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 why it should say anything about her current convictions

True, but the problem could be alleviated with better management of the expert witness system.

I'd also be a fan of Phil Hammond's campaign for a forensic external task force to be available to NHS trusts, though obviously it's far too late for that to help this case

She was on shift every time a baby died - which convinced me of her guilt too - because the ‘expert witness’ went through her shift patterns and removed any deaths where she wasn’t on shift

That's the thing, there's no proof that any crimes were committed at all.
If she is exonerated they won't be looking for 'the real killer', they will just decide there was no murderer and no murders.

Then it is going to come down to hospital failures and who is guilty of negligence etc as opposed to deliberate harm.

I think the majority of people who didn’t look in to the evidence too deeply believed she was guilty. The evidence has been ripped to shreds now. So more people are starting to think critically rather than just believing the headlines. I don’t think it has anything to do with no wanting to believe it’s true because she’s young and pretty.

Yes, obviously. I posted earlier about that being a structural issue.

This is of course a separate issue to whether anyone's lack of medical expertise is a problem. Your view appears to be that because any retrial would be under the same system as we have now (I agree it isn't changing any time soon) that somehow means people not knowing what they're talking about is fine.

The fact that we have a system where unqualified people are expected to weigh up such specialist evidence is a reason why lots of people don't think oh well the jury know best is a very good argument.

I only have to read some of those articles to have no doubt in my mind that this was an unfair trial and lots of other things including witnesses not being allowed to give evidence in support of LL and warned that their careers would be at risk if they did so. Disgusting behaviour.

There was no pattern to the deaths. Serial killers usually have a method, which they may improve on over time. There may well be no killer out there except the failings of that maternity unit.

Jury trials, you'll know, are a "best worst" option which was designed to prevent political influence on justice, not designed to achieve the best possible justice.

Three judges with relevant experience would probability be better for good justice, but only if all hint of political or other outside influences could be removed, and of course it can't.

So here we are, a bunch of 12 well meaning people sitting in court for weeks hearing terrible stories of babies dying and desperately wanting to give justice to those babies and their parents.

Only if they killed babies.

There are no genuine concerns. Someone upthread used the term 'Miss Marple' and that's exactly what this is, bored people ignorant of the evidence making themselves feel alive by pretending they know a sordid baby murderer is in fact innocent. Even Myra Hindley had her little club. Letby isn't special. If only you all cared about the poor parents of those poor babies 1% as much as you care about their killer.

You are making huge and pointless assumptions about other people's lives and motivations instead of arguing your point with concrete information.

Mud-slinging is legal, and some people enjoy doing it and reading it, but it doesn't add anything useful to the discussion.

It’s odd that all the many NHS units that have had serious failings didn’t turn around and scapegoat one of their staff members as a serial killer isn’t it? It’s almost as if she wasn’t a scapegoat at all and was in fact protected very closely (and those blaming her got threatened with the sack).

So what motive do you think Shoo Lee and his panel have for coming forward? They weren't paid, none of them need recognition, they are all believed to be at the very top of their fields. If they have no genuine concerns, why did they produce a report full of genuine concerns?

Absolute nonsense.
Do you think people like you are helping the families in any way?

Which is more hurtful for the families you think?
People not being convinced by the evidence, or people who think she's guilty but they are just huge fans of a baby killer?

You're not helping anyone, or showing kindness yourself so get off your high horse.

Spare us the self righteousness. Ignorance of the facts doesn’t make you a better person.

Most disasters have multiple causes. The Swiss cheese model. Disasters happen when they line up.

Here, there are lots of things that could potentially have prevented Lucy Letby from being arrested and charged:

For whatever reason, one of the consultants concerned remembered events differently as time went by. His new versions helped to secure charges and convictions. This, presumably, doesn't happen every time.

Lucy Letby's naivety about the process meant she didn't engage legal representation but stuck with work processes. This enabled consultants to use medical records to build a case against her to present to the police.

Dewi Evans's decision to contact the police and volunteer his service meant that they didn't hire the full range of experts the CPS advised - he told the police there was no need. With the right experts, including obstetrics, we don't know if the case would have got off the ground.

There are more factors, but there is also the general rule that is very very important if you want to understand this case. Unusual things happen. That's what unusual means. Sometimes, not often, not never.

The fact that something doesn't usually happen just doesn't mean it never happens.

@Oftenaddled For whatever reason, one of the consultants concerned remembered events differently as time went by. His new versions helped to secure charges and convictions.

That's an interesting way of describing a doctor who swore on oath at the trial that Lucy Letby did not call for back up while his own written note from close to the time, which I understand was withheld from the defence team, said she did?

Or am I thinking of a second doctor changing their mind about what happened?

Yes - I was just trying to state it in general terms as an unusual circumstance of the Lucy Letby case. Presumably lots of doctors don't react to crises on their wards by turning to perjury ...

One would hope!

Genuine question, those who have no concerns about the evidence or the safety of the conviction, why do you think Lee and other experts have come forward to express concerns?

If you think they are simply mistaken, what is it about the cases they present that you believe is less credible than the case Dewi Evans presented?

‘There are more factors, but there is also the general rule that is very very important if you want to understand this case. Unusual things happen. That's what unusual means. Sometimes, not often, not never.
The fact that something doesn't usually happen just doesn't mean it never happens.’

Well, quite.
In any case if someone can accept the highly improbable circumstance of it being a serial killer, and one who has never shown any of the characteristic behavioural traits of killers before, rather than the far more common circumstance of the deaths being caused by neglect in a stretched and underfunded NHS, I am not sure why they would consider that a nurse being scapegoated for those deaths would be too improbable to be a believable explanation.

I think that's one reason this case attracts such strong views. Whatever has happened here, the only possibilities are extraordinary. Either there's a serial killer on an NHS unit who went undetected for a lengthy period using an astounding variety of methods, or there wasn't but we sent someone for it anyway. If you'd come on here in 2014 and told us one of those things was about to happen, I don't think the reaction would be one of trusting belief.

I also wondered that.

Although in other NHS units people raising concerns have been bullied and harassed out of their jobs. I know of a pharmacist who raised concerns and they went to the lengths of reporting her to her regulator to try to get her struck off. A law firm took her case pro bono (for free) and the NHS trust concerned backed down.

I think Letby's conviction is unsafe. I don't know if she is innocent. I do think the NHS has a habit of lying rather than accepting that they can do things better.

all the babies were given a post mortem, how come in every single case murder wasn't flagged until the police were involved?

was it because the post mortem wasn't looking for murder? was it because they weren't murdered? was it because LL used ways of murdering babies that the pathologist hadn't seen before?