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?

The constant weaponising of the parents in order to shut down discussion in such a serious matter is wrongheaded.. a (potential) miscarriage of justice is not the balm for grief.
well said

Dr Dewi Evans was not a specialist in neonatology. Some doctors are.A neonatologist is always a pediatrician, but a pediatrician is not always a neonatologist.

Why should it? It’s not in any other prosecution.

Because the entire case rests on the prosecution being able to prove that these deaths were murder beyond reasonable doubt, and that Lucy Letby was was the only practitioner who had the opportunity to commit those murders - the “constant malevolent presence”. If the prosecution can’t even be transparent about the criteria they used to decide what was and wasn’t a suspicious death then that is a serious problem- especially when we know that there was also a large spike in deaths which haven’t been attributed to Letby, and we don’t know who was and wasn’t present for those!

And the prosecution has proved that, hence the multiple convictions and refusal of leave to appeal.

From the Guardian article Golaz posted above:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/08/a-superbug-doctor-shortages-and-a-neonatal-unit-out-of-its-depth-failures-at-lucy-letby-hospital-revealed

The Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health report, commissioned after the infant deaths in 2015 and 2016:

"highlighted the shortage of senior doctors, given the acute medical needs of the babies admitted. At the time there were seven consultant paediatricians, one with a special interest in newborns , but no consultant neonatologist. They had to double up on the paediatric and neonatal wards. They were overstretched, awaiting the appointment of two further consultants, and “there should have been a greater level of consultant presence on the ward”, especially at peak times, the report said.

From a neonatologist reviewing evidence given at the trial:

“There were delays in realising babies were in difficulty, poor recognition and management of [serious medical episodes known to affect premature babies], delays in instituting treatment, repeated occurrence of failed intubations [the difficult and delicate insertion of breathing tubes into tiny babies],” she said. “These factors cause further deterioration of already compromised infants and increase the likelihood of death.”

From a nurse caring for newborns at Chester before 2007

"The most senior nurses were gradually replaced over the following years with less-experienced ones and cheaper nursery nurses who did not have a registered nursing qualification. “When you had ANNPs and senior nursing sisters with decades of clinical experience, the fact the consultants weren’t there enough didn’t matter so much. We recognised problems, we’d seen them before. But it became an accident waiting to happen,” Worden told the Guardian.

Can we really be confident that the doctors on this ward could tell when an unexpected (to them) death was suspicious?

And given that the jury were instructed that they did not need to know how murder was committed to convict, and that none of the deaths in Letby's cases were found to be suspect at post-mortem and certified with causes that are reasonably common in premature babies, what reliable indicator do we have that there was ever a murder on this ward?

what reliable indicator do we have that there was ever a murder on this ward?

None.

This is getting totally ridiculous now.

I'm afraid that expert opinion raises the possibility that it has been ridiculous all along.

The Chester Police have explained that they investigated murder because the doctors who approached them told them these deaths were sudden and unexpected in a way other infant deaths weren't. Who made that distinction, did they make it impartially and on full information, and were they qualified to make it?

I actually wondered how long before the doubts would seep in and people would begin to question the existence of gravity if it meant rendering her innocent. She's an incredibly lucky woman in some respects, very very few women meet the criteria that would see so many coming to her defence. Yes, she must be innocent, just look at her. It is unfathomable.

Yes because all the people sharing opinions that this may be an unsafe conviction - all they ever talk about is her looks!! 🤦🏼‍♀️

Nobody is saying that.

Just as nobody is saying - look, there's an ugly overweight nurse! There's an evil male consultant! They must have done it!

It is those who think it's wrong to question the soundness of the conviction who seem to dwell on personality and trivial behaviours. I haven't seen anyone on this thread say Letby couldn't possibly have done it because of who she is. If such people are out there, that's a shame. But it doesn't change the problems with the medical evidence and use of statistics one bit.

@Golaz If finding her innocent requires them to invent a test or type of statistic or cast doubt on a tube that is only made in a forest in the amazon then they'll find it. I can assure you, they will do anything to find her innocent. Women like her don't 'do crimes', she's going to be found innocent, given a huge payout, cue tons of sympathy, a few interviews crying on Good morning or whatever and order will be restored. I can't believe we're witnessing this playout in real time.

What rubbish. People are questioning her guilt because the evidence used at trial just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Who is this "them" you speak of?

What are they doing about other young women in prison?

Have they referred to obscure, never seen before scenarios? So far as I'm aware, only the prosecution witness has done this.

Should we assume that miscarriages of justice only happen to men, or to "other types" of women?

Where is your evidence of women getting off charges based on this kind of reaction?

It's like logical fallacy bingo in here!

The truth is you don’t know any of this. This is all just your conjecture. It’s fantasy. Are you a licensed psychiatrist? Because the licensed psychiatrists who have weighed in on this have not reached any of these imaginative conclusions. In fact they’ve been baffled as she doesn’t fit anything they know about serial killers, or nurse serial killers. She is in fact astonishingly normal, aside from the allegation that she murdered lots of babies.

“I can fully understand why her colleagues found her behaviour bizarre and it raised red flags.”

Nobody reported finding “her behaviour bizarre.” None of her nursing colleagues had any issues at all and in fact she was well liked and considered conscientious. These were the people who worked hand in glove with her all day and all night for years. The idea that she is simultaneously “stupid” but also cunning enough to murder lots of babies in such close quarters without any of them raising the alarm or even feeling off speaks volumes.

Two doctors raised red flags based (by their own admission) on a feeling that something must be wrong due to the spike in death numbers and noticing that Letby was “always there”. The doctors were roundly criticised by the RCPCH report for being barely present in the unit, only appearing for twice weekly ward rounds.

Maybe spend less time dreaming up salacious true crime fantasies of monster nurses and more time getting the facts in a row.

Ok. Sure. I'm sure we'll soon see LL on our TVs crying again, book deal in the pipeline. It almost always ends like this for women like LL.

Any examples?

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

We all have great sympathy for anyone who has lost a child, but a (potential) miscarriage of justice is not the balm for grief.

Good lord - what a spectacularly offensive comment. Do you think that losing a tiny baby is made BETTER by the thought that that baby was never meant to die after all? That you trusted the wrong person/people to keep your baby safe? That your baby was prey to evil? That if you'd just not left the ward, arrived sooner, insisted on baby being moved etc etc your child would be alive today? Nothing about this murderer going to jail is a 'balm' - the whole thing is an enormous gaping wound that will never heal.

What rubbish. People are questioning her guilt because the evidence used at trial just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

No, this sort of statement is what's rubbish. The evidence used at trial, in its totality, clearly did stand up to scrutiny as far as the people required to scrutinise it (including court of appeal judges) were concerned. No one else has actually seen/heard it all.

It must be a whole extra layer of trauma to think that your baby was murdered. It is appalling if the families were put through this trauma for nothing.
But having been through it and come to believe it, of course it is completely devastating again to then have the conviction thrown into doubt. However, if this is a wrongful conviction , maintaining it to spare the families is not compatible with justice. Thats all that pp meant.

It’s not going away until the evidence is properly reviewed whether you care or not.

It doesn't need to 'go away' because it's not anywhere... it doesn't exist in any form in the eyes of the law. People getting cross about a verdict doesn't change that verdict. It's been heard and she's been found guilty on multiple counts, and not decided on others (innocent of nothing). She's been denied appeal on any legal grounds and then been found guilty on a retrial. That's the law. It has gone away now - whether you care or not.

Amen.

Clearly no-one who makes a comment like that (and she’s not the only one) has the slightest bit of sympathy for that woman’s victims, they’re too absorbed in their lust to play detective and sympathiser to murderers.

I wonder if the types who write to the likes of Levi Bellfield.