To think the Lucy Letby case needs a judicial review?

[Edenspirits73]

2 more detailed articles in main stream papers today questioning the Lucy Letby verdict - mirroring the well known New York Times article that wasn’t allowed here during her trial- surely with this much questioning, there should at least be a judicial review?

aibu?

If she is guilty after review then fair enough, but yet again convictions are being viewed as unsafe.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/09/lucy-letby-evidence-experts-question

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/09/lucy-letby-serial-killer-or-miscarriage-justice-victim/

People seem awestruck by the volume of evidence. But it is really very simple: sifting through the data there is no evidence that murder has been committed in any of the cases, nor any particular link to LL.

@Mirabai That is utterly untrue and quite frankly ridiculous. Letby supports make a mockery of her cause by making such wildly inaccurate statements.

No one is trying to defend an evil murderer. There's really no need to twist things.
It would be different if everyone believed for sure that she was guilty and then defended her, but no one is doing that.

I assume you are talking about the baby who suffered from the liver injury. I would imagine that it was the liver injury which led that to be the only unanimous verdict aside from the insulin charges.
But it doesn't really add up, that injury was noticed at the time of post mortem and one of the potential reasons put down for it was CPR.
Yet the prosecution expert testified and said it wouldn't have been from CPR, he said the injuries were like if the baby had been in a road traffic accident or if the baby was on a trampoline and flew off and landed.
What is Letby supposed to have done to cause an injury which would have required significant more force than vigorous CPR and how was she supposed to have done that unnoticed?

@PrettyFlyforaMaiTai What is your point? I’m already familiar with Prof Arthurs’ testimony. Are you saying you can’t see the flaws in his evidence? My point stands.

I’m not a supporter of anyone or anything other than good science and justice. Scientific evidence, or the lack of it, is what this trial stands and falls on.

@Mirabai On what are you basing that assertion? Have you seen all the evidence? Have you looked at the medical
records?

I am disturbed by the Guardian article, I had doubts about her conviction during and after the verdict.

That her defence agreed that whilst it’s rare for air embolisms to be seen in x-rays it does happen.

I’ve read Prof Arthur’s evidence.

@Mirabai So one opinion and not the full set of evidence. And yet you are confident in making the sweeping statement that the conviction is unscientific and flawed.

What do you mean by this? Seeing a contemporaneously diagnosed air embolism on imaging (questionable anyway) is completely different from attempting to retrospectively diagnose air embolism from an X-ray.

Interpreting gas on post-mortem cross-sectional images is challenging. Several factors contribute - resus, uvc, trauma, sepsis, decomposition etc. Identifying the source is very difficult, and distinguishing pathology from decomposition is also challenging.

Her defence made many mistakes and not thoroughly disputing the bogus air embolism theories was one of them.

We were referring to Prof Arthur’s evidence.

I followed the trial, I read through the transcripts of the evidence available online such as they are. The flaws in the science and the dodgy statistics are blindingly obvious.

@Mirabai In what way were the dodgy? You’re going to have to actually argue your point here. I followed the trial, read the transcripts etc and I cannot see any dodgy science.

I see a lot of dodgy reporting in The Guardian and the NYT.

She wasn't writing in the notes, she was stood next to the baby doing absolutely nothing! I'm a nurse, you don't do that. Why would a doctor make something like that up? If you think she's innocent you want your head examining. No one with a conscience acts how she does. If you were wrongfully accused of murder you'd be arguing it, doing everything you could to explain and look into what actually happened.

Juries are fallible, we have an adversarial criminal justice system with both sides wanting to win. I was uneasy during the trial, do remember the Guilford 4, the Birmingham 6, Andrew Malkinson and the Post Office sub post masters. We have an NHS and medical profession with regulators more concerned with limiting reputational damage than articulating their legal duty to be candid.

@LemonPeonies Have you ever been involved in the care of a child who has died unexpectedly?

You question every single thing that you did, wonder whether the decisions that you made were right. You churn it over and over in your head. Sometimes things went wrong, protocols weren't quite followed, staff, equipment or results were unavailable and you did the best you could at the time. You really worry about what you would say if you ended up in court, trying to justify the decision that you made.

So I don't think it's obvious that anyone accused of malpractice/causing harm to a patient would act in a particular way.

If, as in this case the accusations had been made frequently and over several years I think you would drive yourself mad with the questions running through your head, with memory of events from years previous melding into each other and confusing you.

I'm not sure after years of that that I would be able to tell you the day of the week accurately, especially if I was medicated, which I believe LL was at the time of the trial and events preceding.

I am sorry about that , and no I have not thankfully been involved in the unexpected death of any of my children. I would not want to be in ath situation.

The issue here I consider is whether there is a justifiable need to review this conviction.

Yes and I'm responding to someone who said that LL was not responding in the 'right way' of someone accused - that her attitude/affect indicated guilt.

I am refuting this.

It won’t be shut down because it’s a perfectly legitimate discussion. It relates to the integrity of the justice system which affects us all. It is important to discuss these things.

In my view it is highly unlikely that anyone murdered those babies and it is awful that those poor families have been led to believe that their babies were murdered in order to protect the arse of some doctors/ hospital managers who didn’t want to admit to their incompetence/ negligence.

I am not a subject matter expert, but I do consider that the conviction is one that makes me uneasy. This was a feeling during the trial not as a result of reading the article in the Guardian.

No it's not a crime. However standing next to any kind of patient unable to breathe for themselves without the breathing apparatus attached and not doing anything about it except waiting to watch the patient die is gross misconduct/ negligence and actually if that patient dies IS a crime.

Yes I agree, there would be no great conspiracy within the organisations or the professions concerned in this matter, just an entrenched organisational behaviour which may have led to an unsafe conviction. Except for the Post Office scandal , wherein there was a clear conspiracy to protect the brand, with this, there are very clear signs that things are not as they would appear to be.

Nurses & midwives have historically been used a scapegoats. I was told by a consultant that we are easy to get rid of, usually because we have such ineffective unions (look what just happened to the NMC 6 suicides by nurses waiting to have fitness to practice hearings) & that doctors are much more important than nurses in terms of training. If you have ever worked on a neonatal unit if you would know. She hasn’t been allowed to defend herself. His snapshot of an opinion is just that his opinion.

I think this is all very tragic, but also interesting.

There was clearly an awful lot wrong in that hospital, in addition to a murdering nurse. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that there were/are a lot of influential people with an interest in making these deaths the fault of one wicked woman, rather than the system, mismanagement, understaffing etc.

I'm not in anyway knowledgeable enough to know if that is likely what happened here, but there do seem to be an awful lot of experts prepared to say they have a problem with the evidence/ verdict. Which raises questions.

I think things she wrote could just have easily been written by an overworked, undersupported, stressed and suffering nurse feeling like it was her fault the babies were dying, as that she deliberately killed them.