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?

I can’t keep quiet when I see injustice.

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

If she is innocent then the families deserve a proper explanation of why their children died.

The thread is not embarrassing at all. We should always question the use of potentially inaccurate or purely circumstantial "evidence" because miscarriages of justice have certainly occurred before.

The solution isn't going to come from mumsnet gossip and speculation - let's not kid ourselves that there is more to these threads than that, until the next big news drops and everyone moves on to that.

Unless you're actually doing something - writing to the people on the case, offering your expert services, something worthwhile to do with the case, all the "questioning" sessions on mumsnet is only harming the families. It doesn't add anything to the real case.

Yes. Two of my GD were premature, 32 and 34 weeks, due to emergency caesareans (pre-eclampsia). Both babies were in NICU but not for long as they were well but small. During the time they were there babies died, from what I can gather about NICU it appears that some deaths are simply not predictable whilst others are inevitable. The infection(s) present clearly increased this risk.

As you say, it is not useful to say that babies are perfectly fine and stable when we know that many had the odds stacked against them and could have taken a turn for the worse at any time and died quickly. One could be described as "stable" when the doctors knew that he or she was, in reality, very unlikely to survive.

I have no view either way on whether LL is guilty or not, but as others have said it does appear that the prosecution are making the evidence fit the crime rather than looking at the overall picture. And I'm firmly of the opinion that some medical and managerial professionals in our NHS "blame" culture will pass on the responsibility for deaths to others if they can.

What has happened to Lucy Letby is so unbelievably grim. It’s also an absolute travesty for the families of those poor babies who have been led to believe they were murdered by a serial killer. How awful.

So much of the ‘evidence’ against her falls away with the slightest bit of digging. For example, the ‘poisoning by insulin’ theory - it turns out their is no evidence the insulin was artificial, as they didn’t perform that test, the test result may show the insulin was produced by the baby, that their c-peptide levels back that theory up, and that they were found to have (and treated for) abnormal blood sugar levels at birth. Lucy was a nurse, she wasn’t responsible for the medical treatments given to the babies, the doctors were. And it looks like they were getting things wrong.

See here https://www.reddit.com/r/scienceLucyLetby/s/Q3nJJvjD2s

and here
https://www.reddit.com/r/scienceLucyLetby/s/DPsuNa1toS

It isn't just mumset it is everywhere, both online and in the mainstream media. It isn't gossip it is genuine concern that she is being scapegoated.

Being silent doesn't help anyone

If there is a growing momentum to get this case reviewed then that is a good thing. If she is guilty fine she deserves her sentence but the evidence seems flimsy and it isn't just on mumsnet that that is being discussed.

Occums razor; it seems she was always in close proximity when these deaths, or near deaths, occurred.

Occam's Razor doesn't apply in this instance. She was in proximity because she worked there.

Also if you look into it, the prosecution cherry picked the cases where a baby collapsed and LL was at work and IGNORED and did not attempt to prosecute the cases where a baby collapsed and LL was not at work.

Total manipulation of the evidence and that applies whether she is truly guilty or not.

See this is exactly the kind of armchair speculation that adds nothing at all. I'm sorry to pick on you but it's just an example of how this type of speculation is pointless and frankly a bit silly. You're saying that your grandchildren were in NICU and other babies died and 'from what you understand' those babies were stable?! Come on - you know nothing about the babies who were in NICU at the same time as your grandchildren! You don't know what the medical circumstances were. The fact is - most babies who go to NICU survive. Most of them. Including your grandchildren (thank goodness). That means that most babies can be considered stable or likely to survive. That was the case with many of the babies that Lucy Letby murdered. They were expected to go home. Doctors who are experts in the care of these babies claimed that that was part of the pattern with these unusual deaths - sudden, unexplained collapses in previously stable babies. Other parts of the pattern were that the collapses occurred when Lucy Letby was their nurse, and often just after a parent had left. They also recovered from these collapses (when they didn't die) in a way that was unusual and unexpected. I believe the doctors, not the 'I heard about someone whose baby of unknown medical condition had xyz outcome' people.

Sorry but that's not true. There's no evidence she wasn't at work when the other deaths and incidents happened. If anything, she probably was, because if she wasn't then the defence could easily have used that fact. It's just there wasn't enough evidence to say she was involved in those other deaths.

'Momentum' doesn't change the legal process. Especially when so much of it is based on ignorance. There's no 'scapegoating' for reasons previously pointed out - namely that that theory makes zero sense.

No, sorry that's inaccurate. There was 'unexpected' collapses that took place when she was explicitly not on the premises as per the key card data (from the same data sets that convicted her).

These collapses are known but were not brought forward at trial.

I thought all the Teddies and cute things made her seems more sinister and strange IMO. The overall impression I got of her is arrested development. I don't know where this 'nice and normal Lucy' image comes from, I think she comes across as peculiar, pedantic, obsessed with her job - all the paperwork she was hoarding, spying on breaved parents, constantly texting colleagues. The people stating how normal she was, I dont see it?
This case still gives me nightmares, my DD was only on neonatal for two weeks and she wasnt very poorly but she was on oxygen and there was one particular nurse who was very very strange. I don't think in a million years she was a baby harmer, but she was odd and ive since found out from a friend who has worked on that ward previously, that many complaints have been made about this nurse. Theres never been a question over her care of the babies, and my baby got well very quickly on the ward, but her comments, questions and actions were so disconcerting and bizarre. I still cry when I think about it because she was frightening somehow.

There really weren't. There were expected medical events in the babies being treated. There was nothing like the pattern we saw at Lucy Letby's hands where stable babies collapsed suddenly and recovered suddenly soon after a parent and/or other medical staff left the room.

I think she's innocent as well. I have family who work in criminal law and the NHS. Everyone says the same thing. Powerless to do much about it but I hope that the truth comes out and soon.

This is really the wrong basis on which to have the conversation, the phrase 'expected medical event' is utterly meaningless as a number of of neonatologists have said. These were all desperately ill babies in the most parlous state of health. There's no such thing as expected or unexpected events or of a baby weighing less than 2lb 'doing well' because they were not.

The reduction in collapses didn't happen due to LL's suspension but precisely because the hospital was so substandard that it was reclassified and could no longer deal with the sickest babies.

Please share the specific and objective criteria that was used to distinguish between an “unexpected medical event” and an “unexplained collapse”, and the process/ method used to sort the two. With sources that aren’t just Dr Dewi saying “I was objective I promise!”

'See this is exactly the kind of armchair speculation that adds nothing at all. I'm sorry to pick on you but it's just an example of how this type of speculation is pointless and frankly a bit silly.'

'Armchair speculation' anc a 'bit silly' is so patronising.

Actual medical experts and legal experts have raised concerns about this case.

For my own experience, I have twins who were born at 33+6. One of them was 3lb 8oz and the other was 4lb 10oz. They were both taken to NICU whilst I had to remain on the main maternity ward as I recovered from my c-section. I saw them briefly a few hours later.

Two days after they were born I shuffled up to the NICU only to find that one of my twins (the small one) had a very bad night with breathing - absolutely no indication that this might happen. I wasn't informed by any nursing staff whatsoever I was just told when I got there, which was frankly horrific.

My point is even the healthy babies do take turns unexpectedly, thankfully my twins came home after 3 weeks. The NICU we were in was a level 2 which was the same as the COC.

I think there is sufficient doubt in her conviction to warrant a review.

I do agree with the people bringing her looks into it though. It's definitely true that a lot of serial killers, psychopaths etc have a look about them that is unappealing or disconcerting in some way. There have been many studies on this. Carl Jung studied it at legnth I believe, complete with pages of photographs showing the physical facial similarities of proven psychopaths or insane people and how their eyes tend to be different from normal etc. There is genuine basis for this. But there will always be killers who don't fit the profile. But I agree that her pleasant face does count for something, but its a tiny thing and shouldn't sway people by itself, even subconsciously.

It’s not patronising, it’s fact. Some of those “experts” are very questionable.

I’d be interested to know which of the 24 expert are questionable? Can you link or give further information?

This analysis discusses the diagnosis but doesn't address the issue of Letby lying in the trial and saying the mother hadn't come to the ward that night. How is that explained?

There are various mentions of nurses getting times and details wrong in the notes. This seems to be one of those arguments where those are seen as showing other clinicians' failures / determination to frame Letby, but where Letby gets things wrong or makes mistakes that's 'just one of those things' and is excused with the kindest possible interpretation.

The insulin blood tests results were fully explained to the jury. The information regarding the additional test that wasn't done, is not new the jury knew about it and still found her guilty.

I’ve always wondered about the insulin results. It is perfectly possible for errors to be made during the drawing of blood samples, the way samples are transported to the lab, and how they are processed once they arrived.

Blood samples can be mislabeled and this is a recognised risk in a healthcare setting. This can occur due to human error or system issues. Human error is not incommon in busy wards and units. Even if a sample was labelled correctly on the neonatal unit, it’s possible for similar errors to occur in the labs when the blood samples are processed. Hospitals therefore implement strict protocols to minimise the risk.

If an error like this is suspected usually the patient would have the blood tests repeated, but we already know that this didn’t happen.

This might sound far fetched, it isn’t. It’s much more likely that an error like this occurred than a nurse poisoned a TPN bag with insulin.

The biochemist who gave evidence did not mention these risks, but it’s possible that doctors in this field do not fully appreciate how much these errors can happen. Biochemists are not on “the shop floor” processing the blood samples in the labs.