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/

Yes I know it was overturned. That was the miscarriage of justice.

Handover sheet are quite new to me- it used to be common to have a work note book where you wrote handover and all sorts of other information down about the patients you were looking after.

Once that was full it would stay at home for disposal or some people probably kept them.

I would argue that seeing justice to be done is motivating this debate.

There is no comparison between Lucy Letby and Auriel Grey. With regard to the latter the arguments were with regard to proportionality in the main. There were no grounds to suggest that every cyclist death that happened with Auriel Grey in the area might be attributable to her actions. There was however a question if what level of criminal responsibility could be attributed to her and whether the justice system could deliver true justice whatever people think that looks like.

With regard to Lucy Letby as I say, in the absence of confession, the circumstantial evidence must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and that the outcome of her trials is being questioned by so many, including experts who should "know better" when the majority of people do not sympathise with baby killers is cause for concern and deserves examination.

Before Covid we didn’t have printed handover sheets, used to go home in uniform my patient/ task list in my pocket.
have you read the thread what neonatal nurses say what happens when a baby desaturates they wait & observe see if the baby picks up by itself. You may think that is doing nothing others disagree.
nothing criminal about doing Facebook searches bet your boss has searched you. How do you know she did it whilst on duty not sure that info is available.

your opinion that sneaky malicious behaviour , so your telling me you have never used your phone at work? Or searched an ex boyfriend. The rest you are making up maybe based on your behaviour.

I had never heard of this case wonder why. Found this as you say enlightening.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37672451

We now know, thanks to Guardian, what we didn’t know about the Hawdon Report, which was that she found that 13 of the cases had received “suboptimal care” and the “death/collapse is explained but may have been prevented with different care”
That statement alone is completely pointless unless explained how suboptimal care resulted in death or sudden collapse for each individual child. How optimal care would have made the whole difference.

The arguement that all were initially labelled as natural death can be deemed counter evidence for both position. If these death/crisis were due to suboptimal care, surely the autopsy would have identified the system/care failure that resulted in accidental death, not natural causes.

I think most people lose sight of what we have a judicial system in the first place. That is because however desperate humans are to seek the truth, in many cases, the truth can't ever be 100% determined, so we need an impartial jury to make a decision. This does not mean the outcome highlights the truth, just that it's as good, at the time, to what the truth can be.

It comes down to the existentialist question: at which point does circumstantial evidence is numerous enough to squash doubt.

I have found the most helpful document to be the appeal, with the summary of the first case.

I think Lucy is likely guilty and I can totally see how it would be possible from a psychological case perspective. I can even find similarities with my previous experience of desperately longing to be loved and jealous of those who were without any effort. Of course, I never got anywhere close to taking a step towards harming others as a cry for acknowledgement and attention (although many resort to self harm instead).

I also recognise that it is very possible that all those circumstantial evidence is just that, and even all put together, is just an accumulation of circumstances that do not equate to anything even when all put together.

See also Colin Paterson. A specialist in Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

Something else that we mère mortals struggle to understand is that science deals with evidence, not truth and again, it's the multitude of research outcomes all put together that then becomes accepted as 'truth'. Individual research is as statistically acceptable as we've deemed it to be.

Yet, everyday, you'll have a patient somewhere that defies the odds of research. What doctors say is not the truth, it's as good as it gets based on their experience, expertise, ability to interpret research and availability of research.

Did anyone watch the BBC documentary on this? A few members of the unit went to management with the worry she was killing these babies and they were told they were bullying her and told to apologise, so I very much doubt higher management tried to use LL as a scapegoat

Perhaps a panel of medics should be involved at the time the evidence goes to CPS? And it should be argued out there?

How To Become A Convicted Serial Killer

This article by Richard Gill is thought provoking, not least because it was published in 2014.

@vivainsomnia it's not just that - Kuhn writes about scientific revolutions and the normal practice of science. To bastardise - Orthodox views are amplified in a kind of confirmation bias - not least because of funding. It is only when anomalies become overwhelming that the orthodox view is challenged and eventually replaced with a new orthodoxy.

Science takes place in a social context but this is ignored when science is used to prove criminality.

Nothing criminal about Facebook searches, but she was only looking for literal grief when she was poking her nose in the parents pages, years later. Even the parents whose baby she wasn’t looking after.

No I don’t use my phone at work, it’s not supposed to be in my pocket due to the nature of my job.

If my boss looked me up he’d be doing so to be nosey.

Yes I’ve looked up ex boyfriends, because I’m nosey.

The times she recorded that she was feeding some babies they proved she was on her phone, messaging constantly.

I have no idea what you mean by my behaviour 🥱

It’s worth noting @TheCountessofFitzdotterel that whilst Lucia de Berk definitely seems to have been a miscarriage of justice, both Ben Geen and Colin Norris remain convicted of their crimes, even after several reviews. And in the final case referred to, whilst Susan Nelles seems to have been innocent of it, it also seems pretty clear that there was a murderer, they just haven’t been apprehended.

So people are making the mistake again of chasing one type of evidence- the hand over sheets in themselves are not suspicious, except that she was also obsessively searching the families AND she was present in all cases before a baby collapsed AND she had been caught by both Jayram and a mother near babies as they collapsed AND the strange collapses (not deaths but the odd collapses in previously healthy or recovering babies) stopped when she was suspended.

This case doesn’t turn on one piece of evidence. It is thousands of piece put together to make a full picture.

She had both the means and the opportunity. I think the reason people struggle with this is that they can’t work out the motive.

Sadly, some people just enjoy having the power of life and death over others. She seems to have developed a God complex. This is obvious when you look at how people on the unit talked about her- refusing to work with any but the sickest babies, insisting that she was the only person good enough to work on some cases etc.

People have blinkers on. They don’t like to think that these things can happen. Look up the Bain Family murders in New Zealand. In many ways a similar case in which people just couldn’t accept that a seemingly nice boy would murder his entire family. And someone with an axe to grind against the police helped him over turn his conviction so he’s free. He executed his mother, father and three sisters in cold blood but because people didn’t want it to be him they helped free him.

And that’s the danger here.

With regards to scientific consensus regarding medical evidence in the context of criminal findings things can get very murky.

An example is the consensus around metaphyseal fractures. After a few high profile cases, guidance came in that these fractures alone should not be considered enough to "prove" abuse in babies.

Shaken baby syndrome is another grey area in some respects.

When you look at the scenario of premature babies in a clinical setting with inherent fragilities and conditions already present, assessing causes of "unexpected" collapses and deaths becomes quite complex. My sticking point in this case is that initial post mortem findings did not flag up those causes despite them being fairly obvious apparently in hindsight on re-examination. Did the physicians airing their suspicions never do so close enough to the deaths to suggest to the pathologists that something may be amiss?

I'm still quite confused by many aspects of this case.

I've been poking around on reddit and someone suggested that up to 4000 cases might be re-examined amounting to pretty much every patient Lucy Letby came into contact with. That's a mind boggling number.

I think if I'd been on a jury I'd have been hard pressed to be able to ascertain guilt or innocence frankly.

I'm also having difficulty finding any psychological or psychiatric reports referenced or used in court. If anyone can point me at them I'd be very grateful, as some idea of why she did it would be helpful.

That's horrifying.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy08elppe83o www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy08elppe83o]]]]

Look at this poor woman. My ds had a blue spot at the base of his spine. We're 100% caucasian and I was terrified that the doctor or health visitor would see it. I knew what it was, but had no confidence that they would, especially as ds is white. It gradually faded over the next few years thank goodness.

Yes, Adnan Syed killed his girlfriend in cold blood, and thanks to the true crime brigade he is now a free man.

If you seek out the trial information / transcripts from court there are clear timetables showing texting when on duty including when she was meant to be delivering feeds to babies, which needed 2 hands and by her own admission, should take about 20 mins to do. Her moaning about being with the “boring” babies and wanting the excitement of Nursery 1

There are also documents showing a timelines and dates of Facebook searches and how these grouped these babies into “patterns” of searches / linking them together (and to what she did / to her) before anybody even suspected foul play.

Also remember all of this, and the 260+ pages of handover sheets, the diaries noting down dates when babies had collapses, the photograph of the message she wrote to the parents of Baby I in the sympathy card she kept in her phone (though the baby died in 2015) - the weird sympathy note to all three triplets saying sorry it was their birthday but they weren’t here (only 2 died) was discovered AFTER she was arrested in 2018, when her house was searched.

@Snowleopardess

I’d forgotten about the texting. Did the texts also show suspicious comments leading up to the death of some babies where she was trying to convince other members of staff that some babies were more ill than they actually were to cover for the collapses?

Yes absolutely. He identifies a lovely neat pattern but some of the people that fall into the pattern are very hard to be convinced by.
I have only read a little bit about Ben Geen but iirc his innocent reason for having the syringe is that he’s been stealing hospital drugs to take home, or at least that came into it somehow. I would need to know an awful lot more before feeling confident in any opinion about him and the others Gill refers to.

Oh god I forgot all about that draft sympathy note! She intended to kill all three but the last survived after they were moved away from her. Then she took it out on baby O before she was finally caught. And people defend all this AND the handover sheets AND the facebook searches. Yeah it's normal for your healthcare provider to facebook stalk you/your family, totally 🙄

ETA-plus she fished some note out of a bin someone else had put in there IIRC, completely normal behaviour.

*sorry I meant took it out on baby Q. O&P were two of the triplets.

I think those were written on post it notes, not a draft sympathy card.

Fishing resus notes out of the bin could have been to help write up the nursing notes afterwards. I made rough notes on things then used them to write up later. Again, something all nurses do.

Yes numerous times, as I mentioned the triplets here’s one that springs to mind - after Child O suddenly collapsed and died, she text a colleague saying about Child P “worry as identical” - before going on to fatally sabotage him the next day.

Probably the most shocking text now looking back is the one on holiday - but just before I get into that, note that Baby N was attacked on the 15th June 2016 - Letby went on holiday 16th June - 22nd to Ibiza - weirdly no babies suffered unexplained collapses this week - but it it’s probably just coincidence.

During this week she was texting colleagues and knew about the naturally conceived, miraculous, triplet boys on the ward, who were doing really well and big at 4lbs and healthy - She texted her colleague she would no doubt be “back with a bang” to work. And that she was!

Her first shift after her holiday was the 23rd June when Baby O collapses and dies (including a car crash like injury to the liver), - “worry as identical” text to colleague - 24th June Baby P collapses and dies.

25th June Baby Q is attacked but survived - 3 attacks in 3 days that’s definitely back with a bang! Letby removed from ward and no unexpected collapses / deaths happen again - though she did some sneaky retrospective Datix entries whilst off to allude to potential Air Embolism risks (inc bung missing off an IV line)

Maybe it’s all just a coincidence? Anyway, some other funny coincidences that happen to this incredibly unlucky nurse is that bizarrely the collapses followed her shift patterns from happening during night shifts - to day shifts and back again! Coincidentally Baby D died on Father’s Day, and the dad was a very nervous new dad and Baby I collapsed on her 100th day of life which the ward were getting her a banner to celebrate (she text a colleague to say the mum thought Baby I getting to 100 days meant she was out of the woods so to speak) - also coincidentally all these collapses and deaths happened when parent’s left the bedside to go do the school run, or to go and get some sleep - also always when doctor’s or the babies designated nurse was having a break. There are plenty more… But it’s just so strange isn’t it…