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?

Well they may well be related- someone is infinitely less likely to 'get away' with harming babies in a well functioning, fully staffed unit, so if we're making assumptions and playing guessing games surely it's just as likely that the environment ie failing unit was a facilitator in her actions and necessary even for them to take place. I don't believe anyone has said she absolutely 100% didn't have anything to do with the others, but that the thresholds weren't met and some neonates sadly do die despite best efforts. She admitted in her testimony that she sometimes accessed the unit when she wasn't on rota and without swiping in, this kind of laid grounds to believe unless others corroborated her presence which would he challenging years on, she could have been there for others.

So you do disagree with the conclusion of the experts. Fair enough but they still gave evidence that the deaths were non accidental. Even if you think they were wrong.

Why did Lucy Letby not instruct six experts of her own to refute the prosecution ones? She would have been given the funds to do so without a question. She chose not to. You’d think if the prosecution witnesses were so bad and what they said was such shite that it would have been easy to challenge them.

I’m not disputing bias, I’m disputing the idea that people are unaware of it and that someone innocent could be repeatedly thought to be guilty by professionals right through to the court.

Yes, bias exists but in professions where it’s a potential issue, people are aware of it and check themselves and others for it.

yes although the spike in deaths happened exactly the same time , so the unit starting to fail and LL starting to kill happened simultaneously.

I don't believe anyone has said she absolutely 100% didn't have anything to do with the others, but that the thresholds weren't met and some neonates sadly do die despite best efforts.

See here we go again. People cannot have it both ways. Either we say that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that these 7 deaths were suspicious and the other 9 were not, in which case there must have been something else that caused the other spike, or we say that there isn’t necessarily a proven/ absolute distinction between the “suspicious” deaths and the others (the others also could be suspicious perhaps) , in which case that shift chart is meaningless* - it’s really just a chart of when deaths happened on LL shift - and we have to consider all the deaths in the spike and who was present for each of them before we start making any claims about patterns and opportunity.

Why would that be strange? The two things are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, as I said, a spike can provide good cover.

Why did Lucy Letby not instruct six experts of her own to refute the prosecution ones?

it seems that the barrister believed he could poke holes in the medical testimony during cross without the help of an expert witness- that was a fundamental miscalculation since the jury were never going to trust the opinion of the defence barrister over doctors in evaluating medical evidence. It also appears that the defence started with a strategy of trying to get some of the medical evidence - eg on air embolism - thrown out altogether on the basis that it was not credible science. Putting their own expert forward to testify about air embolism would have contradicted this argument. This was a high risk strategy that unfortunately backfired as the judge did not throw the evidence out and it meant that the prosecution evidence went unchallenged by any alternative medical expert.

Okay but on appeal, the witness they wanted to rely on WAS heard by the court of appeal. Not officially admitted but on the basis that the court would hear what he had to say and decide whether it would meet the threshold of fresh evidence that cast a doubt on the conviction. The CoA found it did not. It didn’t even challenge the basis of the prosecution’s case. This was on appeal and they still didn’t have a medical expert who was prepared to say that these deaths were natural. I don’t think one exists (who has examined the evidence).

What if she gets a retrial and is still convicted (she did have a retrial on Baby K already)? How many bites at the cherry should she get?

There’s an interesting article in this morning’s Times with quotes from the triplets’ parents. They say:

Our family is deeply shocked by the ongoing speculation surrounding what is being referred to as a miscarriage of justice,” the parents of babies E and F said. “Certain pieces of evidence being discussed in the media are grossly out of context and misrepresented. Misinformation is being circulated about what transpired in court. Having attended the trial ourselves, we are fully aware of what was said

This whole traumatic experience made us question humanity,” they told The Sunday Times. “Why are people going out of their way to support a serial killer of babies?”

They said that the prosecution case put together “individual bricks” of evidence, adding: “Once they were all put together the wall of evidence was overwhelming. To take each brick out separately is simply taking evidence out of context.

“The spread of lies and misinformation is deeply distressing and makes us sick to our cores. We just want some peace to grieve, knowing the person who caused so much agony is where she belongs.”

@atotalshambles yes RIP Sally Clark. Jury massively misled about the statistical likelihood of two cot death in the same family. She never got over it and effectively later died of a broken heart.

Article concludes

The parents of babies E and F will never forget their experiences at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

They said: “It is infuriating to hear some people say, ‘I just have a feeling she hasn’t done anything.’ Serial killers often hide in plain sight — that’s how they manage to go undetected. They blend in and manipulate those around them. It is deeply disrespectful to the prosecution,defence, judge, and jury — who dedicated nearly a year of their lives to fulfilling their public duty with care and diligence. They took the necessary time to carefully consider all the evidence before reaching their verdicts.

“We have seen all the comments circulating on social media and in the mainstream news, and we find them both hurtful and distasteful.”

So...

The 'confession' notes were written at the advice of a counsellor, who suggested Lucy write down her feelings - feelings, not facts, - the jury were not told this context.
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

The door swipe data was incorrect
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/16/evidence-in-first-lucy-letby-trial-was-incorrect-cps-admits

The supposed insulin proof was not in fact proof of artificial insulin being given
https://www.scienceontrial.com/post/criminal-justice-in-england-disagreeable-facts
The air embolism theory was disputed by the person who wrote the research about the physical signs e.g rashes that can be seen
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/manchester-crown-court-lucy-letby-hereford-b2365186.html

The statistical evidence is disputed by some statisticians https://gill1109.com/category/lucy-letby/

Eyewitness testimony, especially 6/7 years after the event is known to be unreliable - "Confident, but incorrect eyewitnesses have contributed to many innocent convictions" [21, 22
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9451081/

but it's all fine, nothing to see here

He’s actually a retired paediatrician who set up neonatal units in his previous employment-before neonatologists became such a speciality. His findings were peer reviewed by a practising consultant neonatologist and also findings from consultant paediatric radiologists, cardiologists and haematologists. So not just a retired doctor who looked at the evidence and blew the jury away.

'This whole traumatic experience made us question humanity,” they told The Sunday Times. “Why are people going out of their way to support a serial killer of babies'

I and everyone else will have great sympathy for their loss, however not one person is going out of their way to support a serial killer of babies. Rather to question the evidence, absence of any defence experts and the judicial process which as we know has got it wrong before.

also when you remove bricks from a wall, the wall collapses.

What's wrong with that?

Nurse A is having a normal human reaction to a normal statistical cluster. They happen, but they surprise us.

Letby is echoing the medical findings - causes of death were determined for babies C and D, but A was unexplained (like several dozen babies every year).

What answer would people prefer from Letby?

"It was clearly murder but don't worry, it wasn't me"?

"We know exactly why each of those three babies died, don't worry?"

She gave the medical facts known at the time, accurately.

“I don’t think one exists (who has examined the evidence)”

This is not true. The babies all had post mortems by experienced neonatal pathologists (bar one as the doctor on duty was so sure this death was due to infection). They all returned natural causes and were uncontroversial at the time. One was listed as “unascertained”, which means “unascertained but natural”, a common finding in 40% of neonatal deaths. The pathologists, of course, actually examined and autopsied the bodies. Nobody said “wait a minute! I think that baby may have been murdered!” at the time. Nobody.

Several years later those post mortems were essentially overturned by Dr Dewi Evans, a retired Paediatrician who was never in his life a neonatologist or a pathologist, without ever seeing the babies either in life or death, using the contemporaneous notes of the actual pathologists.

”What if she gets a retrial and is still convicted?”

Then so be it. If she is still found to be guilty after a proper analysis of the evidence with actual expert medical consensus then that is fine. All anyone is seriously asking for is that, in the light of the growing clamour of serious concerns from eminent experts, the evidence be reviewed and that the conviction either be made safe or overturned. As it stands the experts expressing concern greatly outweigh the prosecution experts in number but more crucially in standing and experience. That should concern all of us.

The repercussions of allowing a miscarriage of justice like this to go unchecked are massive and go far beyond Letby, the parents, or anyone else directly involved. The case doesn’t exist in a vacuum, We all live under the British justice system and as such we all have a right to hold it to high account and to see that it is rigorous and fair.

It isn’t and shouldn’t be a “what side are you on?” debate. We should all be on the side of ensuring that justice is fair and rigorous.

Plenty of people on here are going out of their way to support a serial killer.

We have people being criticised for not not having empathy over how she behaved in court, because poor love must have been stressed.

We have people saying outright that this is a miscarriage of justice, when all they’ve seen is snapshot evidence and the ramblings of some television celeb lawyer.

people are saying she has been scapegoated.

That is supporting a serial killer of babies.

She has been found guilty and sentenced, after a ten month trial and a subsequent retrial of one case where she was also found guilty.

And now it seems the parents are being criticised for being upset in the press.

The pro Lucy campaign really isn’t very edifying.

I really don’t care whether some nobodies on the internet think that she’s innocent. In the eyes of the law, and overwhelming evidence which the super sleuths aren’t privy to, she is guilty.

But to believe Letby's version of events as put forward at trial, the jury would have had to accept Letby's claims that several of the partners of the dead babies were lying.

parents, not partners

I wish I could “thank” a post more than once @AnywhereAnyoneAnyTime. When people have more sympathy for a criminal convicted of multiple murders after a ten month trial than bereaved parents, that parent is spot on - it does make you question humanity.

“I really don’t care whether some nobodies on the internet think that she’s innocent. In the eyes of the law, and overwhelming evidence which the super sleuths aren’t privy to, she is guilty.”

Thank goodness then it isn’t “nobodies on the internet” who are driving this and it doesn’t matter whether you - who is also a nobody on the internet - care or not. Those who are seriously asking for a review of the evidence include a multitude of world leading experts, including Nobel Laureates, heads of royal societies, and even the former forensic regulator for the UK. At this stage the clamour of experts expressing concern and even calling the evidence “ridiculous” and “nonsensical” far outweigh the prosecution witnesses in experience and standing. It’s not going away until the evidence is properly reviewed whether you care or not.

"Four of the deaths were babies born with a congenital problem or birth defect, another baby was sadly asphyxiated or deprived of oxygen at birth, the remaining four died of infection and their deaths were precipitated with a period of time consistent with infection, they did not suddenly and unexpectedly collapse and die."

Comment from an impartial barrister:

"The graph of when Miss Letby was on duty – and the fact that she was on duty at all the times that the indicted deaths or attempted murders took place – was simply there to demonstrate that she had the opportunity to inflict harm, not that, because she’s on duty, she inflicted harm,’ he said."

The other deaths were highlighted to the jury for context, they weren't swept under the rug or hidden. It wasn't said whether she was on or off shift for any part of their care either, it isn't the case that she wasn't there so they just didn't consider them.

One wouldn't need to accept that any of the parents had lied to question Letby's guilt. None of them claimed to have seen anything that proved murder at all.

Letby and one of the parents contradicted each other as to whether they'd met one evening, and the time of a phone call, which is hardly unnatural seven or eight years after the event. No need to describe either as a liar. It doesn't help the parents to try to draw them into that kind of drama.

That may or may not be why the chart was there, but that's not how it was used,

I suspect her taking the stand threw off the experts the defence were going to use. No way was a plumber their actual only choice, but seen as her testimony was contradictory and heavily implicated her, I guess they were limited in who they could utilise without causing further damage to her case.

Any other witnesses the defence wanted to bring in would have testified before Letby anyway, but I do agree that it was her own testimony that removed any reasonable doubt the jury may have had about the evidence presented by the prosecution.

If she hadn't testified and hadn't said the things she said, I could understand people's concerns about the medical and circumstantial evidence alone being used to convict her as there could well have been some reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury.

But the story she asked the jury to believe on her cross examination was so far fetched that it clearly became harder and harder to believe as she carried on talking.