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

Didn't show good interpersonal skills does not mean homicidal nurse either.

If it did, half the interactions mumsnetters describe with medical professionals on this site would be murder stories.

The point is she picked up on her being "off", cold and lacking empathy and unsuited to the role. And obviously it turns out she was bang on. She's trained to know these things so I'd very much trust her opinion. Even the other assessor had reservations. Lacking empathy in the only suspect of murders is quite the red flag!

She doesn't accuse Letby of lacking empathy - just mentions it in a list of qualities some student nurses don't have. Her report was that she strongly felt Letby could meet the required standard with more work.

Even if she did - I'm sure most murderers lack empathy, but the reverse isn't true. There really is no solid evidence any murders occurred at all in this case.

Why ar people ignoring this? Because if there was no murder, then it means nothing. The only evidence for murder was an x-ray from before LL came on duty. It is much more likely to have been natural causes.

“Being absolutely open and honest, I never, ever considered that this death could have been from deliberate harm.
“From my perspective when I saw the postmortem result and the immaturity of the baby’s lungs I presumed that this was a death entirely consistent with prematurity.”
Dr McCormack added: “I knew that this baby was very sick. The baby was very small and that is a baby for me that when I see that postmortem, I would have said to myself, that is typical with my experience with that sort of outcome.
“In Baby C’s case there was a postmortem report that actually had a cause of death, and I know there is some debate about the interpretation. It’s not as if the pathology is saying this was unexplained.”

Dr McCormack – Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Thirlwall Enquiry

Some people just can't accept a woman can harm babies. Would love to know if there was this level of disturbance about the verdict if Letby had been a man, I suspect not

She was tried and found guilty - save your sympathy for the children and their parents.

I hope the bitch rots in hell.

Even if the conspiracy theorists out there manage to get these convictions quashed, I will never believe that she was innocent.

Just because there could be question marks over how evidence was presented doesn’t mean that Lucy Letby isn’t a cold blooded murderer. She is 100% guilty IMO, and frankly the level of sympathy towards this woman on a parenting website where the parents of her victims may have wished to turn for support but probably wouldn’t ever feel they could now is disgusting.

I think the vituperation, the lack of interest in evidence and the creative piling on of further assumption onto what little evidence we have, that we see on these threads is actually quite helpful as it shows how irrational many people get when faced with cases like this and helps us understand how witch hunts and miscarriages of justice come about.

This has been covered in something read about the trial. Basically leading experts in their field just won't put themselves forward for the defence in cases like this because it's controversial. They really get nothing out of it career wise and risk a whole heap of unpleasantness that could possibly be career ending in some cases. It does seem like her defence were working blindfolded. For example they didn't know that the police had never consulted a proper statistician, which is what this article is about. It's only just come to light. They also didn't know the door fob data was presented incorrectly etc, and probably numerous other things that weren't presented to the jury.

I'm always completely amazed how much faith some people have into he justice system. It's actually quite sweet. It's as if major miscarriage of justice have never happened. They've clearly never had the displeasure of knowing how completely disfunctional and downright corrupt it can be. Easy to waft through your whole life believe in it like a comfort blanket I suppose.

Do you still wear your ‘The dingo is innocent’ tee shirt?

Yes. It refers to
all four main prosecution witnesses [who gave evidence about the child]
so doesn't seem to have rested solely on Edwards. In addition, this relates to one case. How many babies was Letby convicted of killing again?

Amen to that.

Probably not.
But if we don’t stand up for her, then there’s no hope for anyone who suffers a miscarriage of justice.

She was encouraged to write those notes by a therapist (which the prosecution barrister, nor the MSM who were sensationalising their coverage, didn’t make clear at trial) during treatment.

As you, and a PP has said upthread, people often write things as therapy which aren’t objectively factual, but represent feelings they’re trying to express / work through. A complicated mixture of grief, disbelief, shock etc - if it had all been neat, tidy and with no self-doubt evident, under those circumstances, then I’d more readily believe she was a killer.

I'm not convinced of Letby's innocence but I do think the prosecution evidence was weak which imo makes her conviction unsafe.

I was baffled by her defence calling a plumber as their only witness and the only explanation I've been able to come up with is that he thought if he introduced the dodgy plumbing as evidence it would raise the idea of infections being a more plausible cause for the spike in the number of deaths. There is at least one (iirc) documented case of this happening in a neonate unit. Otherwise I remain baffled.

I listened to the DM podcast at the time and every time they released a new episode I had so many questions that weren't answered. I thought the time constraints must limit how much detail could be included but on the basis of what they did present I was confused about how the case even got to court.

The other witnesses received Evans's notes and worked from them. He also worked with them to persuade them of his theories.

Letby was accused of seven murders. Five had postmortems that showed natural causes. One had no postmortem because the doctor on duty told her parents there was no need. One is of unknown cause, which is the case for about one in twelve infant deaths in the UK.

When the hospital commissioned an external review of all 13 deaths on the ward 2015-16, they were told that sub-optimal care had been identified and had contributed to several of the deaths. This applied to at least two of the deaths Letby was charged with. It did not refer to her nursing care.

Ah, the 'wake up, sheeple' approach. I am completely amazed myself at some people's desperation to believe in a conspiracy orchestrated by higher authorities. Apparently the deaths of these babies were a Schrodinger's cat situation where it was both simply a series of sad events that just happened, and also, somehow, a terrible scandal of neglect and mismanagement that if exposed would be devastating for the hospital - having a serial killer on staff looks so much better! - and therefore required loads of people to work in cohort to fabricate evidence against one innocent nurse and make her a scapegoat.

She was also charged with a number of other deaths which they couldn’t convict her on. On similar (poor, IMO) evidence.

Competing medical evidence / other explanations for the deaths weren’t presented at trial because only one expert (in the entire UK) was prepared to risk being blackballed by the NHS to represent the defence. And in the end, for whatever reason (incompetence, a tactical plan that failed or whatever else) her defence chose not to put him on the stand.

Subsequently, MANY expert pathologists and doctors, worldwide, have come forward and expressed doubts about the way the deaths were represented in court, how the statistics were interpreted and other aspects of the prosecution case.

The jury are just ordinary men and women. If a reputed ‘expert’ takes the stand for the prosecution (and that’s the only interpretation they hear) then they’re much more likely to convict than not. There’s a big problem in this country with medical witnesses. They know that if they become known as defence experts they’ll be actively ostracised by the wider NHS.

I haven't come across anyone who believes Letby's case was a conspiracy against her - just group think, flawed understanding of statistics, and an irresponsible lead witness for the prosecution.

I think the justice system usually gets things right. I know the justice system occasionally gets things wrong. It seems sensible to listen to what relevant experts are saying about this one. That's all - no big drama.

This. However, none of these "experts" were willing to give evidence at her trial. There were plenty of medical experts for the prosecution and very few, of any, for the defence. The documentary on Channel 5 even said why - the experts will have their careers ruined if the verdict goes the wrong way for them. The neo-natal doctor only spoke anonymously because SHE was scared of the repercussions. I think the conviction is unsafe but I can't see how she will ever get a fair trial with the lack of experts willing to speak for her and the high emotion of it being tiny babies.

Who on earth is claiming that there is a "conspiracy orchestrated by higher authorities"?

Miscarriages of justice happen all the time - many people believe this to be one. That's all there is to it.

From the post I quoted when I said this

They've clearly never had the displeasure of knowing how completely disfunctional and downright corrupt it [the justice system] can be

Lots of posts about 'she was framed' on social media.

Disfunctional, yes, e.g. in allowing media to publish on Letby's guilt but not the possibility of error during trials And I would see how you could consider Evans corrupt. So not too much of a stretch, and I don't think that implies a conspiracy theory.

None of which points to a conspiracy. Just incompetence (on the part of the defence mostly). When a doctor says “The likelihood of this occurring by chance alone is very low.” you ask them for the calculated probability, the confidence intervals, and them to show their workings. Basic A-level stats and probability. You don't just accept them at their word.