Cheshire Police are an incompetent bunch of useless bastards

[GossIsAGit]

After Sally Clark

They should have remembered that If a doctor of medicine tells you that a coincidence is so unlikely it must mean a woman has been killing babies then maybe you should consult a statistician and actually listen.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/10/lucy-letby-police-cps-handling-case-raises-new-concerns-about-convictions?CMP=ShareiOSAppOther

It’s difficult to know exactly what has gone on.

What about all the contradictions and untrue statements in Ravi Jayaram’s evidence? How come he gets a free pass?

From what I gather, Bohins complaints include being accused of mis-using safeguarding and suspicions of MSBP / FII when parents had asked for second opinions or disagreed with her opinions regarding their children's diagnoses.

I'm really beginning to think that some in the medical profession are really cheesed off that a neat psychological catch all (blame the "deranged" parents - or nurse - if we can't figure out the answer) isn't just being accepted these days since Meadows and Southall fell from grace. I think plenty would like to see it resurrected because once that suspicion or label is thrown around, looking for other answers tends to grind to a halt (ask me how I know), and clinical mismanagement and malpractice get buried.

I've always wondered why no psychologists or psychiatrists gave evidence at Lucy's trial. Were reports done but not submitted because they showed nothing useful to the prosecution?

Coffey and Moritz, who invented that story with selective quotations from Letby's police interview, are very deferential towards the consultants.

They are stupid.

I have a vague memory that Brearey’s claim that IV access wasn’t lost is somewhat undermined by Thirlwall statements and his own statements to ‘Vanity Fair’.

Very much so - there's a record in Thirlwall docs of them discussing how to regain access with the transport team.

Any thoughts on the ITV documentary last night?

I thought it gave a good clear explanation of how we are where we are.

I thought it was really excellent. Quick, clear, unsentimental, and it didn't patronize viewers with long pauses, creepy music etc.

Lucy Mangam has written a great review of it in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/aug/03/lucy-letby-beyond-reasonable-doubt-review-documentary-itv1-itvx.

I thought Helen Shannon, Neena Modi and Jane Hutton were extremely impressive.

There is a short thread on the documentary in Chat too, in case you haven't seen it:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5385519-lucy-letby-programme-on-itv-now?reply=146180862

I thought of you and the story you have shared here when Neena Modi said how troubled she was that a legal procedure could be so flawed.

Thank you, I'll check that out.

This case has really got under my skin, and I can't help but think "there but the grace of God go I". It would have been so easy to wave "reports" around in court and paint me as a monster, and I'm thankful, if a little bemused, that it didn't go that way.

One thing is certain - cases with dubious medical evidence at their core should not become tabloid fodder, and the concept of reasonable doubt needs a serious re-evaluation. The "balance of probabilities" should never be the basis of criminal proceedings. And in fact, the probability that Lucy Letby was a serial killer is so much less likely given all the other issues on the ward, such as the paucity of consultant rounds, that it makes a mockery of the whole concept.

I have long thought that juries can't be trusted to interpret statistical evidence. Look at the thread on the Civil Service exam question. If that's the standard of basic arithmetic in the general population then statistics hasn't got a hope.

This jury was pretty much instructed to misuse statistics - i.e. the judge instructed them that if they found Letby guilty on some charges, they could consider her more likely to be guilty on other charges, without knowing how the crime had been committed, even though the question of whether a crime of committed was at that stage in dispute.

I wouldn't worry about juries so much as judges ...

The Letby case is massively complicated due to the medical information, statistics and other issues involved, that I highly doubt either the judge or jury had the intellect to process the information. However intelligent these judges are, they're not going to possess the necessary level of scientific or medical knowledge to deal with a case like this.