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?

Not as a comment on the case but reading the comments here about

• neither biochemists nor doctors understanding errors in the labelling and processing of blood draw samples
• staff laying-off blame on more junior staff through a hierarchy of oppression
• poor NHS management
• uncontrolled sources of contamination
• neonatologists not having an expert opinion on sick neonatal infants etc.

it seems that this case is doing a fair amount to undermine the confidence of some people in a functional healthcare system (in addition to the legal system).

I would just like to reasure any parents with babies in a level 2 NNU that deaths are very very rare. Premature babies born after 32 weeks do very well and are usually discharged home within a few weeks.

The people who call Lucy Letby lovely and think she is innocent remind me of the women who sent their knickers and lipstick-smeared letters in to Bundy, Fritzel in prison.

Oh yet more misogyny

I’m coming from the perspective that if the child wasn’t murdered beyond a reasonable doubt then it doesn’t make any difference whether Letby’s version of events is true or not.

This.

Exactly this. It's people seizing on little details from a trial they didn't follow in full and assuming it wasn't explored by the expert defence and prosecution on one of the highest profile murder cases the UK has ever seen, for the worst serial baby murderer of our time. Frankly bizarre.

That's why I'm telling you that the so-called experts who are raising concerns will quietly slink off when they realise they've either been misled or a bit ignorant.

Even Judge Rinder in the title of this thread - it's a great publicity move but that's all. He knows that if she got a retrial or whatever (which she absolutely won't) then he can look terribly clever, and when the years roll on and she's largely forgotten about in jail (which she absolutely will be) nobody will be talking about what he said.

Yes but they were because a court of law and a jury of her peers said so.

What about those of us who think she was convicted on shoddy evidence and would think the same if she looked like a cross between Fred West and a potato?

Level 2 (at Chester anyway) was for babies born after more than 27 weeks, or 28 weeks for multiple births. They are more vulnerable that most premature babies - in the weakest 15 - 16%, and only the weakest 5% would not normally have been cared for at Chester.

Premature babies born after 32 weeks (34 for multiples) are the ones who have best outcomes and are cared for in the lowest dependency units. Only two of the babies Letby has been found guilty of murdering meet these criteria.

7% of premature babies died without leaving hospital, though you are right that most 32 weekers will be fine.

Two different issues.

Jury was informed that no second test for insulin was ordered, despite the labs recommendation.

They were also informed that the test was a reliable one for synthetic insulin, and that was not the case.

I don't know why anyone assumes the defence has facts preventing them from arguing that the medical evidence was unreliable. It's hard to imagine what facts could make the evidence as presented reliable. And there has been growing scrutiny of the evidence reported since the trial, so more counter arguments are now available.

Patronising or what?!
I didn't say the babies in with my GC were stable. I said that babies in NICU could be stable and die unexpectedly and quickly. It isn't unrealistic to say that babies with little chance of survival can sometimes be described as stable either.
And as for LL being the babies' nurse when they died, I gather that the entry system did not always work properly. This is only one of several aspects where doubts have arisen amongst experts, though I freely admit I am not an expert, just a reasonable person who might well have been on a jury.
As I also said I am not convinced of her innocence, or her guilt. I understand that the jury took a while to reach their decision and did not find her guilty on every charge. Obviously a fine tipping point between guilty and reasonable doubt.

Are you a neo natal clinician? Is your profession in providing acute paediatric healthcare?

Lucy Letby doesn't deny being present when each of the babies died or was resuscitated, often taking an active part. I don't think swipe times change the evidence of the murderer herself or the witnesses. At various times, she wasn't even meant to be there, but had found some reason to be in the room just before the 'unexpected' collapse. Her colleagues commented on how much 'bad luck' she seemed to have that practically every baby she went near for a while ended up collapsing completely out of the blue.

Yes, extraordinary coincidences or not? 🤔

We are not privy to everything the jury heard.

I’m amazed that with a few references to Reddit we can’t all become neo natal consultants! Seriously? A mumsnetter referencing Reddit is implying that consultants with over 10 years training doesn’t know as much as her!

The jury were all lay people, and yet they were entrusted with the task of evaluating the medical “evidence” and expert witness testimony. It they can manage it, we can too.

Unfortunately the jury only heard one side ; the defence put on no medical expert to counter the (very spurious) claims made by the prosecution expert (who by the way isn’t even a neonatologist).

Since the trial the public have had the benefit of hearing from a whole range of medical professionals , many of whole have far more specialist expertise than Dr Dewi Evans (and a much less problematic history of offering themselves as prosecution witnesses in criminal medical cases and giving dodgy testimony).

Andrew Malkinson anyone?

DNA proved otherwise, but at the time his conviction was considered safe.

She wasn't present when each of the babies died or collapsed. She was on shift at some time when they were on the ward, which is not surprising given her role.

Does anyone know if LL actually was working significantly more overtime than the other nurses? I know that she worked a lot of overtime but not sure how it measures up against other members of staff.

I don't think we have that level of detail on the other nurses

There's a lot we don't know. If there were 16 or 17 deaths in the period under review, as different sources claim, and Lucy had been present or involved in care for 7 of those infants, that would not look like much of a pattern, for a full time nurse. But we don't have the full range of data to show how significant the sliver that we have been given might be.

Jury was informed that no second test for insulin was ordered, despite the labs recommendation.

They were also informed that the test was a reliable one for synthetic insulin, and that was not the case.

I don't know why anyone assumes the defence has facts preventing them from arguing that the medical evidence was unreliable. It's hard to imagine what facts could make the evidence as presented reliable.

The jury could interpret the insulin evidence as reliable after Letby agreed it during her cross-examination.

The jury don't have to decide whether evidence is reliable when both parties agree, as it's simply an agreed fact of the case (that insulin was added) at that point.

It seems really key information in order to understand the probability of her being there each time, as compared to the other nurses. I would hope the jury were given this info.

Still pretty astonishing that people imagine the hospital or other clinicians thought 'aha, we could accept that a range of issues contributed to an unacceptably high death rate among newborn babies, and then make the case that this was at least partially out of our control - years of chronic underfunding by central government and so on - to lessen the blame. Or we could conspire to blame it all on a single apparently angelic nurse who we'll claim is a serial killer who got away with it for years. Yes, the serial killer is definitely the better PR option!' 🙄

A lot of people think there was no grand conspiracy, but that the doctors and so on did actually believe LL was a serial killer, for reasons that might not actually have anything to do with whether she was or not.