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/

I'm an adult nurse not children's. But of course during my career I have been working on a ward where there was an unexpected death. Whether they were "your" patient or not, everyone has to look into the events of that day, were obs done on time, outstanding bloods etc, was there a deterioration missed. Everyone on shift that day, doctors, nurses. I've never felt guilty because I know my actions and if I saw anything suspicious I would act on it. I certainly don't turn into a brick wall. She's been found guilty by experts who are a lot more experienced than any of us for such things.

If that is what actually happened - Dr J was duty bound to report it at the time.

No, she was found guilty by a jury who are not experts in anything.

As is every other criminal convicted by trial by jury. That’s the entire basis of our judicial system. You don’t need to be an expert to process and evaluate evidence.

She was found guilty by a jury who had deliberated for hours over huge amounts of evidence.

These articles are misleading, and do not include very important parts of the prosecution.

I got very invested in this and read a huge amount about it - there is no mistake, she is guilty.

You don’t need to be an expert but basic science and maths helps.

This is a very different case to a standard jury trial as the question of whether any of this is murder stand and falls on interpretation of the science as there is no hard evidence.

To achieve a fair and balanced trial multiple expert witnesses for the defence were needed.

This trial highlights the limitations of the current system for a case of this nature.

"She also removed over 250 confidential nursing handover sheets from her workplace, and falsified patient records to avert suspicion". I've never worked with any nurse who has done this either 🤔 there is only one reason anybody would do that and it doesn't take many brain cells to work out why. The people who are bending over backwards trying to convince themselves she's innocent I really wonder if you would do the same had it been one of your babies she killed. I just don't understand the mentality at all.

@LemonPeonies Death of children is different, it's always more emotive, even if expected.

Neonates/babies even more so - and they are a very tricky group to care for, you need staff who have specific knowledge, training and experience in the group.

https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/shock-rejection-chester-hospitals-neonatal-15260000

It's interesting that a decision was made not to extend the Countess of Chester neonatal unit, despite funds having been raised for it.

Your first point is an opinion and the second can be said for any specialty. I'm an expert in my field, a cardiology nurse will need specific training for that, an ICU nurse undergoes different training etc.

Wasn't LL also moved to day shifts? She was on night shifts and deaths were happening then they moved her to day shifts then deaths started happening in the day which is a bit off a coincidence. She has always been on shift when these babies ended up collapsing.

I'm sure I read she was even swapped to day shifts from nights and they still was losing babies on the exact shifts she was on.

This can happen and has happened before, it's easier to blame a member of staff than to take down the hierarchy and then address the main issue. If the blame gets places on one single staff member then they are out of the limelight when actually there was a bigger picture and failings in all of this. I just really hope this isn't the case because if it is then this woman has been put through hell and very very wrongly accused of being a serial baby murderer! With her name and picture splashed everywhere as the baby killer!

I may be misremembering, but didn't the NYT article say that Lucy was the only member of the nursing team with qualification for nursing neonates? If so, this would surely explain her presence - her colleagues would call on her greater expertise where they felt out of their depth and where doctors were thinly spread and not immediately available.

The articles aren't misleading, they are discussing if there was a potential miscarriage of justice and discussing potential issues with the evidence presented.

They're not there to discuss all of the evidence the prosecution put forward, you said you read a huge amount about it so presumably nearly all of those had all of that evidence and made no mention of anything from those articles either.

Not sure about the qualification but the article did say that Lucy went to salsa one night and afterwards she saw she had missed calls from a nurse on the unit because they didn't know how to give a baby intravenous immunoglobulin treatment.

The triplets mother also said she was alarmed that she saw a doctor googling how to put a line into the chest.

I was reading yesterday that neonatal deaths at the COC Hospital went from an average of 4 a year pre 2015 to a cluster of 13 between June 15 and June 16. Letby was on shift during all of them. After her arrest they went back down to 1-2 a year

They also downgraded the hospital at that time which is another possible reason why the amount of deaths went down because they weren't taking in babies who were at higher risk.

Imagine it was your daughter or family member and you believed she was innocent. Don’t think you would brush her off like that. Think of her family. If people Are genuinely questioning her guilt. She deserved a retrial

I think the other notable thing here is that I don’t think I have seen articles like this in other cases - it’s what makes this case stand out - you don’t often see such detailed articles questioning the verdict so soon after a case.

Yep they were ready to go as soon as the reporting restrictions were lifted after the retrial.
There was a couple of very interesting blogs that I had read after the New Yorker, I couldn't find who wrote the substack one but the other was apparently a retired Irish doctor writing under a pseudonym. It will be interesting to see if those people put their names to it or if they ever will.

"I don't know so many posters seem to think they know better than the jury and the police ,CPS etc."

Wow, so there have never been miscarriages of justice then?

Of course there have. This isn’t one of them.

I watched the interview on YouTube with a barrister called Mark Macdonald that somebody linked. Mark Mcdonald interview

Obviously he is arguing from a particular position and admits to not knowing all the details on this case - he has represented other accused healthcare killers- but he explains a few things like the difficulty of finding expert witnesses for the defence in child abuse cases in the UK.

Yes, but Mirabai was answering Lemon who said she'd been found guilty by experts. Lemon's point was not correct.

But you (or whoever it was) said nobody should question a conviction. That's obviously a silly argument because miscarriages of justice DO happen.