Lucy Letby case - Rob Rinder and David Davies

[LimeFawn]

Going back to thread in summer about Lucy Letby case needing criminal case review- surely that has to happen now?

In the past couple of days, I have seen David Davis MP talking about this on Good morning - apparently senior neonatal doctors contacted him directly;

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5HcW71BSGSM

Rob Rinder who is an expert in criminal law has also raised concerns- pic included below.

And article in guardian about her notes which was used a lot in this mumsnet thread as proof of guilt:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5115849-to-think-the-lucy-letby-case-needs-a-judicial-review

https://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

Surely there is enough new information coming to light to justify a criminal case review - her conviction really doesn’t seem safe at all?

That's just a fantasy though about the only alternative explanation.

It's perfectly possible to believe Letby's conviction isn't safe without believing in an NHS conspiracy against her. Group think, failure to understand probability, and confirmation bias are more than enough of an explanation.

Either the author hasn't read much of what experts are actually saying, or he just wants to pretend they're all conspiracy theorists. That's bad journalism.

It ignores that fact that most people querying the conviction believe that there may have been no murders.

But Letby agreed that there had been two poisonings. I don't see how that can be undone now. The evidence (whether factually accurate or not) was entered into evidence as an agreed fact.

She can't take back the things she said at her trial, so I'm not sure whether it matters that other people think there were no murders given that she's already conceded that two babies were deliberately poisoned.

Nobody wanted to believe she did it (lots of people still don't - because she's white and female and because a young-ish photo of her has been all over the press. There's no group think - in fact the reason she got away with her murderous ways for so bloody long is because nobody wanted to believe it. Thankfully that's at an end. It's a safe conviction that was formed on the basis of piles of evidence that all fitted together to show exactly who and what she is. Her defence was basically non-existent, not to mention her own egotistical, damning testimony where her mask very clearly slipped regularly. Her appeal has been denied. She's going to rot in jail and deservedly so.

Letby (and the jury) were told that tests showed two babies had synthetic insulin in their blood streams.

She was asked if she agreed that the only way this could have happened is by someone poisoning the babies with insulin.

She agreed that this was the only way it could happen, but she said that she didn't do it.

She had no way of knowing when she was asked that question that the test used was not proof that the babies had synthetic insulin in their blood streams. That's come out since. All she was doing was agreeing that if the babies had artificial insulin in their blood streams, somebody put it there.

Even if it had been there, that answer wouldn't make her guilty.

The medical and statistical evidence have nothing to do with her race and sex.

I hope people would feel the same concern about anyone of any colour convicted on shaky evidence. But we know there is structural racism in our society, so we can't be sure.

That's no reason not to scrutinize known problems with Letby's case, though. Weaknesses in our health, policing and justice systems affect everyone.

There are no 'known problems with Letby's case' - there's just rumour and supposition. Her case was thoroughly examined and defended by legal and medical experts. A handful of oddballs have come forward and stated they have concerns but a) If and when they get the full information that the defence have had all along, they'll slink off and b) The legal process still exists so some internet detectives getting their knickers in a twist won't actually change the justice that has been done.

But Letby agreed that there had been two poisonings. I don't see how that can be undone now. The evidence (whether factually accurate or not) was entered into evidence as an agreed fact.

What was she supposed to say? They said there was no other known explanation than deliberate injection with insulin. She accepted that, but denied having done it.

But it’s now come to light that some of the evidence was wrong, i.e. which staff came in and out of the unit she worked on. So it wasn’t so “thorough”. Do you know what the full information is that the defence had all along that no one else knows? If not, how do you know anyone will slink off when they get it.

There are known problems. You don't have to believe that Letby is innocent to see that presentation of incorrect data at her trial, misleading presentation of statistics, medical testimony which experts find implausible, and evidence from unsuitable medical tests constitute problems.

Miscarriages of justice occur, unfortunately, and for every one of them we can say the case was thoroughly examined, the legal process exists. Was this a miscarriage of justice? We don't know yet, but dismissing concerned experts like this as oddballs does nothing to safeguard children or medical professionals.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/27/lucy-letby-inquiry-should-be-postponed-changed-experts

Nobody wanted to believe she did it (lots of people still don't - because she's white and female and because a young-ish photo of her has been all over the press.
FFS. Amazing how some people know exactly what everyone else thinks. The thing is, they don’t, just their own prejudices projected onto others. She’s not the only white, youngish female to ever have been convicted of something awful. The difference is the more concrete evidence against the others.

She had no way of knowing when she was asked that question that the test used was not proof that the babies had synthetic insulin in their blood streams. That's come out since. All she was doing was agreeing that if the babies had artificial insulin in their blood streams, somebody put it there.

Her defence team had access to the evidence being presented and had the opportunity to look into it and query it beforehand. Which surely would have been the natural course of action if you know you're innocent but they're saying this is a deliberate poisoning.

I can't recall where I saw this (perhaps the C5 doc or one of the articles), but someone said recently that they googled the insulin test and the test company states on their website that the test shouldn't be relied on for forensic purposes. Are we really to believe that the defence team for a huge high profile murder trial did less research on the test than random bloggers?

Even if it had been there, that answer wouldn't make her guilty.

I get that answer in itself doesn't make her guilty, but since she agreed that evidence as an actual fact of the case, the jury has to accept that her version of events is that she's simply unlucky and that also there is someone else going round poisoning babies, but it wasn't her. That position is a lot harder to accept as a plausible explanation.

Yes, the only explanation the jury were offered at the trial was that the babies were deliberately poisoned with insulin. That's what the prosecution claimed. Lucy Letby isn't a detective or an endocrinologist so she wouldn't know any better than the jury.

This was a major issue in the trial, because the prosecution saw this as their smoking gun. They told the jury, if you believe Letby poisoned those babies with insulin, you should find it more likely she murdered the others

That's because this was the only case where there seemed to be concrete evidence babies had been harmed deliberately.

Now that evidence seems to have been wrong, so there are no cases where there aren't possible natural causes for the deaths or collapses. That's a very big deal.

The jury never had to accept Letby's word for anything, though. It would have been perfectly possible for them to disregard this and it will certainly be possible for a new jury to accept that there was no deliberate poisoning if an appeal succeeds.

Who's said that the jury was biased? What people.are saying is that a great deal if the "evidence" presented to the jury was misleading and problematic. And, for a reason we don't yet know, her defence didn't seem to challenge much of this evidence.

This. One thing that stood out to me in the trial was the doctors continually asserting that these babies were "stable". Babies in a NICU are, by their very nature, very small and/or very unwell. It's an intensive care unit. Saying that multiple babies in an intensive care unit were all perfectly fine and stable (which is what they implied) just makes me think these doctors have no idea what they were doing or they are being deliberately misleading. And the notes for many of the babies and their circumstances just does not back this up.

This. I don't like any "evidence" which is based on people trying to decide whether behaviour is odd or likely if they aren't guilty. People do weird things all the time. And accusing people of odd behaviour has led us straight into many an unsafe conviction. Personally I don't think behaviour should be allowed to be considered in a criminal trial without a lot of caveats. I think our judgement of "normal behaviour" is very poor and yet something which most people are very overconfident of their ability to do. It's less reliable than eye witness testimony (which is also very unreliable!) imo.

I've been thinking this almost all the way along and was pretty convinced that this was a miscarriage of justice by the time I'd l followed all the trial and she was convicted, but kept quiet online until the emotions died down as anyone that expressed doubt was being jumped on in such a way that it was obvious emotions were running VERY high and tbh I was worried about how far some people would go with this.. I suspect others felt the same. I also think people who haven't followed the trial are now becoming aware of the weakness of the evidence as more and more articles about it are coming out since the reporting embargo has been lifted, and so you are seeing the tide starting to turn.

Yes, same here. But I'm not about to pipe up on a comment thread full of people saying she should be thrown to the lions saying actually I'm not entirely convinced she did it.

So you’re saying the doctors who made these assertions (and were extremely familiar with the babies in question and their medical circumstances) were lying?

This is an excellent piece. I sincerely hope the non legally trained read it.

Personally I don't think behaviour should be allowed to be considered in a criminal trial without a lot of caveats.

It already isn't. See:

1. The relevance rule
2. Rules around credibility evidence
3. Rules around prejudicial evidence

These are rules about what kind of evidence is admissible to be heard and considered by a jury at a trial. Privately and ahead of the trial, without the jury hearing, lawyers for both sides will make strong arguments about why certain evidence should/ should not not be heard by a jury and the judge will make a call on whether it is admissible or not.

It's actually very hard to get evidence that is not directly related to the issue in front of a jury.

Jane Hutton, a professor of statistics at the University of Warwick
Peter Elston, a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, who questioned the analysis of shift data on which the prosecution depended before the trial began in October 2022.
Prof Peter Green, a former president of the Royal Statistical Society;

have all raised concerns about the shift pattern statistics and signed a joint letter about the case to the inquiry

then it turns out

The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed last week that door swipe data from the CoC hospital, relied on by the prosecution to show that Letby had been alone when babies collapsed, was incorrect. Police had wrongly thought that the swipe data showed nurses leaving the neonatal unit and going into the labour ward, when in fact they were returning to the neonatal unit.

The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed last week that door swipe data from the CoC hospital, relied on by the prosecution to show that Letby had been alone when babies collapsed, was incorrect. Police had wrongly thought that the swipe data showed nurses leaving the neonatal unit and going into the labour ward, when in fact they were returning to the neonatal unit.

This.

This thread is embarrassing and I feel so sorry for any of the parents of these babies if they’re reading this.

Taking confidential documents home, and not just a few, but hundreds. Texting and Facebook stalking parents of the dead babies, standing beside the cot of a baby whose tube had ‘somehow’ become dislodged and doing absolutely nothing about it. Throwing strops if she wasn’t on the ‘sickest’ ward. Writing that she did it.

Come on!

It isn't embarrassing.

People are questioning the strength of the evidence. We have had miscarriages of justices before it is ok to ask questions, there is nothing embarrassing about it.

She may be guilty however she may be incompetent, the doctors may be incompetent.

The evidence all looks circumstantial and weak and it is ok to question that when someone has been sent to prison for the rest of their life.