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?

You poor thing. I'm so sorry. Hope things are a bit easier with time.

I've only been through a snippet of the same thing and you are of course in fight / flight / freeze mode. Constantly. It's exhausting.

The telegraph is pretty biased.

It’s one of the Torygraph’s current obsessions. It’s a right wing comic these days

I'd love to see people making pronouncements like this performing under the pressure LL was under in a court room - would you really be able to present the most appealing picture of yourself knowing that 99% of the people in the room believed you were the worst baby killer ever? Or might you be strung out, defensive and aware that no matter what you said or how you said it you'd be "wrong". except she is the worst baby killer ever.

Telegraph's not my choice of newspaper, but this is mostly a clearly explained statistical analysis from a guest writer and statistician

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/06/spike-in-deaths-at-letby-hospital-could-be-explained/

It's notable that newspapers with very different political perspectives have published concerns about the case - Guardian as much as Telegraph. I'd say this is clearly enough explained that people can make their own minds up as to whether it's informed by bias, so worth a look

When that is proven beyond reasonable doubt, I'll believe it.

I learned how to research medical evidence pre-internet, through phone calls, libraries and various other methods.

When a doctor says "only X can cause Y" and you know X hasn't happened, you have to develop a forensic mindset and be clinical about it. You ignore the "force of a car crash" hyperbole and examine mechanics. I did much of the groundwork for my damn solicitor because I wasn't his only case, and he didn't have the time or medical expertise because mine was an unprecedented case. Metaphyseal fractures, multiple, with no other evidence if abuse.

So when it comes to LL I look at the mechanics of forcing enough air into an NG tube to harm a baby. Whether it has been seen before. How much air? How long would it take? How big is an NG tube? How much air would it take? It's not hard to look it up and see the implausibility of it as experts in neo natals have brought up.

The liver issue. How could such an injury be caused with such violence without immediate visible evidence? Do you know how small a neo nates liver is? On average 5 - 7 cm. That would require implausible precision.

I could go on. I had a very interesting conversation with a senior HCP recently about insulin and TPN bags.

Why the defence didn't pick apart these things I have no idea. Well, I kind of do, based on my own experience, which is basically it's a bit rude to question medical experts as if they're idiots. Sad but true. Not to mention the taboo of "nit-picking", whether that's on legal or medical fronts.Cynical? Oh, you have no idea.

Eh? I’m referring to The court of Appeal ruling :
www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Letby-Final-Judgment-20240702.pdf

It really is. There's an (invalid) excuse for everything.

Why the defence didn't pick apart these things I have no idea. Well, I kind of do, based on my own experience, which is basically it's a bit rude to question medical experts as if they're idiots. Sad but true. Not to mention the taboo of "nit-picking", whether that's on legal or medical fronts.Cynical? Oh, you have no idea.

Are you suggesting that the defence didn't challenge the medical evidence against Letby because they didn't want to look rude?

Hahah this one made me laugh

When that is proven beyond reasonable doubt, I'll believe it. didn’t you know? A conviction means being found guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

Rob Rinder is experienced in complex cases yes but his speciality is fraud and money laundering. Not quite the same as baby murder. Announcing he is an expert seems to me an attack on the 2 KCs who has the trial and who were called to the bar almost 20 years before he was and the judge who no doubt had 20 years experience on him too! He is not the sole expert on criminal law and he is a reality tv star so straight away he needs to have an opinion voiced just to satisfy his bank balance and fan base. His word is not gospel

I don't doubt for a second there are miscarriages of justice but it is for the legal system to review whether the verdict is unsafe. Unless you were in the court room day in day out you will never know what evidence was put before the jury and I think it's wrong to accuse a jury of coming to the wrong verdict based on what newspapers write. They fanned the flames to condemn her pre trial and now they are doing the same to get her acquitted.

Time and time again I see snippets of trials reported and it always includes the shock factor evidence such as in Letbys case the scribbled notes she made. It all needs to be in context which the jury had.

Yes I remember that case. As you say, there was doubt in the conviction and she was released.

Interestingly her remaining living daughter did cut contact with her as a young adult. The article I read about said that she was upset that her mum wouldn't talk about her brothers who had died.
I think in the daughters case she had doubt of her mother's innocence.

I am suggesting that based on my own experience there is a code of deference to esteemed expert witnesses. In cases like mine and this one there is a small pool to choose from and it is a brave expert who goes against the grain for fear of being struck off. See Squiers (SBS) and Colin Paterson (biochemist specialising in metabolic and genetic bone disease).

I am suggesting that in front of a jury, with the number of prosecution experts ranged against the defence, saying to any one of them "prove it" would be met with ridicule because their OPINION is considered as good as fact. We're talking about complex medical evidence. If the defence tried to directly rubbish their testimony, they would be regarded poorly because people want to have faith in doctors.

The one expert on the defence side wasn't called and I personally think it was because LL had already been found guilty in the court of public opinion, and one outlying counter expert could not have swayed the jury. It was a numbers game, and an emotive case playing on multiple psychological factors. The circumstantial hoopla was given far more weight than the nuts and bolts of mechanism of death. No matter how often it is said that the methods are unproven and based on retrospective hypothesis by experts looking for murder, the focus gets shifted to shift patterns, paper collecting, and post it notes oh, and she looks like a wrong 'un in her mug shot. This case should go back to basics and be re-evaluated, starting with the actual forensic evidence.

Otherwise there us scope for many more miscarriages of justice whenever something medically unusual crops up and it is automatically assumed to be murder.

And it can still be wrong.

If it turned out she was innocent I'd be interested to know what the situation was that led to get being suspected in the first place, extreme workplace bullying I imagine

I also think of this case often - misuse of statistics https://forensicstats.org/blog/2018/02/16/misuse-statistics-courtroom-sally-clark-case/

The police had no issue talking to media while they were still investigating in the run up to both trials. They’ve only now decided to batten down the hatches because they are facing criticism.

It was Liz Hull that announced that there were 9 deaths Letby is not connected to in the same period. That’s Liz Hull - she of the daily mail podcast The Trial - one of the few journalists who has direct access to and trust of the police AND Dr Brearey, Dr Evans, and Dr Jarayam. Are you saying you don’t trust Liz Hull? Because I’m certain I’ve seen you promote her podcast as the best source for info on this case. There were 9 deaths. 4 of them were due to infection - funny enough that’s the very thing many of the Letby murder victims were originally diagnosed with in their post mortems.

Letby’s defence barrister in both trials, Ben Myers KC, is still working alongside MacDonald on Letby’s team. He is still her defence barrister for the Baby K appeal. MacDonald is working pro bono on the CCRC application and going forward. I assume Letby doesn’t have a lot of money left for anything else given she had to sell her house to help pay for her defence so far.

Rob Rinder knows very little about this long and complicated case that went on for ten months. He should not be making these statements with limited knowledge. It is not fair for these poor families whose babies have been harmed and murdered.

It’s worth remembering that the unit’s own doctors were concerned by the situation they were working in:

‘In late 2015, one of the senior paediatricians emailed the hospital's chief executive, Tony Chambers, to report that staff on the unit were "chronically overworked" and "no one is listening". "Over the past few weeks, I have seen several medical and nursing colleagues in tears". Doctors were working shifts of more than 20 hours and the unit was so busy that "at several points we ran out of vital equipment such as incubators. This is now our normal working pattern and it is not safe. Things are stretched thinner and thinner and are at breaking point. When things snap, the casualties will either be children's lives or the mental and
physical health of our staff.’

The doctors went to the police just after Letby won a grievance dispute against them for bullying her. You can make of that what you will. Of course those who think she’s guilty see if very differently to those who aren’t convinced that the convictions are safe.

She has been found guilty by two juries. Do we have to go through another trial or two or three or however many it takes for the defendant to be found not guilty for every case?

Or does this waste of time and extravagant waste public money only apply to killer nurses?

There are more options other than either murder or a failed healthcare unit too, for example she could have been extremely incompetent at her job, which would bring guilt of some level but not to the level of intentional murder.

The reason the death rate altered when she left the ward was because simultaneously the Trust elected to have the neo natal ward downgraded to stop taking such sick/premature babies, additional staff were employed to stop shortages (& therefore stop the need for sick nurses to still do shifts) and a huge amount of retraining was undertaken. The pipe emitting sewerage via a tap on the ward was also fixed and the ward stopped taking in ‘extra’ babies thus overcrowding was stopped. I’m guessing with all the drama all staff were also being extra vigilant.
Don't forget if it’s found the original autopsies were safe (no others have been undertaken) the finger of blame will point to the Trust practices which will probably result in a class action by the parents.

The doctors went to the police just after Letby won a grievance dispute against them

highlighting this