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/

That was enlightening, the implications for justice are terrifying. In this instance it meant LL couldn’t get a fair trial,

It’s heartening to see the number of medics and scientists now speaking out.

I have said before that I think this trial highlights the limitations of fhe jury/adversarial system for cases that rest on interpretation of medical evidence.

First, the jury are not in a position to really understand the data, and secondly if no medics speak for the defence then the trial is unbalanced anyway.

I do wonder whether such cases should be tried by a panel of medics, but that has its own problems.

As one doctor commented, criminals trials are not appropriate places to evaluate problems in the NHS.

Why did she have the handover sheets?
How many times was she spotted doing nothing?
Facebook searches years later?
Proof she was on her phone when she was supposed to be giving feeds, slowly?

There isn’t a “smoking gun” in this case, it’s all sneaky sly malicious behaviour, and when all the pieces are added together the whole picture becomes clear.

A bit different, but I had issues with a family court 'expert' child psychologist who accused me of making up issues for my child. This led to the child having much more contact with their abusive father. My legal advice (despite being a very well respected lawyer) was poor as I was basically told I couldn't do anything to counteract the expert despite lots of evidence that had been ignored.

A few years later my child was diagnosed, and the report proven full of lies, but it has caused years of harm. Experts often have their own agenda.

I wouldn't believe this happens unless it had happened to me.

This is an example of the worst kind of reasoning in any criminal trial.

In terms of why no expert witnesses for the defence - as noted above, previous experts going against the prevailing view have suffered professionally and the healthcare professionals who spoke to the Guardian said as much - that they could not speak out openly for fear of their jobs/profession.

You can see why here - people are angry about those of us even asking questions, imagine how it would be if you had got up in court and defended LL - then returned to work with colleagues and parents condemning you for speaking out. So much easier to keep your head down.

Right and the media coverage is the other troubling aspect to this.

There was zero attempt to give balanced coverage. The Guardian publishes this article now, but the coverage during the trial was actually quite irresponsible, with no effort to quantify the science. (I note the new article is produced by the science correspondent rather than a legal one)

The poor coverage is even more problematic in an age where the jury cannot be expected to keep off the internet. The old sub judice rules are outdated - they come from a time when the newspapers were the only sources of news and coverage could be blanked out to some effect.

Yet again Mirabai is better than LL's defence team.

And has no explanation for why they didn't do as well as she would have.

And no explanation for why the defence team didn't call their expert witness.

And no explanation for why LL retained that defence team for retrial.

It's all "mysteries".

So much mystery.

Thank God it was enough for Miss Evil to be given 15 whole life orders 🙏

As one doctor commented, criminals trials are not appropriate places to evaluate problems in the NHS

Good thing the criminal trial wasn't evaluating problems in the NHS then, isn't it?

It was evaluating the CPS case against at LL, based on the year long investigation by the police (and still ongoing).

(On that latter point; I'm afraid you miscarriage of justice proponents have worse to come. This isn't even over. The police are still investigating a massive number of deaths and collapses before the spike in the CoC NNICU, (at both the CoC and at the other hospital in Liverpool where LL did her training placements).

In Family Court / Child Protection cases resting on medical evidence disputed by accused parents, decisions are made on the balance of probabilities. One can understand that where a child's future safety depends on the right decision, erring on the side of caution is a preferable outcome. Often these cases don't go to criminal court to be tested to a point if reasonable doubt.

In this case the balance of probabilities approach seems to have crossed over.

Expert witnesses are a small pool. Some have built entire careers and reputations on "saving children" . Since Roy Meadows, it's not surprising that fewer professionals want to put themselves in that spotlight. The consequences of getting it "wrong" are a huge burden either way.

There are dogmas surrounding the diagnosis of child abuse via medical evidence because obviously testing most theories in that field would be harmful and unethical.

There is a heavy reliance on psychology because it's human nature to want to understand "why" someone deviates so far from the normal behaviour of a caregiver of a children. Sometimes it's obvious. Stress, addiction, a history of anti-social behaviour etc. Sometimes it's not. And there lies the danger. There is a possibility that the certainty that someone has done something so dreadful in the minds of professionals turns into a zeal to convince the suspect of their guilt even if they steadfastly defend themselves. Psychological pressure of that nature breaks people.

Why didn't Lucy Letby get better expert witnesses? Or have the one prepared to testify actually do so?

Possibly because the legal team, well aware of the adversarial nature of the courts knew how things were going to pan out regardless. And she had to take their advice.

I also think that criminal court is not the arena for dealing with complex medical evidence. Where there is doubt, other mechanisms should be in place to prevent the suspect from doing further harm - suspension, house arrest, whatever - until all avenues have been exhausted, which they clearly haven't in this case. And then the question of punishment can be addressed.

It's a dangerous precedent to say it doesn't matter if medical evidence is contentious because we've got our baby killer bang to rights because she was there. It could happen to anyone. Believe me, I know.

Then her defense team should have raised the insulin test.

I don't think it was that they avoided doing a test but that in some cases the babies had been deceased for years so only samples that remained in storage could be used. And if there was no sample then you can only go by the results in the patient's notes.

From the New Yorker article this struck me

The police consulted with an endocrinologist, who said that the babies theoretically could have received insulin through their I.V. bags. Evans said that, with the insulin cases, “at last one could find some kind of smoking gun.” But there was a problem: the blood sample for the first baby had been taken ten hours after Letby had left the hospital; any insulin delivered by her would no longer be detectable, especially since the tube for the first I.V. bag had fallen out of place, which meant that the baby had to be given a new one. To connect Letby to the insulin, one would have to believe that she had managed to inject insulin into a bag that a different nurse had randomly chosen from the unit’s refrigerator. If Letby had been successful at causing immediate death by air embolism, it seems odd that she would try this much less effective method.

That is exactly the method Charles Cullen used for some of his victims.

Sure. But there's doubt over whether insulin was involved at all, because that hasn't been demonstrated by a test approved for this purpose.

So there's a lot of speculation here: there was insulin, she administered it, she did so in a particular way ...

Speculation is permitted, and people build up a case by accumulating evidence and possibilities on many fronts. But when key planks of the prosecution's argument seem unsteady, the conviction seems problematic.

The police side of things is interesting

@Oftenaddled
Absolutely speculation is permitted. But for the article to speculate that this did not happen when it has happened with a different nurse and that method is in the public domain makes me think they have not doe much research.

I also think that criminal court is not the arena for dealing with complex medical evidence. Where there is doubt, other mechanisms should be in place to prevent the suspect from doing further harm - suspension, house arrest, whatever - until all avenues have been exhausted, which they clearly haven't in this case. And then the question of punishment can be addressed.

My feeling is that if the external review recommended by the RCPCH had gone ahead the trial may never have happened. That in combination with the Hawden report. Further reports could + should have been made - an epidemiology report on the impact of the sewage leaks for example.

Think about how Dr. Jayaram saw a baby stop breathing and Letby was stood over them and didn't intervene until she realised he was behind her.
When I said 'didn't intervene', I mean usefully because it could have been a Letby that removed the breathing apparatus.
I read a really good magazine article that outlined Letby's very concerning behaviour and that was very telling. The publication was removed from circulation due to the fact that it might influence the jury.
Of course Letby was responsible, but the hospital was lax and didn't investigate enough. I know the hospital made some investigations but they were few and far between. If I was a parent of the babies I'd be consumed by anger and grief. Devastating.

https://www.reddit.com/r/lucyletby/comments/1dz6a6g/the_hand_that_rocked_the_cradle_vanity_fair/

This account seems very credible and includes quotations from Dr. Jayaram.
Why didn't they act sooner??????
I bet he/they would have if it was their child in danger. Disgusting!!!

If you’d bothered to do any research at all you’d know that the consultants tried very hard to raise the alarm and were thwarted at every turn by the hospital management.

They were made to apologise to LL too I rewatched the panorama interview a couple of days ago they were treated terribly .

That is what they claim but the doctors always had the option and the duty to go to go to the CDOP if they had concerns over child deaths. They omitted to do so for over a year. The RCPCH report recommended an external review, that never happened either.

The management does seem to have taken concerns over the deaths seriously they just said there was no evidence of a link to LL. And they were right.

The matter was reported to the hospital board who downgraded the unit from level 2, taking babies of lower acuity, at which point the deaths stopped.

I used to routinely take handover sheets home in my work bag. There was no way of disposing of them at work, (no shredder) so I'd burn them on the fire in the living room. Sometimes I'd find they'd been in there for months. They're usually only bits of paper, folded up. They never fell into the wrong hands, but I did have them at home.

I've also stood and watched people during desaturations whilst visually assessing their general condition and waiting to see what their O2 did. You don't go rushing off screaming "collapse" because someone's O2 isn't optimal.

Every nurse in the places I worked in have done the same as well.

I didn't keep a written journal of emotional outbursts regarding the guilt I felt at providing sub optimal care (due to short staffing, management failures and staff laziness/incompetence), but that's just me. I still felt guilty, but I was a hardened and cynical old sod who just got on with it.

Nurses checking their phones whilst feeds run through? It happens, I probably did it myself on occasions. Life in the outside world goes on and sometimes you tap into it if you're not doing something tricky or critical.

Exactly. Handover sheets are routinely taken home. I've know people to be stood looking after a ventilated patient whilst on their phones nevermind monitoring feeding pumps, not ideal but not uncommon and I bet we all search people on FB from years ago.

Again. I am not saying she is innocent but the evidence seems flaky at best as many experts have pointed out. I don't care if '2 juries' have found her guilty we know anyone of any intelligence can serve on a jury.

Bring it on.

I don't see anyone in this thread saying LL is innocent. I see people saying the evidence presented for her guilt was unconvincing. So if there is robust evidence, I'm sure people would be reassured

It's a sad fact that neo-natal deaths have risen all over the UK in recent years, since 2015 I think. But if there has been a crime, nobody here is asking for it to be covered up - just proved.

It has been proved. And appeal applications declined because there aren’t any grounds. It’s weird that some people are so reluctant for justice to be done in a handful of cases. It was the same with Auriel Gray when her actions resulted in a death. A very vocal minority on MN insisted, despite the evidence, that her manslaughter conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68975335

Conviction overturned. 'Vocal minorities' .