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?

They did allow it, doesn't mean it was a good decision.

But even if you added 9 additional deaths to the chart to include all deaths on the ward, she was still there for a huge number of them compared to anyone else who worked there. And this is also based on the assumption that the consultants decided whether a death was suspicious based on whether LL was on shift and not because it actually WAS suspicious (eg baby was stable, no reason to think they would collapse, was close to being able to go home). That’s quite a reach and suggests that they all had a vendetta against her despite them saying in evidence that they didn’t want to believe it was her initially but noted a pattern. And it also suggests that the police just blindly accepted what the doctors said and charged her, not that there was credible evidence that the deaths were not accidental.

You could see similar arguments being made for Ben Geen and Bev Allitt - the case also included the fact that collapses seemed to happen when they were on shift. I mean that’s a key feature of cases like this - that the perpetrator is there when the collapse happens. If the only reason LL, BA and BG were convicted was because they were present then that’s one thing but there was copious other evidence that LL was not able to discredit, even if Rob Rinder and Ken from Twitter reckon that it was flawed.

I agree totally. Most of us will have displayed some form of 'odd behaviour' if our lives were inspected to the degree of LL's.

They seem (from their own documentary) to have started with deaths brought to them as suspicious by the consultants who believed Letby was a murderer.

Whether they plotted the other nurses as a genuine investigation into other possible culprits or to highlight their case against Letby, the case as brought to the police was centred on Letby from the start.

The arguments on this thread from her defenders are very circular.

"She doesn't have the hallmarks of a serial killer, she's a normal young woman."

"She really doesn't seem normal. Here are X Y and Z example."

"So? Not being normal doesn't make you a serial killer"

It's a conveniently circular process for Letby to say that she must be allowed to care for more of the sickest babies because it's the only way she can get over the deaths of the previous ones. Keeps the supply of victims flowing.

I don't think that people are so much defending her. But are questioning, did the evidence pass the point of all reasonable doubt.

I've spoken to a number of people in real life who are like myself, and are also in the 'not sure' camp re her guilt.

No one is saying she shouldn't have an advocate with her or speaking for her but it should be someone appropriate. I've generally found union reps are excellent at this, they understand the workplace, the stresses and strains of the job but they aren't emotionally involved and I think if her father made numerous phone calls and attended meetings he may have been overly involved.

Some people choose to have a colleague who will also have an understanding and others choose a legal representative. All of that is normal and appropriate.

Ben Geen who was literally caught with a syringe of the drug used to poison victims and attempted to dispose of it also claims he’s innocent and that the statistics are flawed. He has also retained LL’s new lawyer and wants a retrial.
The point with these killings in healthcare settings is that the perpetrator uses their position and knowledge to try to get away with their actions. In every case there will be a question as to whether this was genuinely murder because we are dealing with poorly and frail victims who run a risk of dying from natural causes. That’s why these killers pick them and use the argument that it was an accident or natural cause of their illness. And for a while with LL, that worked for her because several of the deaths WERE attributed initially to natural causes because doctors don’t tend to scream murder unless they have good reason to think it is.

That's why the robustness of the medical evidence is so important, @Nobodywouldknow . All but one of the deaths Letby was accused of had specific natural causes identified at time of death. So something did make people go back and reclassify them as suspicious deaths.

Now, statistics aren't a good enough reason. A full time nurse being present when a cluster of children die is not a statistical anomaly. It will happen to innocent nurses.

If the medical evidence that there had been any murders was robust, the case would look very different. But you can see why, with medical experts expressing concern, this reclassification of natural deaths as murders has rung alarm bells.

A court transcript would cost £10,000 for this trial.

Ok, but the judgment is available for free, and plenty of news outlets have published live coverage of what happened each day at trial (often verbatim). This was obviously subject to various reporting restrictions so it's not a complete picture, but it's also not irrelevant, and gives helpful background as to the defence arguments, how the issues that people say are problematic were covered at trial, etc.

I'm not suggesting experts or anyone else doubting the safety of the conviction would need to have seen everything that's available in the public domain before raising concerns as that would be ridiculously onerous. I am, however, surprised at the number of people saying it's an unsafe conviction who haven't even read the judgment that examines the original judge's decisions and explains why they were upheld.

It seems to me unlikely that supplementary evidence with prior cases, proof of air embolism, counterpoint to unsuitable lab tests exists and was presented and has somehow gone unreported.

The defence did address the air embolism evidence, reliability of Evans, unsuitable insulin tests, though, and this was reported. Where each issue (and others) landed is covered in the judgment.

I'm not saying the judges are infallible - obviously these things do sometimes go wrong as we all know. It's just that going back to the actual conviction and the reasons given for it (and for rejecting the appeal) is the obvious starting point for questioning whether such a conviction is unsafe.

If I'd been her HR manager that exchange would have made me question if she was suitable based on protecting her mental health. Not everyone can work in such a demanding situation and there is no shame in that. I've had staff who wanted to "soldier on" after a difficult incident and in some cases that was appropriate and in some they definitely needed to be moved to another area on a temporary or maybe permanent basis. That wasn't punitive in anyway but as an employer you have a duty of care and she was clearly struggling.

I don't recall arguing anything from her personality at all - just denying that her behaviour at trial could be used to judge her professional behaviour, and denying that there's anything particularly sinister about any other examples we've been given

I would take personality out of the picture as much as possible - I think it's a vehicle for retrospective reanalysis of trivialities and opens up huge possibility of bias.

Because she chose methods that would make it likely that it would be classified as a natural death. All of Shipman’s victims were initially also deemed to have died of natural causes too. Pathologists will not conclude it’s unlawful killing unless it’s quite obvious. When the cases were reexamined, medical experts testified that they thought it was unlawful killing. Determining cause of death isn’t always precise or easy so the fact that one person said natural causes when there was no reason to think otherwise doesn’t mean that it’s impossible that it was murder.

they wouldn’t have needed to plot the other staff, would they? They plotted the other staff on duty against the baby deaths
They plotted the other staff on duty against the deaths that occurred on letby’s shifts.

you list all the deaths; you cross out unsuspicious ones
This is the step that is problematic when you already have a suspect in mind.

Have a read:
www.scienceontrial.com/post/shifting-the-data

Ben Green - that syringe full of poison guy - has the same lawyer as Lucy Letby?? Oh wow that throws this whole 'getting it back to appeal' thing into a new light. That's never going to happen.

I don't know how public this exchange was at the time. I agree a manager/ HR director might have wanted to try to move her to less stressful duties. I don't know if anyone like that was in the picture at that point though, and of course the ward was understaffed and under pressure.

I just don't get the logic by which people connect that "frustration" with the death of poor baby C. It seems quite a leap.

Absolutely agree. She wasn't tried for her personality, nor found guilty on the basis of being odd and unpleasant. But found guilty of murder on multiple counts beyond reasonable doubt by a room full of people who had heard every single bit of evidence, presided over by a vastly experienced judge and two vastly experienced KCs. I don't think there's anything anyone on Mumsnet can trump that with.

They plotted the other staff on duty against the deaths that occurred on letby’s shifts.

Even if they included all deaths (most of them took place on LL’s shifts so hard to do anything different) she would still have been there for more of them than anyone else working on the ward. And been unfortunate to be there for all the four collapses of Baby I on separate dates.

They plotted the other staff on duty against the deaths that occurred on letby’s shifts*^

Where is the proof they did that? That’s what we’re disagreeing on so if you have proof of that, please link it. It’s not what I read or heard, and it would make no sense to do so.

No, the step (crossing out unsuspicious deaths) isn’t problematic. It’s exactly what they did in the case of Allitt too: listed the suspicious deaths then saw who was on duty.

Because she chose methods that would make it likely that it would be classified as a natural death

😂. orrrr - crazy thought - they were classified as natural deaths because they were natural deaths

Also to get a fair comparison, you should also include every sudden deterioration on that ward during the same period. That figure could run into hundreds with a far larger pool of staff having been in attendance at a large percentage.

Given that Mr Letby has been described as a furniture retail boss / manager, perhaps he was considered appropriate support because he had some knowledge of employment law etc. Just a thought.

Did you read the blog?

Yes they definitely plotted all the staff against the deaths, not just Lucy. She was the common factor in all. Including, as someone pointed out, four separate attempts at one baby's life.