon for many health professionals at the start of their careers.

I am now an educational/clinical supervisor in the NHS and I have seen so many lovely young clinicians, stumble over their words and get overwhelmed in complex and highly emotionally charged situations - even acting in ways that a family might perceive to be emotionally detached or inappropriate - and it is evidence of nothing more than lack of experience and clinical supervision, which is most frequently a systemic issue of understaffing and lack of mentoring and support for staff in the first few years of their careers

I am now also 20-years into my medical career - but I am ashamed to say that I took my ward round handover notes home with me, every day for the first four months as a junior doctor.

Absolutely. So she laughed when they asked if their baby was dead? Could just be a nervous laugh, or a relieved laugh when she realised the news she was going to give them was much better than they expected.

Yet the program was trying to make it out to be something it wasn’t . To the extent that in the trailer they showed the Mum saying ‘we asked if our baby was dead and she laughed’.
without giving the context.

He doesn't strike me as the sort who likes listening to advice.

Yes because just before that she said she could try to change her conversations style and lay off the hyperbole, if I could just give her one example of her twisting things.

I laid out her 'conversation style' using a different topic to show exactly how she goes on seeing as she lacks self awareness. I thought if I used the LL example she'd ignore and just comment on the case again instead, missing the point entirely

But of course she went and twisted what I said anyway to make out I compared the case to potatoes......🙄

Hey ho.

I get that impression too from his repeated pattern of behaviour

Exactly, is this not the perfect time to provide his 'detailed critique'. if he's so confident, I would have thought he would have laid it all out as soon as it he had it ready?

https://www.mephitis.co/post/my-correspondence-with-dr-dewi-evans

I’m really struggling to understand what his point was in publishing these emails. All I’m seeing is Dewi Evans being in the main patient, polite and interested in the face of a barrage of questions on matters that fall mostly way outside the scope of Peter Elston’s expertise. Why is PE making out like it’s some sort of own?

Is there no room for the possibility that DE is not providing his detailed critique so as to avoid re-litigating in public? In his email correspondence with Peter Elston he mentions the feelings of the parents frequently.

Perhaps he is so sure that the panel have got things wrong that he is confident it will all come out in the wash at the CCRC (or possibly CoA). And in the meantime I can’t blame him for saying enough to at least try and defend himself against some pretty full-on allegations.

There are snippets of useful information in there, but it's quite the info dump, I agree. A bit of contextualization would improve things. I certainly see Evans getting things wrong at numerous points. But unless I've missed something major, which is very possible in that volume of undated material, I don't think I'd necessarily label errors and inconsistencies in private correspondence as lies.

I hope the focus moves on from Dr Evans (outside the CCRC application where relevant). The most recent documentary presented the affair mostly as a contrast between two men and their roles, but there is certainly a lot more to the case than that.

My main takeaways from the long long correspondence between Elston and Evans:

Confirms the role of the Chester consultants in choosing cases for him to examine. Private Eye have something on that this week too - print only for now.

Fairly sloppy on details of the cases he discusses, but this is private correspondence so even where he's evasive or omits things, not sure where you go from there.

Undertakes a statistical study despite patently not having enough information to confirm its significance - this was reported in the Telegraph back in November and deservedly sank like a stone. A reasonable sidenote is to ask why Chester Police are sharing relevant files with him outside his now concluded duties to the investigation, but can't blame him for that.

Effectively denies that the difference Shoo Lee has cited between venous and arterial embolism exists, but his grounds for this claim aren't really given.

I don't think the correspondence tells us much new about Evans. It certainly confirms problems with the police investigation, and I find it interesting from that angle.

Interested to know (genuinely!) which are the bits that Evans is getting wrong?

‘He mentions the feelings of the parents quite frequently’

I guess he needs to stop writing to journalists and giving interviews, then.

After all, if he wants to avoid re-litigation, the best way to do that wouod Hd to be giving no comment abx saving it for.

Lots of detail, and then big things like how not to conduct a statistical analysis, and then things that aren't backed up but you're under no obligation to back things up in private correspondence, are you?

As a rapid example, baby C. Evans claims that there was no time for the hospital to check the child's bile aspirates before he died, but the hospital's own records note that there was a missed opportunity to do this and it should have been done in the time available. He claims that the child's resuscitation was normal, but again, the hospital records note failure to get a chest rise, problems opening the airway, and failure to intubate. That kind of thing. But in many cases it's just rehashing what he said at the trial, reasonably enough, and while we know the counterarguments, I wouldn't expect to see them here.

I guess that's the nature of published correspondence.

I don’t think this is fair. He has faced, and continues to face, awful personal abuse and serious allegations about his professional experience and competence. I’m not sure whether it’s been the wisest thing for him to come out fighting, but I can’t really blame him for doing that either.

Just a random example that flashed up for me on X:

How isn't it fair? Whether you think his behaviour is understandable in the circumstances and whether it's sensible aren't the same question.

Yes. It's a pity when people post things that distract from the real problems. There are real problems with Evans's behaviour as an expert witness.

Equally do you think it’s fair that Letby’s reactions to things have been painted consistently as malevolent?

Interesting, thanks.

I agree that there’s no need to back things up in private correspondence, and my reading of the statistical analysis sections were that DE had become interested as a result of the correspondence with Peter Elston and had had a play around with some analysis of his own (which he asks PE to check). I haven’t seen how it was reported in the Telegraph so don’t know how clear it was that it wasn’t put together by a statistician.

Do you have a source for the detail on baby C’s records which contradict what DE says in his emails? I would like to have a look.

And I think you are somewhat jumping the shark trying to marry my comments with those of people wishing to imply impropriety of a sexual nature on Dewi’s part. I have neber done anything of the sort.