Lucy Letby not charged with further crimes - what does this say about her current convictions

[mids2019]

So no more charges for Lucy Letby currently.

I can't say I am surprised as the tactics the CPS used the first time to secure convictions wont wash. There have been too many questions about the 'expert' evidence in the first trial and in my opinion the CPS don't want to take the risk of trying again with a more possibly more aware jury.

The police seem to be not too happy and probably thought they had similar evidence as they had initially so were taken aback by the CPS decision. They have had to approach parents to say that their children dies either through medical incompetence or through natural causes. The poor parents will now feel distraught and confused being lef up the garden path and the police maybe telling them Lucy was guilty.

I wonder if this is paving the way for a retrial?

I've been trying to think of another time this has happened, and drew a blank. It really is quite an extraordinary statement.

I was open mouthed when it was on the news. It's my local Police Force, it really struck home. I can't help believing they brought the new charges in an effort to shore up the ones which are now under attack. In which case that has spectacularly backfired because their statement now puts in people's minds that the original charges were brought from a similarly poor evidence base.

My heart goes out to the families of the Liverpool babies. To lose a baby is a terrible tragedy and all these years later to have the police try to prove that it wasn’t medical misconduct or natural causes but murder by LL. That would have been so difficult to process.

To be honest, I don’t really understand why they tried to bring these charges, it happened so long ago now to prove it would have been incredibly difficult and due to all the controversy around this case, you would of needed something really concrete.

I agree. I witnessed a serious car vs lorry collision on the motorway in 2023, which left the car driver with lifechanging injuries. I was telephoned a few months ago to say that they are prosecuting the lorry driver, that I will be called to court as a witness, and that I'm the only witness they could identify (I dialled 999 and spoke to the operator, so gave my details) despite about 10 people being at the scene when I was there. I do remember the incident. I remember key details from it. I do wonder if my evidence will be as helpful as it would have been weeks after the incident, though. Everything isn't as crisp as it was, that's for sure.

In principle I think it's potentially reasonable to look, and particularly don't understand the people who think it doesn't matter either way because LL is in prison. But equally, it was a conveniently timed announcement to investigate and has dragged on a long time. It's been obvious for a while they weren't going to have enough, and so I agree with pp that Cheshire Police probably weren't surprised. It's quite possible they saw this coming and planned that tantrum statement well in advance.

It may be years yet before they manage to get a court date, I hope you gave a statement at the time. You're allowed to refresh your memory with it. The driver will be grateful you're prepared to step up and do your public duty, I'm sure.

I have my reservations about trial by jury full stop, yes.

But more importantly I have serious concerns about the evidence itself, the way it was presented to the jury, and the integrity of the main expert witness. Within the system that we have, I do not believe she had a fair trial.

What I’m surprised about is that her trial lasted nearly a year. Following conviction after all this apparently shit and non existent evidence has been presented in court, nobody was saying they thought she was innocent. Nobody was saying the evidence was nonexistent. There were lots of threads on here about how evil people thought she was and how she should rot in hell. She was lambasted for refusing to appear at her sentencing hearing. Then some middle aged male journalists start saying they think she’s a victim and she’s innocent and more and more people jump on the bandwagon and suddenly it’s become the latest thing and how she’s a victim of a miscarriage of justice. I think her looks and presentation do have something to do with it to make people give this much of a shit about a convicted killer. Beverley Allitt was also suspected based on shift patterns. The case against her was also circumstantial. Same with Ben Geen who claimed the syringe he had on him was for something else. Same with Harold Shipman who claimed his patients were morphine addicts. Nobody was caught in the act. Patients all initially were thought to have died of natural causes. Lucy Letby’s case isn’t special. I’m sure you could find some expert who’d say Bev Allitt’s patients didn’t necessarily die of air embolism and that their bodies naturally produced insulin or whatever.

This is another strange claim to make. You can't possibly know whether any expert would be willing to give such a view on the Allitt case, so why are you 'sure'? The only thing that tells us is that you're willing to make vague, meaningless punts that can't be backed up.

And why do you think one single expert would be a relevant comparison to the clearly vast expertise of the panel who reviewed the case files here?

As for the rest, does this mean you're surprised that some people reviewed their priors when more evidence became available?

Then some middle aged male journalists start saying they think she’s a victim and she’s innocent and more and more people jump on the bandwagon and suddenly it’s become the latest thing and how she’s a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

I’m interested to know why you think the sex and age of the journalists is relevant. Also, there was a very long and detailed article in the New Yorker by Rachel Aviv. A woman. Sorry, not sure about her age. That was right back in May 2024 when Letby was awaiting retrial on some counts. It was this article (which was suppressed in the UK due to the upcoming trial) that planted the seed of doubt in many people’s minds, more so than anything that came before.

This sums up my feelings on the case perfectly.

Regarding why the defense didn't call their own experts, I remember reading something a while back from a defense lawyer who wrote the most likely reason for this, in their opinion, was Evans' unusual and arguably unethical behaviour as an expert witness.

Typically, when acting as an expert witness, a medical professional will state the most likely cause of death was this, and here are the reasons why. If asked is it possible x,y, or z happened instead, they may answer that it's possible but unlikely. Any decent prosecution lawyer will try to block them from saying that last bit or switch the focus to them admitting there are other possibilities.

Evans didn't do that. He was adamant that the only possible cause of death was air embolism or insulin poisoning. We now know this not to be true, as other, more qualified experts have put forward alternatives that are more plausible than air embolism or insulin poisoning.

It's thought that when a jury doesn't fully understand the evidence they are presented with, they'll defer to the most confident expert, so calling their own expert might have undermined their case if that witness then went on say Evans' version of events was possible but unlikely, so instead they tried to rely on picking holes in the evidence presented by Evans.

I'll try to find the article I read it in and link it if I can, but maybe one of the legal people on here could confirm if this might be the case?

I do wonder why her original team didn't try to contact Shoo Lee if they knew Evans' theory relied on his research.

On jury trials, I have a question. Are jurors able to ask for a second opinion? My immediate reaction when reading Evans' testimony on air embolism was, "huh?" It made no sense to me, and I immediately went off to look for second opinions and research to support or disprove Evans' theory. If I were on a jury, would I have any way of verifying the likelihood of an expert's testimony, or is it a case of taking them at face value?

I think a lot of questions started to be raised soon after the trial when restrictions were lifted. Rachel Aviv from the New Yorker doesn't sound like a middle aged male journalist to me and that article certainly spurred a lot of people on to take a closer look at the cases.

Among other things it's the fact that there are so many alleged methods used - not impossible but really not typical - and the expert panel reports that show that there are alternative explanations that don't require a murderer. Lucy Letby herself, her character or appearance don't really concern me except to say that she sounds pretty boring and they clearly didn't find anything in her past that would indicate that she could be a serial killer. I'm not interested in her, but I am interested in a case which is quite possibly a miscarriage of justice.

I find it far more credible that poor care from a struggling department where ward rounds were not carried out often enough, the physical building was cramped and in poor condition, and they were taking on babies that were sicker than they should have after letting more experienced staff go was responsible for the increased number of deaths and collapses. Some of this information only really came to light during the Thirlwell enquiry.

Inquests are due to open for 6 of the babies next month https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wz92x4nw7o
It will be interesting to see how this fits in with either the original causes of death, the ones presented at trial or the ones suggested by Dr Shoo Lee's expert panel.

You have to remember that there were reporting restrictions during the trial, so the experts like Neena Modi and Svilena Dimitrova who were shocked by the standard of medical evidence they heard could not speak out because they would have been in contempt of court.

Meanwhile, Cheshire Constabulary has entered into some very unusual arrangements with the press. They had paid for days of media training to get advice from journalists on this case particularly. They paid Caroline Cheetham's company, which also employed Liz Hull. These two journalists spent the trial podcasting about it and had the police on to give their version straight afterwards. On the day when Lucy Letby's defence did their summing up, the press was mostly absent because the police gave a press conference with the statements to be used if she was found guilty.

The appropriate regulators really need to look hard at whether police and press behaviour was appropriate here.

Anyway, as soon as reporting restrictions were lifted, medical experts were able to get their concerns in the press, with the most influential work early on coming from Rachel Aviv and Phil Hammond.

So your comment really isn't accurate.

If Panorama and others reported this, they are wrong and should retract.

You can see the chart of deaths on the neonatal unit drawn up by the Thirlwall Inquiry for details. Lucy Letby was on shift (not necessarily present) for 10 of 18 deaths in the period scrutinized; 10 of the 13 which took place on the ward.

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/evidence/inq0108782-pages-1-5-of-table-produced-by-the-inquiry-legal-team-titled-all-of-the-neonatal-deaths-linked-to-the-countess-of-chester-hospital-in-2015-and-2016-dated-december-2024/

Anyone who has read much about the case probably sick of hearing this, but it remains true: rare events like being present for 10 out of 13 deaths without causing them are unlikely to happen to a specific individual but will happen to a small number of individuals.
This is called the lottery fallacy. If I told you I knew who would win the lottery next month you would think I was mad. If I told you I knew somebody would win the lottery next month, you wouldn't.

I have tried to find a short readable account of how people go wrong thinking about statistics and this is one of the better ones.
https://duncanlaw.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/the-lucy-letby-case/

Section 2 is the most relevant here.

I provided a statement for something as a witness and more than 10 years later I had to provide another statement. They read my original statement to me and I couldn't remember most of it.

I do wonder why her original team didn't try to contact Shoo Lee if they knew Evans' theory relied on his research.

@Frequency
I have always wanted to know this.

On jury trials, I have a question. Are jurors able to ask for a second opinion? My immediate reaction when reading Evans' testimony on air embolism was, "huh?" It made no sense to me, and I immediately went off to look for second opinions and research to support or disprove Evans' theory. If I were on a jury, would I have any way of verifying the likelihood of an expert's testimony, or is it a case of taking them at face value?

They're allowed to ask questions, but not sure about second opinions, I don't think so. I have seen people slating people for saying the Jury couldn't have understood because they said it was an insult to their intelligence and they were always allowed to ask questions, but for most you wouldn't even know what to ask or what is missing or what doesn't make sense without some kind of familiarity with the subject.

I saw a thread on reddit before from a doc who just listed off the relevant questions that immediately came to mind about the babies care, they had tons of questions, the average person on the jury is just never going to even consider any of those things.

Exactly, the difficulty is that you don't know what you don't know. It's not about intelligence, and nor is that exclusive to medicine. Any jury could theoretically be comprised of people who are smarter than the average doctor, but that won't give them in depth knowledge of a field they've never trained in or studied.

Nobody was saying the evidence was non existent

But they have, as soon as the verdict was known and they were allowed. Peter Hitchens has been writing extensively in the Daily Mail and as a result he was banned from meetings between the press and the Cheshire Police as described in a post above. He wrote this morning that no transcripts or minutes are available for two key meetings and he is in a long standing battle to make Cheshire Police tell the public what went on in them.

Also lots of us with no mouthpiece were saying amongst ourselves as the trial progressed "well they can't convict beyond reasonable doubt on this evidence, so she'll walk free". Many people were shocked by the verdict. Please note this has nothing whatsoever to do with whether those people believed she was innocent.

This many times over. Cheshire Police have behaved most peculiarly.

Not to mention the arrest footage - including Lucy Letby in bed - that they seem to have found it appropriate to share for a Netflix documentary

I wouldn't give a trigger warning exactly but I do find this footage saddening and deeply inappropriate. What's the public interest in sharing / showing it?

I’m glad it’s not just me who went ‘wtf?’ at that.
Even if she was guilty, on what planet would it be appropriate for the police to sell footage of a young woman arrested in bed?
We’re a civilised country not Trump’s America ffs, even criminals are meant to be treated with dignity.

I can't begin to imagine any justification for it. It proves that Lucy Letby ... slept in bed at night?

It just makes the police come across as bullying perverts. (Like the prosecution lawyer who threatened to show the court footage of it at her trial).

Similar vibe to the ‘what does go commando mean’ sexualised bullying of her in court.

The only reason they could have for that is to humiliate her. Yes, she won't be able to watch it, but her family and friends will.

However, I'm sure a lot of people will watch it and take her being able to sleep as a sign of guilt.

The whole case is just bizarre, DE's involvement, and the fact that he appears to have basically run the case for the CPS despite being neither a neonatologist nor a detective, the Police behaviour - all of it just odd.

I didn't follow the case at first. I was aware of it, I just assumed it would be handled properly, and she must be guilty based on the tiny bits I did hear. Clearly, I had far too much faith in Cheshire Police. I only started looking into it after catching the last half of Dr Lee's press conference and wondering who this man was and why he was saying there were no murders. The more I read, the more confused I was as to how those involved managed to get it so wrong. Involving DE was their first mistake, and it went downhill from there.

Yes, that was a touch gross. It's telling that the people who are so sure nobody would question the conviction if she weren't a young fairly pretty woman don't seem to wonder whether intimate things like her bed, pyjamas and underwear questioning would've happened in the same way had she been a different demographic. Whether the public appetite for salaciousness has been played to in a specific way because of that.