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 don't see how we could have a system that is any more biased than we currently have. Expert shopping can and does happen. Cheshire Police instructed multiple experts on the advice of the CPS during the early stages of their investigation, but didn't move forward with any of them after none of them were able to identify any wrongdoing. Instead of accepting the opinions of all of these experts and closing the investigation, they carried on shopping until they found an expert who was willing to work backwards from a place of guilt.

Which experts did Cheshire Police instruct that couldn’t identify wrongdoing and weren’t taken forward?

Expert shopping does indeed happen, on both sides. Indeed, Mark McDonald has scoured the world for his expert panel. What remains to be seen (possibly) is how their evidence stands up when tested as part of a formal legal process.

We also know full well the current system doesn't guarantee independence either, nor does it prevent lengthy appeals. You must know about expert shopping, as a pp mentioned? The reality is that the credentials of experts are constantly debated now, and it isn't necessarily the case that people would be able to appeal based on composition either. I'm sure it would be attempted at some point but it certainly doesn't follow that the outcome would be sufficiently successful for endless appeals to be either feasible or attractive.

That said, I'm very open to other ideas about how to fix the obvious structural problems we have now.

Errr no I don’t think I want to hand my name out to a stranger on the internet. But thank you all the same. Theres been a bit of research done on juries and you can’t assume all verdicts are just the strongest person’s view.

I just don’t see what the solution that people want is. Of course the prosecution needs to be able to select experts and same for the defence. The panel convened by Dr Shoo has never had its claims tested and may fall apart on cross examination. The prosecution experts were subjected to lengthy cross examination by an eminent barrister during the trial and the jury still found her guilty. There were multiple experts, not just Dr Evans.

If she gets a retrial surely we’re back at square one? She gets to instruct experts, so does the prosecution? The prosecution is likely to select ones that tend to agree with its case. People are acting like she never got a chance to challenge the evidence, nor to seek her own expert evidence. What will be so different at a retrial?

I just don’t see what the solution that people want is

that we have a robust justice system that we can all rely on if we are standing in the doc accused.

To do that we sometimes need to look at how or what has been done and evaluate whether it is correct

I think you need to re read the post - the person is saying to direct mail them on mn and not give your name to them but the opposite, so you can check them out. DM doesn't reveal your name other than glowingup

A barrister is not qualified to verify the credibility of medical evidence.

No one is saying Letby did not have the chance to instruct her own experts; we are saying that, for one reason or another, she didn't. Again, we cannot allow a potential miscarriage of justice to stand because the defense made a mistake in the initial trial.

The other experts worked off case notes prepared by Dewi.

Once reporting restrictions were lifted, Dewi's evidence was roundly ripped apart by the wider medical community to the point of ridicule. There is no way anyone can say his evidence stood up to cross-examination.

Shoo Lee's panel has also been criticised and examined by other medical experts, but has not attracted anywhere near as much criticism as the medical evidence presented in court by Dewi et al. While small elements have been questioned by other experts, the majority agree with his overall findings.

But in practical terms what does that involve? That we don’t allow both sides to pick their own experts? That either side can veto the appointment of an expert? That we abolish trial by jury?

I can't answer that as it needs to be looked at if it is shown that LL had an unsafe conviction - then it needs to be looked at imo as to what did go wrong, how can that be changed so a repeat doesn't happen.

But as soon as people start questioning what has happened, its spouted "oh your a fan club of LL" "oh its due to a white girl being convicted" "oh you're grasping at straws"

Its not helpful when in the main people don't want to find themselves in the same position as LL

I do get that. But the fact is that she had the same treatment as anyone else accused of a crime. And yes there are miscarriages of justice and yes we should work to try to reduce these happening. But they are actually fairly rare, fortunately. If Lucy Letby is innocent she is incredibly incredibly unlucky. First that she was the one the consultants honed in on to apparently cover their own negligence, second that she just also happened to have also altered notes in her favour, behaved suspiciously and googled her victims, third that she then fell victim to a terrible defence team where her leading KC suggested not calling any witnesses who supported her case, bar a plumber. This despite the fact that the prosecution expert was completely incompetent with zero credentials. That is pretty much a run of bad luck from start to finish.

We know she had the same treatment as others in terms of instructing experts, that's why people keep pointing out that this is a systemic issue and would be so even if there's been no MOJ here. I don't understand why people keep reiterating that this is the system we have. That is not in doubt!

Another problem is that actually, we don't know how relatively rare miscarriages of justice are. I use the term relative because it's no good them still being rare in absolute terms in a population of 70 million. You need more robust systems to identify and remedy them than we can currently boast. And yes, by definition people who have experienced an MOJ are unlucky. Most of us don't.

I also wonder, and this is speculation, how much impact this one specific circus is going to have on clinicians willingness to put themselves forward as experts in future contentious criminal cases. If I were a neonatologist and Cheshire Police had approached me in the course of their Liverpool investigations, would've been a big fat no. Wouldn't have advised anyone I care about to touch this with a barge pole either. There are of course multiple explanations for why they've not been able to put a good enough case together, and I'm not saying this is what happened. Only that it's a risk.

Except all of this either did not happen, or has a plausible explanation.

It is proven in emails, published as part of the Thirwell inquiry, that Breary's initial review ignored findings and recommendations made in a prior, external review by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which highlighted serious failings on the unit, and instead focused his attention on the nurses on duty. Lucy just happened to work the most hours. Everyone after this just followed Breary's lead.

There is no evidence she altered notes to cover wrongdoing; this is circumstantial. It is totally normal to go back and add annotations to notes taken during emergencies because it is not possible to take notes and properly administer care simultaneously. It was claimed she added a blood glucose level of 2.9 to one baby's notes to cover up insulin poisoning. Medical professionals have since confirmed a blood glucose level of 2.9 is actually low, especially considering the other care the baby received, so this makes no sense. She would add a higher-than-average reading, not a lower one.

Suspicious behaviour is conjecture, and you have to note the fact that Letby had already been pinpointed as the only suspect. People were looking for her to behave suspiciously. This is confirmation bias.

Ask anyone in healthcare if they or a colleague has ever Googled a patient or looked at their social media, and every single one will say yes. You have to remember, carers and nurses spend 40+ hours a week caring for their patients. It is impossible not to form an attachment with them and their families.

Again, we do not know why her defense team didn't use their own expert; they may well have had a plausible, tactical reason, but it doesn't change the fact that it resulted in a trial where the medical evidence presented was entirely one-sided.

Various expert and professional bodies have raised concerns about the way in which expert evidence is treated in our courts. This was an identified problem before Letby's conviction.

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

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

Useful article here on Criminal Bar magazine on the inadequacy of some of the guidance.

https://www.criminalbar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CBQ-news-May-2019-web-version.pdf

Expert witnesses themselves are concerned about the lack of regulation. That makes total sense, of course people who trade on their good names don't want quacks and fuckwits causing loss of trust.

https://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/top-stories/2025/november/most-english-expert-witnesses-want-regulation/

No, I didn't think you would. But given that I've offered can you possibly hold off on the snide remarks now?

I did not I write anywhere that I assumed all verdicts are the strongest person's view. Most juries come to their conclusion based on solid evidence. If there isn't good solid evidence, however, and if juries have to deliberate for close to 3 working weeks to reach a verdict then I stand by my belief that those who were not sure were in the end convinced not by the evidence itself but by the strongest characters in the retiring room.

@Glowingup

"Jury research" is an interesting concept because it isn't legal for anyone to be in the retiring room when a jury is deliberating and jurors aren't allowed to discuss how it went in the retiring room afterwards.

So research is done on game situations which can't possibly accurately reflect the situation where a real person is going to go to prison for the rest of their life as a result of what a jury decides. People also behave differently when they know that their behaviour is being observed and analysed.

I'd be happy for you to point me to any research you think is relevant to Letby's trials, though.

Sorry, you have lost me.

My post was a link to an article by Jonathan Sumption that addresses questions raised by the OP

You seem to have forgotten what you wrote. It was not just a reference nto Sumption. Let me remind you.

You wrote:

I suspect everybody has already made up their mind on Letby

I quoted that and replied:

Not so. I've made up my mind on the safety or otherwise of the conviction. I'm on the fence about her guilt.

You completely unjustifiably attacked me for that reply, asking how it was relevant to the OPs first post.

Any time you fancy apologising for that is fine by me.

One of the odd things about this case is that there are people on here, and other parts of the internet, who are so convinced of her guilt that they seem to take it as a personal insult that others feel that the conviction is unsafe - not that she is innocent, but merely that the conviction is unsafe.
They seem to think that it would be totally wrong for there to be a retrial.

However, surely if they are so convinced that the trial was a safe conviction and the evidence was robust, they shouldn't care if it did go to appeal, because the evidence would be just a robust the second time?

So they obviously do have a doubt in their mind, and for some reason this scares them.

But it should scare everyone that she was convicted on this evidence, because, whether she is innocent or guilty, this means that you too could also be convicted on unsafe evidence whether you are innocent or guilty.

I mean, what do you want me to say to that? That I’m delighted they’re pleased?

As others have said: the case was heavily reported and a matter of public record. I’ve read a lot of what they would have seen.

Did you “sit through the evidence for months on end” in the Letby trial? No. So how can you be so convinced they got it right?

But the fact is that she had the same treatment as anyone else accused of a crime

Frequency

covers the answer to this well in her post

and I keep going back in my own mind to why a murder case was started with a suspect and then the murder victims were sought out through analysing when she was on duty and which babies died. Babies that died when Lucy Letby wasn't on duty were not re examined

I was shocked but then I remembered how few rapists ever see court due to the bar for evidence being so high. Devastating for the families but hopefully they can take comfort in the fact she's never getting out and the police found answers of sorts for them.

Just goes to show how strong the evidence was the first time that the CPS sent it to court. It was obvious she got out of control at Chester and whatever she did earlier was lots of tube dislodgements and the like. Extremely hard to prove.

Honest question, do you read anything other than your own posts?
Have you read any of the links provided to you?
Did you even read Dr Lee's report?

The bar for rape is the same height bar as for every other crime, at least a 50/50 chance of succesful prosecution. Few rapists see court because most rapes are "he said she said" with no independent evidence, so they don't make it to court.

The evidence against Letby was always weak but there was a massive case of public interest involved and that is also something that is used to decide whether or not to prosecute.

I find it fascinating that anyone can get to page 15 of this thread and still be so absolutely convinced that she will never get out. I can only assume that you're not reading the answers, or not absorbing the answers, or are incapable of understanding the answers.

Dr Shoo Lee had seen very few AEs in real life because they're so rare. It's not just about Dewi Evans or air embolism. I'm looking at everything else-insulin, overfeeding, deliberate harm, previous morphine overdose. Sure you can find an expert to debunk one thing-you can even find experts to debunk ALL of them separately-but when you put them together (which people aren't doing which is very frustrating) it paints a very clear picture of deliberate harm.

No doubt people are ignoring the rest of the evidence and focusing on the one thing they think they can argue about. They also seem to focus almost entirely on DE as someone they can direct their irrational anger at for some strange reason. And I say that because the absolute hatred people have for DE is completely ridiculous.