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?

Definition of stalking

to harass or persecute (someone) with unwanted and obsessive attention

this wasn’t stalking, she just clearly was interested in checking people out on Facebook . It wasn’t targeted at anyone in particular and had nothing to do with the babies deaths.

This 2014 post by Richard Gill is food for thought in that respect.

You forgot the bit where Lucy Letby was adamant she remembered the incident, despite not remembering multiple other things when it was convenient for her.

I believe the mother, which means I believe that Lucy Letby was lying. The lie is really significant.

Another article today in the Guardian about the state of the hospital
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

@Golaz, once again, Letby searched for the parents of Baby K along with 2 other victims parents in quick succession years after having the baby in her care as a favour for the actual designated nurse for literally minutes. There was nothing to link those 3 parents at the time as it was before arrest and she was unable to spell baby k’s surname after arrest. Do you literally search for 3 random names within minutes with zero links years later, one of whom wasn’t actually your patient? How usual is that?

A Facebook stalk does not a murderer make! Think of the shifts she was working and disrupted sleep patterns, I wish I could say I didn’t doom scroll and go down rabbit holes when I can’t sleep, and the fact she lived alone (so presumably slept alone) makes it more likely, in my view. However, that is all circumstantial, whichever way you look at it.

the crazy thing is isn’t not implausible she DID kill one baby, two, who knows - she was labelled as a harm doer and I don’t doubt this drove her to distraction - to the point of criminality?

The unit would have been keen to scapegoat - massive distraction away from its own dysfunction and the higher ups keep their protection by becoming part of the attack on the scapegoat.

Question: MOTIVE. Did Lucy have a evidencible motive to kill? Hard to prove. One the deaths had escalated, did the hospital serious have an evidencible reason to ‘neatly’ (based on partial stats and therefore flawed) scapegoat, therefore protecting themselves.

I would argue the second set has a clearer cut motive. They also have much more power.

the only person who really knows the truce is Lucy Letby so I suspect we will never find out.

It wasn’t targeted at anyone in particular and had nothing to do with the babies deaths.

It's this kind of comment that makes it clear that this isn't about 'justice being done' or concerns about the justice system - this is a 'free innocent Lucy Letby' campaign. You have NO IDEA why she was searching for the families of those poor babies yet you're prepared to say it was nothing to do with their deaths. That's an enormous leap. It goes back to the bricks as well - on its own, a bit of Facebook searching is kinda pathetic but not sinister. Combined with the other evidence (and some of the timing of it - Christmas Day, two years later, searching an unusual name that she'd have had to get from the handover sheets - proved by her later spelling it incorrectly in court etc) it's really disturbing.

They were parents of a baby that died on the ward, maybe she wondered how they were doing.
None of this has anything to do with the babies’ deaths.

I don't see much significance in the lie / discrepancy myself.

If it was years later she had already been removed from the ward and may already have been under police investigation for murdering baby K and others. It's not surprising she'd look the family up at that point.

Alternate idea, maybe neither of them are lying, and memory is just not infallible. Misremembering =/= lying. For something to be a lie, it has to be intentional

Exactly this. It is not “baby killer lovers vs grieving parents” no matter how much some would love that strawman position to be the truth.

It is people who are interested in the integrity of the justice system vs people who don’t care what harmful precedents are set by an unsafe conviction being upheld as long as they get to keep “burning” their “witch”.

The significance is that after claiming not to remember she suddenly conveniently remembered in court. Her version meant that she wouldn't have been caught in a suspicious situation. The mum's version made her look very suspicious. It's pretty key. Claiming not to see the significance either means you're not very familiar with the case or you're a very blind supporter of the baby murderer Letby.

She was at work on that Christmas Day. No reason not to be on Facebook thinking of work.

Two years later she was under investigation. Of course she was interested in whoever she was accused of attacking or murdering.

You spell things right sometimes, wrong sometimes, and maybe she did look it up.

Nobody is saying, Letby didn't behave strangely on Facebook so she is innocent.

They are saying, these Facebook searches don't seem to prove or contribute to a picture of guilt. That doesn't mean Letby is innocent. But they don't seem to make the conviction any safer, if they were considered at all in reaching a verdict.

as long as they get to keep “burning” their “witch”.

I think some people are like thisS

Others I think sincerely trust institutions like the justice system, the police force, the nhs. This conviction is sadly a fairly serious indictment of all of them in this instance. I do have sympathy for why many people would find that difficult to accept.

Also the statistical arguments are abstract and not very intuitive and the medical arguments are detailed and complex….

They're just part of an overall picture, that's all. On their own, the searches are just a bit weird. But as part of the wealth of other evidence, they create a very sinister picture.

(As an aside, I think there's VERY good reasons to not be on Facebook if you're AT WORK as a paediatric intensive care nurse! But it seems her phone use at work was very high.)

Maybe Letby got scared and lied. Maybe she misremembered. Maybe the mother did confuse some details. But the situation described doesn't amount to murder or anything like it.

Building up a picture of behaviour that could be called suspicious just doesn't seem particularly important when the evidence that a murder was committed at all is called into question. If there was no murder, this incident does not matter to the case against Letby.

Yes- it really worries me that people are so polarised and can’t see how problematic something like this is - IF it’s a miscarriage of justice then we should all want the truth to come out to preserve the Integrity of the justice system. The ‘burn the witch’ people are terrifying!
Some of us remember the Guildford 4 etc - they spent decades of their lives locked up for something they didn’t do.

OR she lied because she's a murderer who was caught in the act of murdering. Which is the conclusion the jury have come to.

It's been proved that murders took place. During the legal trial, with a lot of very experienced experts. Which has now concluded.

I have no idea whether she took breaks to do Facebook searches or not, and I presume that's an issue of ward culture and management.

The thing with evidence that is only strange or sinister as part of a wider picture is that it's often not strange or sinister at all, and that's what this evidence looks like to me.

She wasn't caught in the act of murdering. Nobody has claimed that.

Experts who have come forward since her trial doubt the evidence on which she was convicted. That's worth consideration.

And that's what makes you look like a Letby supporter not a justice supporter, tbh. As in the cases of many of the posts on here.

But - as I said before - it really doesn't matter. The case is concluded and she's in jail for the rest of her life, where she belongs. The lawyer who is looking at her case pro bono has other extremely guilty characters on his books and has a great track record in unsuccessfully helping them too.

I'm very pleased to know that anyone waiting for a Lucy Letby retrial will be waiting forever.

As I said, it was a ramble and my own opinion, having previous experience of a pathological liar who would never admit wrongdoing.

I don’t claim to be a psychologist or have any professional qualifications in this area.
What is your specific expertise that makes you an authority in this case?

My comment about the text messages comes from my understanding that her colleagues were unsettled by her response to the deaths and how she seemingly wanted to be the focus of attention - as in “poor Lucy always being at the centre of this” - this seems to be the case looking at texts posted up thread ie. about the strangeness of her insisting that others didn’t understand how she felt about the infant deaths, her feeling a need to go back on the “worst case” ward after she’d been removed and that others “wouldn’t understand as they didn’t know him”. This about a baby she had “known” for 90 minutes. Is that not strange?
It seems the jury thought so 🤔

So much of her behaviour is yes, bizarre, and altogether her actions paint a picture that something strange was going on. Just because she doesn’t fit the ideal picture of a psychopath or if having a personality disorder doesn’t mean she didn’t do it. Her odd behaviour is relevant to the case as it was a large part of what led to her being found guilty, so obviously people are going to bring up things she did/said that seem odd.

This is a discussion forum and I’m not sure why you are getting so hot and bothered about the opinion of others on someone WHO HAS BEEN CONVICTED IN A COURT OF LAW OF BEING GUILTY OF MURDERING BABIES for goodness sake!

Why are you so possessively protective of her? It’s weird. She’s been found guilty of her crimes and is therefore fair game on a discussion forum.

It isn’t like this case is ongoing and we shouldn’t surmise or have our own opinions - nothing I’ve said hasn’t already been said. Her appeal was rejected and they’ve pretty much thrown away the key.

Stop trying to gatekeep what others can and cannot discuss as though you are some kind of authority on this case bc you seemingly have a lot of time on your hands to nitpick through all of the “facts” (well, the ones that align with your agenda anyway).

From what I have read about the case (and I’ve read plenty of the articles suggesting she’s innocent) I think she did it. So did the court thankfully and that’s why she’s serving life in prison.

Don't read any of the nonsense circulating in the media. There is a reason we don't try criminal cases by Tiktok, by superficial appearances, by bias - unconscious or otherwise - or by journalism after the fact.

The New York Times is, by reputation, a high-quality publication. But journalistic pieces are by definition opinion pieces. They're not, and are not intended to be, fully evidenced-based analyses, they don't rely on or cite bona fide academic sources, they are not written by experts in the field they refer to nor peer-reviewed by a panel of similar experts. On these bases alone the author of that article has a lot to answer for, IMO.

For a more informative summary which takes into account the letter of the law and the admissibility or otherwise of the evidence presented at trial, read the appeal judgement. It's in excess of 50-pages long but it's written in accessible language and gives detailed reasoning for the rejection of an appeal on the basis of all objections put forward by the defence.

Justice is not infallible, and miscarriages of justice are not unheard of, but as a justice system this is the best we have. It's far preferable to knee-jerk emotional responses (remember Louise Woodward, another cherubic-faced nanny figure also guilty of infant homicide?), vigilantism, or trial by media. At least you can follow the legal reasoning as to why the appeal was rejected.

If you're going to listen to any media, the 'Double Jeopardy' podcast by Tim Owen and Ken Macdonald is as good as any. At least they are experienced KCs - and in the case of Owen, a long-renowned expert on miscarriages of justice which includes insight into Sally Clark amongst others. Owen discusses the reasons why defence counsel routinely take the decision not to include expert witnesses, has also read the appeal judgement, and sees no irregularities in that document or the way in which the letter of the law has been applied.

His conclusion is also that it's fine to be sceptical and question the legal system, but you have to be able to show exactly why it's wrong (a thing the appeal application singularly failed to do). You can't just appeal against a conviction because you don't like the outcome. A lot of what's out there on the www is simply wind and hot air.

Out of respect to the parents of the murdered babies, I'm going to stop commenting on this now. Rest in peace, poor, defenceless, tiny murdered babies. May your families find as much happiness as they can, without you in this world.

It's very clear Lucy Letby is guilty. I'm very glad she's in jail for the rest of her life. It's the least she deserves.