You only have to look at medical threads on Mumsnet to see that most people have absolutely no idea what happens in a hospital and how they work. Then consider that NICU is a very specialised area of hospital. How many people would have seen a 23/24 week gestation baby up close? Very few. How many people would understand about ET tubes, NG tubes, dislodgement, etc? Even as an ITU nurse, most nurses wouldn't know how much more significant even a millimetre is in neonates. That the treatment for a 23/24 week neonate is quite different than for a 28 week neonate, which is again different for a 32 week 'grower'.
How many people would understand that as a NICU nurse you might be allocated patient A but through the course of your shift you'll naturally deal with patients C through G and that isn't sinister? That babies throw alarms and it's sometimes important, sometimes unimportant, and sometimes just a glitch?
How many people understand that premature babies break alarmingly fast? I've looked after a baby who was perfectly fine at one feed, and critically unwell at the next feed just 1 hour later. How many people understand that 'funny looking skin' can sometimes be the only sign that something isn't quite right with a baby?
How many people understand that you can't rely on swipe card data? That inevitably nurse 1 goes to the drug cupboard but they get the drugs for their patient and the patient of nurse 2 who can't leave her patient, and nurse 3 who is looking after both her patient and the patient of nurse 4 who has gone on their break? That the agency nurse/student doesn't have access to the drug cupboard/ward doors/gas machine. That the time on machines is often slightly off.
How many people know that it's not always clear that a patient is very unwell, and that nurses do sometimes take a minute to assess a situation and make a decision about what has to be done, which could look like inaction? I've been in a situation on adult ICU (without breaking confidentiality) where I ended up with 3 very unwell patients across 2 rooms because of a critical incident elsewhere, and when one of the monitors gave a very extreme reading my first thought was that there was a malfunction, because the reading was so extreme that you just don't ever see that sort of reading. It took a second or two, between trying to deal with a very unwell patient who was trying to get out of bed, and another who was on very potent medication that needed immediate adjustment, to register that the reading was in fact real and the patient needed emergency treatment. I wasn't a bad nurse. I was just split between 3 emergencies. It happens. It isn't like Grey's Anatomy, Casualty, or Holby City.
For a jury to properly assess the weight of evidence, they would need to at least understand the context. What they got, if all the podcasts, etc., are to be believed, is 'evidence' that had been carefully sculpted to give the impression that certain events only took place when Lucy Letby was there, that she was the common denominator, and that those events don't ever take place normally.
I don't know why she had such a poor defence. They could have, and should have, poked gaping holes in most of the evidence, even if they thought she was guilty.
This isn't actually about innocence or guilt. Our justice system is built on the principle of innocent unless proven guilty by the eradication of reasonable doubt. There is so much doubt, even from the little that we do know, that she should never have been convicted, guilty or not.
But what jury, faced with all the press run up, would have found her not guilty? How could she have had a fair second trail when the jury were told, and knew anyway, that she was already convicted of murder in similar circumstances? It's impossible.