Lucy Letby ( To understand)

[PassingStranger]

What made her kill these babies. Been in the news again today.

It's hard to understand?
Presume as she is in prison and not a hospital, she is not mentally ill?

Will anyone try to find out, I guess if people don't admit they are guilty it's hard too.

Instead of people saying give me 5 mins in a cell with her, surely it's better to stop this happening or maybe it's not possible?
Why does she want to be one of the most hated women in the universe and not give a shit about the babies families and even her own parents?

So much better to be known for doing something nice and have people like you?
AIBU to wonder why she took this road in life?

That’s fair enough, and of course everyone will have different opinions.

For me it is one of the serious mysteries of this case as to why the defence didn’t put a credible witness on the stand to dispute the medical evidence- (since all it is is theory and hypothesis that could have been countered in any number of ways).

As for the statistical evidence- well any mathematician/ statistician would have blown that apart entirely .

Did LL’s counsel arrogantly believe that their own cross examination of the expert witnesses would be sufficient ? Did they not fully understand the scientific evidence themselves and how important it was to debunk it? Were they trying to save costs?
Did they have difficulty finding a credible expert at the time who was willing to participate (given the media storm and the public rage about the case)?
Were they simply busy and/ or lazy and cutting corners?
Did the judge block certain testimony for reasons we are not privy to?
Was it a deliberate (and in retrospect clearly very misguided) strategy the defence opted for unexplained reasons?

We can only speculate but it’s certainly a mystery.

Personally I don’t find it convincing to simply conclude “well her barrister has a great reputation so he can’t have made a mistake, so she must be guilty”.

@SerafinasGoose No idea why you think I’m angry nor am I interested in your opinions in this - I think they’re rather silly actually. But hey at least you’re honest that your interest is merely “amusement”.

It’s entirely incorrect to say that the only opinions that matter are the jury - when a case with such serious charges are convicted on no evidence, on the basis of junk science, that impacts everyone. Already, scientists and statisticians have something to say about it.

I think it's equally unconvincing to say that Letby's barrister must have cocked up, particularly given that she retained him for the appeal and the second trial. We know that they did have an expert witness lined up but decided not to use him, which suggests that they thought that if anything the evidence would be more damaging to the defence. It's impossible to say there was no evidence, because clearly there was, and ultimately unless you have seen all the evidence and heard all the witnesses you cannot assert with any certainty that two separate juries were wrong.

I think it's equally unconvincing to say that Letby's barrister must have cocked up

but I didn’t say that. If you read my post I offered a number of possible explanations that were not “the barrister must have cocked up” (this list will not be exhaustive).

What I don’t understand is why there was no expert witness put on the stand to challenge the scientific evidence; I said we can only speculate as to why, but it is certainly a mystery. your answer is “because she’s guilty”. I am not at all convinced.

The scientific evidence is out there for anyone to examine . You seem determined to dismiss any debate about its credibility on the basis of- “well any credible arguments would have been heard court; if they weren’t heard, they weren’t in her favour. and she’s already been convicted , so she must be guilty.” Instead of assuming this, why not engage with some of the substantive criticisms of the scientific evidence which are out there- from medics, scientists, statisticians, etc., and judge for yourself whether you think it stands up to scrutiny?

The justice process gets things wrong all the time. Amanda Knox was convicted more than once- to name just one example. There is a reason trials are public in a functioning democracy.

Over 8% is a fairly hefty percentage, though the more significant figures are the percentage of babies she was accused of harming whose notes she had - which will inevitably be much higher - and the percentage of babies who died or who had significant clinical events.

It is very odd indeed that someone who was supposedly such a good nurse had so much confidential information stored at her home when it is drummed into HPs that it is a complete no-no. It really cannot be claimed that it is irrelevant.

Another potential reason for the Defence’s failure to call any witnesses has occurred to me - LL has told them she’s guilty. In those circumstances the Defence can put the prosecution to proof, but they can’t put forward an alternative, positive case.

Not sure that stands up to scrutiny- they can’t mislead the court so they can’t assert anything they know to be a lie, and I haven’t gone back through all the details. But it would be an explanation for the lack of Defence witnesses.

The appeal had to be about technicalities anyway, because the trial is “the first and last night of the show” - you can’t try and re-run the trial on appeal.

Over 8% is a fairly hefty percentage

Come on that’s ridiculous. If we are to believe that the most convincing explanation as to why she kept the notes is “because they were a trophy of her kills, no other good explanation” etc, then how do we explain that 90-odd percent of the notes she kept were not related to the babies she was accused of harming ? Makes no sense at all.

This is bogstandard stuff it’s nothing remarkable. There are many people taking issue with the evidence - doctors and scientists are speaking out.

The defence strategy or lack of it is the million dollar question - what the hell happened. I don’t know if we will ever know why there were no expert witnesses.

What the case really needed was a criminal solicitor with a scientific background, several medical advisors, and multiple expert witnesses. But that would have cost a bomb and I don’t know it would be have been feasible on a legal aid budget. You’d have thought they could have found someone though. Or called the one person they did find.

Given experts for the prosecution simply turned up and upheld Dewi Evans’ “findings” that he was not qualified to make, without hard evidence and some very dodgy science, I’m not convinced that fearing for careers is likely. If there is any justice in this world and this ends in retrial in 10 years or so - they will have damaged their careers irreparably. By rights Evans should end up on the same heap of disgraced experts as Roy Meadows.

But if it’s true that they put off by the notoriety of the case then we all have reason to be afraid. If you’re accused and no scientists will appear for the defence - you won’t get a fair trial.

That’s an interesting point, although I suspect her lawyers would have had no issue putting forth a viable alternative if they had one, even if she has privately told them she killed them.

Even the way her barrister accepted the sentence was such a damp squib. He said some thing along the lines of ‘the sentence will be given so there’s not much I can say’. No passionate defence of his client.

Which chimes in with your view that he knows she’s guilty.

Already, scientists and statisticians have something to say about it.

How come those scientists and statisticians (a minute number of the overall total in their professions) who have taken such an interest in the case, didn't offer their services as expert witnesses to LL's defence team? How come they weren't accepted if they did?

Even if they could not be admitted as witnesses after the trial started (which I'm not sure of), how come they didn't for the retrial?.Having been so horrified and outraged by what they perceive as unsafe convictions?

Again, how come LL's QC is apparently Dumbo the Clown and she would have been much better served by three posters on here?

And how come LL didn't replace Dumbo the Clown for the retrial?

@Cleavagecleavagecleavage The defence did have an expert witness they just didn’t call him.

My answer to why there was no defence expert clearly was not "because she's guilty". They had an expert, they didn't call him, they must have had a reason for that which is likely to have been specifically that his evidence couldn't help Letby. The Defence will certainly have looked long and hard for expert witnesses because that is an inescapable part of preparation for a trial like this, and a number of experienced lawyers were involved. It's not just a matter of saying one lawyer may have got it wrong, you are saying several did. You don't have an answer for why they couldn't find anyone, but at least one possibility is that you are mistaken in your views and the experts concurred with the prosecution to a greater or lesser extent. You, too, with every respect, are not infallible, particularly given that you haven't seen and heard all the evidence.

The Amanda Knox case, involving a radically different set of facts in a different jurisdiction, is irrelevant. Of course juries get it wrong, but we need to be careful of forgetting that it's inevitable that we see more publicity about overturned convictions than about the vast majority of convictions that don't get appealed or overturned - which does demonstrate that they tend to get it right in the vast majority of cases.

How come those scientists and statisticians (a minute number of the overall total ik their professions) who have taken such an interest in the case, didn't offer their services as expert witnesses to LL's defence team? How come they weren't accepted if they did (of which we have no evidence they did)

Are you reading the thread? We are all wondering this.
Instead of poo-pooing the idea that something is amiss here, how about engaging with some of the substantive arguments about the evidence?
Or are you so naive as to think that the justice process never gets things wrong?

They had an expert, they didn't call him, they must have had a reason for that which is likely to have been specifically that his evidence couldn't help Letby**

What I am wondering is why you are assuming this rather than engaging with the substantive points that have been raised that challenge the sense of the evidence. If everyone behaved like that in response to every criminal trial, the frequent mistakes made during justice processes would never be corrected. So many exonerations of innocent people would never have happened.

No idea. I understand one scientist wrote to the judge, but I’m not sure what they thought that would do.

This is not the only trial in which overconfidence in and over-reliance on inconclusive scientific tests has led to questionable results.

No-one has said Myers was a “dumbo” I think he did a reasonable job with the material he had. He made many good points.

This is not the only trial in which overconfidence in and over-reliance on inconclusive scientific tests has led to questionable results

Quite. I don’t understand why so many posters on this thread find this proposition so unfathomable and absurd when it happens not infrequently.

Are you reading the thread? We are all wondering this.

I'm not wondering this.

Others (the majority of posters) are not wondering this.

My tone is not one of wonderment.

So many "mysteries" around LL's highly qualified defence team's decisions.

So many points around which two or three posters on here know better and would have defended better than her defence team.

When asked why that is the case, it's all "I don't have an answer", "who knows why", "it's a mystery".

Likely, rational explanations offered by some posters are dismissed.

What a great deal of inexplicable mystery.

Apparently none of it occurring to three judges.
Or LL herself, who has maintained the team who made these mysterious and inexplicable decisions, contributing to her receiving multiple life sentences.

(And no, I'm not naive about anything).

Yes @Mirabai that’s what made me wonder whether she’d told them she was guilty. The fact they had witnesses that they then didn’t use. They’d got the witnesses and then late in the day she told them she’d done it. They then wouldn’t be able to use them in a positive case that she hadn’t done it.

@BifurBofurBombur if a client has told you they’ve done it you CANNOT put forward a case that they have not done it. All you can do is force the prosecution to prove it. It’s a non-negotiable point of professional conduct. I know the reputation is that lawyers lie, but they don’t (as a rule, there will inevitably be corrupt ones). Integrity is of the utmost importance. The appeal judges obviously know this, and when I was reading the appeal decision and it referred to the Defence having obtained expert reports, but then not called the experts to give evidence, it triggered the thought that this is what has been going on.

Which is why we were discussing the credibility of journalistic sources.

Aviv writes about medical ethics and psychiatry among other things afaik. I don’t know her educational history but she had a good grasp of the science and she also had a couple of researchers and some fact checkers.

The podcasters listened to the trial and then chatted about it. Aviv had the transcripts for the entire trial. So she was able to analyse the data in depth.

We are wondering this because having applied our thinking minds to the evidence before us we have perceived that a number of things don’t make sense. And we are not satisfied that “well the barrister , judge, jury must have got it right for reasons we are not privy to” is a good enough “explanation” to shut down the debate. Apparently you are happy to assume this which is why I consider you to be naive.

Equally, why they find a struggling, under-resourced unit operating beyond its capacity resulting in patient deaths, harder to believe than a serial killer with no evidence.

If this were the explanation would it have enabled them to put the plumber on the stand as an expert witness but no other expert witnesses? Why is the plumber allowed but not a medic or statistician ? (Genuinely asking as there may be something I’m not understanding here ).

The sharpshooter analogy has been widely referenced and by no means confined to Aviv (indeed I’d forgotten she’d used it).

I understand one scientist wrote to the judge, but I’m not sure what they thought that would do.

He wrote to the judge but didn't communicate with LL's defence team?

Or he did but they dismissed his input?

Why would that be?

Another "mystery".

Irrelevant to my point.