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?

Yet another misogynistic post implying that only bored housewives are concerned with the verdict.

There are people on Mumsnet who are qualified in oodles of different areas.

There were lots and lots of things pointing to her guilt which cumulatively added up but where individually it wouldn’t have been enough.

Exactly this. People seem to be cherry picking certain things such as “well, the notes were apparently encouraged by her counsellor” etc. But there were loads of incidents/situations pointing to her guilt. All of which was taken on board by the jury over the lengthy trial, resulting in a guilty verdict.

Occams Razor as another poster mentioned.

As for the why, well often people kill for the attention. Look at the guy who shot John Lennon so that Jodie foster would notice him! Obviously she didn’t want to get caught but usually with these types such as Harold Shipman, Beverley Allitt it’s bc they have a God Complex.

And as for the “oh it’s just bc she seems perfectly normal” - I don’t agree at all - a grown woman of 30 having piles of teddies and hoarding patient notes is strange behaviour.

Very difficult case but if you look into the history of cases against doctors and nurses convicted of serial murder there is a clear pattern of these people later being found to be innocent.

I honestly don't know what to think about this anymore.

This is where I am. I have no idea, but it's likely she is guilty, however that doesn't mean that we should ignore if a conviction is considered unsafe. There HAS to be concrete evidence, for the protection of all us and that's the reason this needs to be looked at more closely and taken seriously. It's not about proving her innocent, it's bigger than that.

Yes agree. People are acting as if it was just the table showing who was present for the deaths or just the notes that secured her conviction. It was all of it:

• the notes
• the hoarding of hundreds of confidential hospital notes
• being present for a hugely disproportionate number of collapses compared to any other colleague even if additional deaths are included in the tally
• being reported as acting strange, having to be told to get out of the nursery several times
• googling parents of the dead babies and sending cards
• showing strange pleasure or excitement in the aftermath of deaths
• repeatedly contacting colleagues about the deaths and speculating as to cause (always one-sided, it was LL speculating and the other person just saying okay then)
• not making a record of key events (baby E) or altering the time to deflect suspicion
• several different colleagues reporting strange or suspicious behaviour eg with the feeding tube and monitor or saying things like the baby is not leaving here alive.

I mean the odds of all that being a total coincidence and not evidence of her guilt are fairly low.

Also circumstantial evidence is still evidence. It can absolutely be strong enough to secure a conviction.

Where does the ‘piles of teddies’ thing come from? I’ve read it on multiple news sites about her bedroom (and how strange and ‘child-like’ her bedroom is) yet the actual photos of her bedroom just show one teddy bear in a very normal-looking clean bedroom which has a few trinkets and fairy lights but nothing unusual for a late 20s woman. Much was made of how her bedroom looked but I personally couldn’t see anything wrong with it.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Stats on that please.

What is this clear pattern?

You can't just throw handover sheets in the bin though. They have to be either shredded or incinerated. Every HCP knows you can't just bin them- so she'd either have had to return them to the hospital and put them in confidential waste or burn them at home. It's not unthinkable that she just never prioritised doing that and they just built up.

I agree it is strange to have quite so many. Although if she was only keeping "significant" ones then why let them get lost amongst the other 200+? I see the points. But alone, I think they can reasonably be explained as lacking significance.

Agreed. For some reason, this is one case where members of the jury, legal team, judge are suddenly so incompetent and less knowledgeable about a case they are on than MN users.

It's an interesting story on its own, this bizarre defence of a convicted serial baby killer on here.

Sure but Occums razor shouldn’t be worth shit in the courtroom. Surely a jury should only convict if they’re all 99%+ certain of her guilt?

https://davidallengreen.com/2024/07/the-lucy-letby-case-some-thoughts-and-observations-what-should-happen-when-a-defence-does-not-put-in-their-own-expert-evidence-for-good-reason-or-bad/

This was particularly in relation to your writing about the defence witness

I do think she is guilty, if I had to choose. Occums razor; it seems she was always in close proximity when these deaths, or near deaths, occurred.

what about the deaths that she wasn't near? and there were deaths when she wasn't on duty

Sally Clark’s case was the most dreadful travesty. Four years after her acquittal she died of alcohol poisoning.

Well said.

If you think that many prem babies died of natural causes in that time period at one hospital, especially when worse rated hospitals had much better survival rates, you must be crazy.

Do you really think it was a coincidence that the death rate went back to average once she was removed?

Not only were there deaths when she wasn't present, but those deaths were still above the average

'And as for the “oh it’s just bc she seems perfectly normal” - I don’t agree at all - a grown woman of 30 having piles of teddies and hoarding patient notes is strange behaviour.'

Loads of grown women do indeed have piles of teddies and it certainly isn't unusual for hcps to go home with handover sheets in their pockets. I don't think she was actually taking patients medical notes home was she?

Wrt Sally Clark there’s a strange little coincidence with LL’s case

An appeal first goes to a single judge, who makes a decision on the papers whether to let you argue it at a hearing. In Letby’s case, that judge was Sir Robin Spencer, who turned her application down. Coincidentally — or perhaps not — Spencer was the barrister who led the prosecution of Sally Clark in 1999, who was wrongly convicted of killing two of her young children.

The flaws in the Lucy Letby case: Adam King, Unherd

It’s convincing in the sense that it seems likely she is guilty - but for someone who seemed so emotional, careless, weird - where’s the actual hard evidence? As opposed to lots of circumstantial stuff/odd behaviour from an emotionally unstable indivudal employed in a high stress underfunded/understaffed unit (to pose the alternative view)? What hard evidence, if any, was presented? Genuine question as it strikes me as odd that such a highly strung individual could carry out so many crimes without seriously messing up at least once.

Ignore the notes, they're a red herring. Look at the actual facts.

She was extremely unemotional, especially on hearing of the deaths. She wasn't highly strung at all.