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?

She could be. Double jeopardy was abolished over 20 years ago. Only if there is new and compelling evidence though.

I have thought this didn't make sense from the first time I heard about it. The more I hear about it, the less and less it makes sense.

These were tiny, very sick babies on a shitty run down ward with overworked staff. I wouldn't trust some parts of the NHS I've witnessed to look after a cat - and that's with no disrespect to the staff who I'm sure are trying their best. Plenty of people have died or become extremely unwell as a result of the shambles some hospitals are in.

I don't know any more than anyone else, but it makes a lot more sense that this was a horrible set of circumstances rather than an evil nurse. That's my gut feeling.

She may be guilty or she may not. Only she knows for sure. But it's a matter of fact that many professionals are not convinced. That makes her conviction unsafe.

Richard Gill is not a lawyer and that's clear from his very speculative blog ...

It's even clearer from his bio, where "The scientific interests of my research group are on a broad scale" might suggest a mere statistician who likes to dabble

Nor am I sure how an MP's views and maunderings on SM equate to new evidence which must be considered

Best, really, to leave these things to those who've had full access to all the evidence and understand the process in its entirety

She has had two trials-two-and was found guilty by two separate juries in both.
Her case was reviewed and she was refused permission to appeal.

So, she and her legal team have had three bites at the cherry and she has been found guilty each time.

There was ample time to bring up all these claims at her first trial, her second trial and when she was asking for leave to appeal.

She has been found guilty twice by two separate juries-not one-two.

Judges then refused her permission to appeal.

Do they just want to go on until eventually someone says, ok-you can go.

How amazing that after three goes in court,, all these doubts were not brought up at the right and proper time. Either she was defended by five year olds who did not know what they were doing or tis all bullshit,

Three separate goes by three separate procedures. Guilty at each of them. That's because she is guilty.

Maybe give her unlimited legal processes until she gets the results she wants.
That's what every convicted criminal wants-the gaols are full of innocent people-all just wanting to point out how it wasn't them, guv.

Lucy Letby-baby killer-is just one more sad sack trying to get out even though she has had at least one more trial than most of her fellow convicts.

I can't see that LL is sooo attractive and Beverley Allitt isn't. Neither of them are stunning beauties and they both look fairly normal looking young women.

I don’t know if she’s innocent or guilty. However, I am concerned that this does not seem to be a safe conviction. Too many variables.

Exactly. I feel like 90%+ of comments about this case are irrelevant because they don't focus on this aspect. It was concluded that deliberate harm was committed, so the question was then who did it, of a very small pool of possible people. If it wasn't Letby, then there is another killer medic out there. The question was not what happened to the babies, with the conclusion being reached that Letby had harmed them.

Based on this, I felt the evidence of her guilt seemed strong. Especially because there seemed to be a pattern to the children who suffered collapses - they weren't all extremely medically fragile, as has been claimed, but they had often been the "talk of the unit" for one reason or another. And at least one had repeated unexplained collapses, which resolved once they were removed from the unit. Having said that, if compelling arguments were made that there wasn't deliberate harm, then the whole conversation would of course completely change and a lot of the criticisms being levelled at the prosecution would become relevant. But there does need to be a compelling case made for why these children had these mysterious collapses. My understanding is it was the completely unexpected nature of them, repeatedly, that set off alarm bells in the first place.

Generally when a plane crashes and kills all on board-it is assumed there was a catalogue of errors that led to that disaster-very very rarely is the pilot blamed. (I know there are some cases of pilots being at fault.) Without very strong evidence why on earth is a nurse being found guilty? It is extremely unlikely that a female would have the motive to kill tiny babies....not impossible but very unlikely-so without hard evidence, I think there has been an awful travesty of justice.

@happydappy2

There are many female murderers of babies and children with an assortment of motives. Lucy Letby is just one more.

its extremely unlikely that anyone would have motive to kill tiny babies, it almost never happens. Just because you can’t imagine a woman doing it, it doesn’t mean she didn’t.

I think the most likely scenario is still that she is guilty. Sometimes experts really like to be the Smart Alec type - where they always go against the grain and argue ‘technically this is wrong- and I am right with my alternative explanation.’ Just for the sake of being a smartypants. I have seen this behaviour amongst consultants in medicine even, where they try to outsmart their colleagues for the sake of it. When they have ultimately been wrong. For example one doctor arguing technically a patient didn’t have abnormal hormone levels according to NHS blood result parameters (within normal limits) therefore didn’t have a condition. And then another doctor with more experience saying yes actually they do. And the patient going on to absolutely have the condition and requiring treatment. And numerous other cases where experts like to outsmart each other. Sorry this is a bit convoluted now but my point being if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck- it’s a duck. No test is 100% guaranteed. So technically you could argue literally every investigation invested COULD be in incorrect. Doesn’t mean it is.

@CamFoz
Either very sick vulnerable babies unfortunately died in a run down, understaffed unit.
Or a well respected nurse used a variety of whacky methods to murder them for reasons no one has figured out.
I don't think Occam's Razor altogether supports a guilty verdict.

Has he got access to all the information? I would imagine there was an awful lot of information in such a long trial and I'm not sure why he would spend months going through it all.

Females are more likely than males to kill babies. Obviously there are reasons for that such as women being more likely to be the primary carer of babies, whether as mums or childcare or nurses but her sex does not at all reduce the likelihood of her killing babies. There are countless examples of it happening.

Why did the unusually high death rate return to normal when LL was taken off the ward then?

Well what do murderers look like? I used to work in police admin, I came back from lunch one day, the station was packed with officers from elsewhere and interview rooms full. I walked into my office and there was a DS in my bosses chair and another man in my chair. I said hi to them and said I was going to make a coffee and did either of them want one. Turns out the friendly guy sitting in my chair (who didn't want a coffee) had been arrested for murder and my office was the only empty room in the station so they had "borrowed" it. He just looked like a fairly average guy.

Even more interesting when my DH was a young PC on CID attachment he walked into his station and the Sergeant at the desk said the man sitting waiting had been in and out all day saying he'd killed someone. Nutter obviously and no one had bothered to speak to him. DH walked over and asked if he could help and the man said he'd strangled his wife that morning. DH said the look on the Sergeant's face as he cautioned the man and led him to the cells was a picture. Easiest murder arrest he ever had.

I don't think we should judge on looks.

Helpmeimafish01 what???

Because the very sick babies were not being sent to the Countess of Chester hospital any longer.

Because the unit stopped taking the sickest babies at the same time. They downgraded from level 3 to 2.

I suppose people would get worried if the same pilot had several crashes where he survived but his passengers kept dying. I have no idea if LL is guilty but this wasn't one "crash" was it.

Do they feel bound by the weird rules of UK’s criminal prosecution practice?

Lucy’s solicitor refused to pass on a friendly personal letter of support to Lucy or to her parents because she had not instructed him to do

Lucy has been all this time prison, in pre-trial detention, far from Manchester or Hereford. This might explain the extraordinarily weak defence which has been put up so far.

What even are these statements?

This is probably the most ignorant:

I have the impression that he is not very bright and that he may have been convinced she is guilty.

If this was a fat, middle aged, ugly bloke I'm sure people wouldn't even be questioning the convictions.

There’s also the fact of the 250 handover sheets in her home and her parents’ home, which suggests that this isn’t a normal nurse that happens to have been unlucky and been blamed for deaths - this is not usual behaviour to hoard notes, contrary to hospital policy.
The constant texting other people from work and deliberately placing herself in the centre of any drama is also not usual behaviour. It points to a person who is prepared to engineer situations for attention or to relieve boredom.
The “nice Lucy” thing seems to have been overplayed. I didn’t get the sense that she was that popular tbh. She seemed to be a stickler for rules who would report someone for minor infringements while she herself freely broke rules (like taking home notes). She had two friends who stuck by her, one of whom was her parents’ age and one whom lived very far away. Her personality came across as very pedantic. Parents and colleagues spoke about her odd behaviour in conversation with her and incidents such as claiming it was boring in the lower dependency nursery suggest potential lack of empathy.
She is more attractive and a lot more intelligent than Bev Allitt but she doesn’t sound like the girl next door really.

My gut instinct is that she is innocent, I have never felt like the evidence stacked up against her. So many different methods of killing just doesn't fit, but in several cases, even the prosecution had stated that care was sub optimal.

When she had her retrial of Baby K and was convicted she screamed and cried that she is innocent and she did not do this.

To be this isn't the actions of a cold blooded serial killer.

I think at the very least this needs to be reviewed