Lucy Letby’s scribbled notes

[Figmentofmyimagination]

At times when I’m feeling acutely distressed, it’s not at all unusual for me to scribble all sorts of dreadful thoughts down on paper eg die die die, hate hate hate, I hate you, I hate you, what’s the point of you, my fault, stupid me, etc etc etc, usually scribbling them all out so nobody can see what I’ve written. I’m pretty sure this is quite a common response to acute mental distress. I agree with this article that it feels very surprising that Letby’s scribblings were used as evidence of a ‘confession’.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/03/i-am-evil-i-did-this-lucy-letbys-so-called-confessions-were-written-on-advice-of-counsellors

Contradiction is actually a sign someone is being truthful as they are trying to remember what actually happened. Someone who tells a flawless (ie rehearsed) story is actually more likely to be lying.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/

“Mr Phillips said: “My view is that the presentation of data and expert evidence was so flawed as to render the conviction unsafe.
“This is not to say Letby is definitely innocent. But I am effectively certain that this was not a fair trial based on the widespread problems in the way scientific evidence was presented at the trial and, just as, or even more importantly, what was not presented to the jury.
“This case is now about more than itself alone. It is about whether the judicial system is able to handle cases which hinge critically on scientific evidence, and whether there is a need for substantial reform in how a certain subcategory of trial is conducted.
“It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.”
The Oxford-educated, multi-prize-winning neuroscientist said that the case seemed to be a “cognitive optical illusion” where each piece of evidence had been used to shore up another.
“The safety of the conviction depends not just on each individual point of evidence and argument, but on how each relates to each other and alters the confidence you have in each point,” he said.
“As a simple example, the confidence you would have in a piece of evidence being presented as evidence for murder via air embolism is altered by your confidence that there was an abnormal cluster in the first place.
“The case therefore risks being a kind of cognitive optical illusion, that makes you believe guilt with high confidence where there may be no real reason to believe so. Only when examined in close detail did the extent and severity of this become clear to me.”

Thanks @Tandora . I think the 'cognitive optical illusion' sums up what makes me a bit uneasy about the case.

This case is now about more than itself alone. It is about whether the judicial system is able to handle cases which hinge critically on scientific evidence, and whether there is a need for substantial reform in how a certain subcategory of trial is conducted.

This is at the core of the matter. And why I find this case so interesting. Because this isn’t just about LL, this is the simply the latest omnishambles that shows need for major reform.

Both the Guardian and the Telegraph are running live feeds of the Thirwall Inquiry.

Yes, the idea it was a deliberate ploy/cover up is silly (quite frankly). The colleagues who pointed the finger almost certainly believe what they are saying but what if they are wrong?

I read a quote from someone present for the trial who said there was “a wall of evidence” that was made of individual “bricks” of evidence that couldn’t be viewed in isolation. I guess it’s difficult to put it all in context.
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That’s brilliantly explained.

He apparently came to this conclusion after reading the New Yorker article. That doesn’t strike me as a very scientific way of coming to a conclusion about the way the trial was actually conducted.

I knew someone on mumsnet was going to object to that- classic.
The New Yorker article was probably the first thing he read that made him start asking questions. Nothing wrong with that.

So you think he’s had time to fully digest the entirety of the court transcripts and listen to all the evidence in that time? If the view is that only statisticians and scientists are allowed to pronounce on Letby’s involvement or not then why must we now disregard the evidence from those professionals who provided evidence in court that the babies were murdered by Letby?

If you knew it then the same thought must also have crossed your mind. Great minds think alike, eh?

No it’s just anytime on mumsnet that someone mentions the New Yorker article people who believe LL is guilty take that as an excuse to totally disregard anything they have to say. It happens on every subject/ topic- every time there’s an influential or famous article that compellingly challenges the prevailing view, it is immediately rubbished , and then no one must mention it again otherwise they are immediately deemed too foolish to be taken seriously on any account.

This is a case of medical “murder” so the key evidence is the medical evidence. Without evidence of murder the circumstantial data is irrelevant

He and David Davis have been researching this for some time now, speaking to medical experts and reviewing the evidence.

I'm certainly no expert in data or statistics but know enough about it to know the obvious such as data or statistics can be manipulated.

The case against her gathered force on the basis of a single diagram shared by the police, which circulated widely in the media. On the vertical axis were twenty-four “suspicious events,” which included the deaths of the seven newborns and seventeen other instances of babies suddenly deteriorating. On the horizontal axis were the names of thirty-eight nurses who had worked on the unit during that time, with X’s next to each suspicious event that occurred when they were on shift. Letby was the only nurse with an uninterrupted line of X’s below her name. She was the “one common denominator,” the “constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse,” one of the prosecutors, Nick Johnson, told the jury in his opening statement. “If you look at the table overall the picture is, we suggest, self-evidently obvious. It’s a process of elimination.”
But the chart didn’t account for any other factors influencing the mortality rate on the unit.

So let's say he did just use the New Yorker it would be very easy for a science advisor to look at the above portion and instantly spot many different issues with it, what's it measuring, what isn't it measuring, what are the limitations, and to know that that 'evidence' as it was presented was flawed, and that it wouldn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Likewise with say the air embolism evidence....

For months, in discussions of the supposed air embolisms, witnesses tried to pinpoint the precise shade of skin discoloration of some of the babies, a concern that arose from the 1989 paper. But skin discoloration is a feature in many medical crises, and, in Myers’s cross-examinations, he noted that witnesses’ memories of the rashes had become more specific and florid in the years since the babies died.
[Editor’s note: A portion of this paragraph has been removed and language has been altered, following concerns raised by an English court.]

The portion removed related to Dr Shoo Lee saying the rashes were not characteristic of air embolism, not sure why it hasn't been put back into the article yet as I assume the concerns raised by the court were due to the fact the appeal verdict hadn't been released yet and his evidence formed part of the appeal.

But it would be very very simple for a science advisor to look at the above and think 'what?", that wouldn't stand up in the scientific community, so it shouldn't have been considered safe for court"

There was 9 charges related to air embolism I believe, with an obscure paper from 1989 apparently being what made Dr Evans believe it was air embolism and the author of the paper didn't even agree with the assessment? It is a very accurate and fair for a science advisor to rule that as flawed instantly, because they know that it wouldn't stand up in the scientific community.

That wasn’t my point. My point was that the scientific adviser demanding scientific rigour based his opinion on an article in a magazine which isn’t what I would term best scientific practice (ie basing your opinion not on the entirety of the factual evidence but on a biased piece which selected information from the case to suit an agenda).

There is evidence of murder, it just so happens that most of it is circumstantial or only now being disputed after the guilty verdict. If there was literally no evidence of murder she would have been cleared entirely (as I believe she was in one of the deaths

I have no doubt he got to grip with the facts before sharing his opinion publicly

My understanding is that articles such as this would be checked to ensure they met legal standards before publication, to avoid potential lible cases etc. I know it was a US publication but the media tend to tread carefully to avoid future litigation.

So the facts disputed must fall into the scope of, well, disputable. The people questioning this case can't all be crackpots seeking five minutes of fame at the risk of their reputation and future career trajectory, any more than the prosecution could be accused of conspiracy or with hunting. I believe it's a clear case of complex medical evidence and jury trials being too fraught a mix for a case like this. Plus the application of "the balance of probabilities" alongside "reasonable doubt".

So reading this article and going "Eh? That sounds bad," and presumably looking further into it all doesn't equate to an act of bad faith.

Well he tweeted this in August

"We must obtain the transcripts of the Letby trial and they must be in the public domain. It is fundamental to open justice and our confidence that the right to a fair trial is being upheld that those transcripts are in the public domain and open to scrutiny.

That people like myself are unable to scrutinise the full transcripts of the Lucy Letby trial cannot, must not, and will not be allowed to become an effective excuse to hide potentially very serious failings in upholding the right to a fair trial for the accused.

The importance of this point is not despite the gravity of the convictions and sentences, but because of them.

Lucy Letby’s right to a fair trial is in my opinion of the highest importance"

I'd say it's fair to assume that he read a lot more than the New Yorker and has read about this in a lot of detail if he then wanted to be able to scrutinize the full transcripts.

I mean that is exactly what one would expect from a multi-award winning scientist.

She was found guilty of all of the murders that she went on trial for. The judge ordered a not guilty verdict for the murder of child K as the prosecution originally charged her with it but then proceeded not to bring the evidence to trial.

Murder wasn't proved factually though, even though it is considered to be proven legally.

If Letby is exonerated then they won't be looking for another murderer or saying that the murders remained unsolved like they would be if there was actual proof that murders had taken place.

These. Are. All. Cases. Of. Medical. Murder.

If there is no murder - the circumstantial data is not evidence.

The trial was a clusterfuck with no scientists putting the defence case.

If the science on which the verdict has been reached is bunkum then the conviction is no safer than that of Angela Cannings or Sally Clark.

I’m afraid that kind of proves my point, his acknowledgment that he hadn’t got the full facts at his disposal before arriving at his conclusions.

🤦🏼‍♀️