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 seems to have googled all sorts of people all the time.

He is an experienced and successful criminal law barrister who knows how to sieve evidence.

I think that's it. That plus the obvious problems the UK system has with addressing miscarriages of justice in a timely manner. If Andrew Malkinson had been let out a few years ago, for example, I think feelings about this case might've been different. But it's happening at a time of general lowered trust in systems of governance, powers and professional standards.

And I think even if turns out that Letby did all this and more, those attitudes in wider society will still be very significant. They go way beyond this one case.

I don’t know if she’s innocent or guilty, any more than anyone else (other than her), knows.

But, the conviction and evidence presented doesn’t appear very safe, and I think it all needs looking at again.🤷‍♀️

Was he privvy to all of the evidence? I mean he wouldn't have access to all presented in trial let alone everything combed through and considered in the pre trial activities?

If the original verdict is overturned, what are people’s views as to what happened?

It was someone else?

Or, she did it but the evidence is too circumstantial as to prove it beyond doubt?

It sounds like clutching at straws from the school friend to me. Teenage girl liked to be the centre of attention...?!

well yeah but I’m not sure what scandals people were expecting from her past. Lots of killers were apparently nice people with no prior criminal records until caught. But it’s not the case that there’s absolutely nothing on her and everyone loved her. She seemed like quite the shit-stirrer and enjoyed drama.

Handover sheets get taken home more times than any HCP will ever admit.

250 times and stored in a special box and transferred from her home to her parents’ home?

Googling people for mawkish or ghoulish reasons is unpalatable - but people do it. An aspect of human behaviour that nobody likes to admit as it's distasteful, but I'm afraid some people do it. A woman I know enjoyed attending randomers funerals (she wasn't a murderer) she just got something out of it. Mourning/drama by proxy? It's weird alright, but some people are mawkish. Alone, I don't think these things are hard evidence.

True but in combination with everything else, it doesn’t look good. I think hoarding handover notes is a lot more worrying than Google stalking to be fair.

What part doesn't "feel safe"?

So are the dozens of criminal law barristers on X who support the verdict. He won’t have seen anything that anyone else hasn’t so I’m not sure why his opinion is more important.

If she’s innocent, let’s hope that’s the case, but I think there will be people going all out to keep her in rather than admit they were wrong and the department was just failing as a whole.

What a pity he wasn’t her defence lawyer. 🙄

I'm going to go back and read the thread but this would not surprise me at all. So many miscarriages of justice happen this way, especially when there's this type of medical evidence.

Thank goodness there a big push for a full review. While this must be distressing for the parents, long term, it's better that they have the truth.

So many pointless threads on this. Shes guilty. If the appeal threshold is met there will be another go round. I wouldn't be wringing my hands about her.

I keep reading it' because she pretty people have doubts.

However I think it much worse - it's a loss of faith in the system over recent years.

Raising potential misuse of statics and mishandle medical evidence:

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2004/181/1/unexpected-infant-death-lessons-sally-clark-case

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/child-abuse-expert-used-statistics-out-of-context-at-cot-death-trial-294378.html

The question at the heart of Sally’s tragedy – and those of Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony – was not, “Who murdered this child?” but, “Was there a crime?”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/20/sally-clark-cot-death-mothers-wrongly-jailed

Where have we seen that all over the news recently people live ruin when there had been no crime- 20 + year Post office scandal
Post Office Horizon scandal: Why hundreds were wrongly prosecuted

The criminal case review not long been in news because they messed up
https://www.theguardian.com/law/article/2024/jul/18/how-did-the-ccrc-handle-andrew-malkinson-three-appeal-applications - so not even faith in the catching mistakes bit of system.

The NHS has form for finding scapegoats
https://www.nursingtimes.net/opinion/scapegoating-overworked-professionals-benefits-nobody-the-root-causes-must-be-tackled-08-02-2018/
It is a concern for some staff so much so their industry press do article about it.

I've seen articles suggest staff retention has been impacted - because of fear staff will be blamed for poor condition in current NHS - no idea how true that is.

As a patient and family member we seen filthy ward, understaffed wards - and had medical notes disappear when we been encouraged to complain - so common advice on here is to get notes first - also had note bear no relation to events and clearly been changed later - and talking to colleagues friends and acquaintances we have not just been unlucky. Even consultants being a problem - I literally had one argue age of my child with DH and I - only to very reluctantly admit he'd read the notes wrong. So people here that in this case and think yep that tracks.

Police forces last few years have all been mired in scandals as well.

I've no idea if she is guilty or not.

I didn't sit though the court evidence and am not qualified to say how accurate that evidence was - but jury and courts have convicted innocent people it's a human system with human flaws - but I think most people involved try very hard to make it work as best it can.

I think it getting attention as it seems to embody so many existing fears - scapegoating, ignoring or covering up fundamental problems in NHS - less police trust -misuse of statics and complex specialist information in trials.

Even recent stuff with her notes showing her guilt being encouraged by counselors - stuff people write on here get misconstruction to make other's points all the time it's a common experience. It seems odd to write stuff like that to me but other say it a legitimate common counselling method - it also plays into mistrust section of population has of whole counselling industry.

Most people defending her are not wondering who did it. I don't believe anyone did it. That's the point.
A combination of circumstances. Not as satisfying as a big bad bogeyman but more likely to be true.

I think this is another worry people have. That if there has been a miscarriage of justice, the institutional response will be to double down. That's what's most worrying for me. I don't know whether she did it or not, but I don't trust that we have the systems in place to address the wrongful conviction if she didn't. Because that's much wider than just this one case.

There was plenty of extremely damaging things brought to light and scrutinised in the trial, the hospital no doubt didn't listen to the doctors because they didn't want the poor standards of care to have sunlight on them- its clear the department and Trust was failing these babies. Both can be true. Care was sub standard and someone was able to exploit this to harm babies. Who are these people anyway who would have the power to keep her in? The hospital? What motive would legal people have? Many have no doubt been involved in legal proceedings against hospitals themselves.

Hmm but Beverley Allitt had form for being weird and shown really odd behaviour at previous jobs (eg smeared feces onto walls at a care home) so it’s not just about her not being attractive. She was an odd character who had patterns of disturbing behaviour which LL didn’t AFAIK

Or anywhere else that would end up on YouTube.

But he is a lot more learned than Joe public who seem to feel able to offer comment on this case

@Toothrush the comment from Richard Gill which stood out for me was "Do (the defence) feel bound by the weird rules of UK’s criminal prosecution practice?"

I'm trying - and failing - to wrap my head round why he might feel the defence shouldn't be bound by the legal rules, and doubt he'd object to the prosecution being so, but mostly I'm just confused about why a statistician who's main current interest appears to be insects thinks he's an expert in this

I don’t know what to think but having had a premature baby in the NICU for a while I know that things can change extremely quickly for babies in there. Some can seem okay one moment and then rapidly go downhill. Others will go the other way and can turn the corner after not being sure they’d make it through the night (fortunately mine was the latter). I haven’t followed the case in as much detail as some on here but I feel desperately sorry for her if this turns out to be a big miscarriage of justice.

100% this. This case is so clinically complex, the chances of the public truly understanding the implications of everything are very, very small.

Jordan Pickford and pilots have absolutely nothing to do with Lucy Letby-very strange analogies. I’m a clinician and yes, while there is lots of arse covering going on, people try everything they can to think of reasons other than colleagues committing deliberate harm because that is too awful to think about. To think someone has made mistakes and covered them up-yes-but to deliberately harm people?-no surely there must be another explanation. That’s what NHS staff would think-and lots of different evidence unfortunately points to Lucy Letby deliberately killing people in her care.

Well Lucy Letby seems to have had some odd traits but kept them hidden. BA was also lacking in intelligence and had quite an obvious personality disorder. I also believe that her killing spree was short lived - she was caught pretty quickly. She has a mental illness which is why she is in a secure hospital rather than prison. LL was more subtle in her operation, was considerably more intelligent and took steps to cover her tracks that BA didn’t.

And of course the hospital was a bit shit but they acknowledged that and downgraded the unit long before LL’s trial began. It’s not like they have survived with a completely intact reputation while she has gone down for murder. But had it been a perfectly run ward, she probably wouldn’t have been able to get away with it for so long.