To agree with the Guardian about the Netflix coverage of the Lucy letby case?

[justwandered]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/feb/04/the-investigation-of-lucy-letby-review-netflix?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other]]

I honestly don’t think I’ve come across a show in such poor taste before and I am no stranger to stories about murder and the like.

It crosses a huge line in terms of stripping individuals of their dignity.

I don’t plan on watching it but when I turned Netflix on the other night to put a TV show on for my children there it was - horrid and completely unnecessary.

@Oftenaddled (I am asking you as you’ve been exceptionally informative and thank you)

What do you think the timescale from the CCRC is likely to be? I would be amazed if a retrial doesn’t happen, but is this likely to take a similar timeframe to the first, which was the best part of three years (although I realise Covid and the lockdowns will have likely played a part in this.)

I do wonder how often she has wished beyond anything that rather than raising a grievance she had just quietly done to another hospital with an agreed reference and a couple of thousand pounds in a settlement agreement.

That would have been impossible for her. Serial killers do not stop, they only stop once they’ve been caught.

The original cause of death given by the pathologist for Baby A was “unascertained”. And a subsequent inquest then recorded a narrative conclusion that it couldn’t be determined what caused death or whether that cause was natural or unnatural. So there was no likely and plausible explanation in that case.

Serial killers don't usually draw attention to themselves in that way though, at the slightest hint of suspicion she wouldn't make it worse for herself by raising a grievance, she would have just quietly slipped away. The only way raising a grievance makes any sense is if you're innocent.

Not really, time and time again we see that serial killers rarely move out of the area they kill in, and they get bolder and more arrogant.

But they did give reasons other than just exclusion of other causes to support their diagnoses of AE - eg sudden and unexpected collapse, air on x-rays, globules of air in lung and brain etc - and the Judgment sets these out. It’s absolutely right that they also considered and excluded other causes, but I must be dim because I don’t see how the excerpts you have copied and pasted describe a diagnosis of exclusion only - can you explain?

And if, as you say, definitive diagnosis of AE is only ever possible either through having witnessed it happen or if x-ray imaging is taken while the child is alive, then Arthurs and Marnerides have used the strongest terms available to them ie “consistent with” and that death was “explicable on the basis of”.

I would recommend the Panorama programme called Lucy Letby: Who to believe?

Very balanced, lots of detail and gives fair consideration to the differing medical
opinions.

It doesn’t go into scribblings, paper shredders and Facebook searches, it’s simply about the medical evidence.

If the babies died of natural causes, or even malpractice, Letby’s allegedly weird or possibly unprofessional conduct becomes irrelevant to a criminal trial.

This is where I am - same as I was for post office for years - (read computer weekly in early 2000s) was there actually a crime - lets be sure about that first.

I always thought it odd the Sally Clark trial where they said it was statistically unlikely to have two SIDS deaths - gentics risks being in certain families which we all know would clearly make that rubbish and the Royal Stastical Society publically expressed concern about misuse of stats by a expert witness failry quickly.

Once we sure murders happened and it's not yet another NHS cover up - and we been at end of one in the family and national one have hit the news more than once - then I think many posters like me would be happy to consider Letbys behavior - till then endless focus on it from some posters seems pointless.

It is interesting because if (god forbid) something happened to my child, a look through my phone would provide evidence I wasn’t coping (threads posted on MN after a bad day, ringing the GP when I had a newborn for spurious reasons, Facebook posts in groups.)

A lot of it would be just … a bad day, but you could easily make it sinister. Except it wouldn’t be.

And serial killers do stop killing; don’t ask me why they do, but they do. Zodiac Killer, Joseph DiAngelo spring to mind but plenty do just - stop. Not that I think Letby is a serial killer.

I don't see much point in speculation about whether a serial killer would do X and Y, especially from non-specialists. By definition the information we have about serial killers is biased towards the ones who've been identified.

LL is currently an identified convicted murderer and serial killer, so it’s entirely appropriate that we consider her behaviour in relation to other serial killers. Why wouldn’t we?

Can you link to any old posts where you brought this up?

Because these posts with the ‘I always knew there was something fishy…’ theme are the same as the people who keep saying they knew Jimmy Savile was a wrong ‘un.

Well no, I agree with the PP as it happens. Just pointing out that your statement wasn’t really true.

Sally Clark was released from prison in January 2003. MN was very much in its embryonic stages. It’s unlikely the PP did, or if she did, wants to put an old username from a time we didn’t know as much about safety.

But in any case, what’s the point? Unless you’re suggesting Clark was guilty after all which is in poor taste, tbh.

Which bit wasn’t true?

The statement that serial killers don’t stop killing; sometimes they do. But let’s not - feels a bit distasteful.

MN was very much active when LL being tried.

And where did any part of my post suggest Clark was guilty?

Actually, I said ‘time and time again we see that serial killers rarely move out of the area they kill in, and they get bolder and more arrogant.’

I didn’t say all serial killers don’t stop killing.

She is a convicted serial killer, if you find that distasteful, that’s not your own sensibilities.

Erm, you did

@nomas tbh I am losing track of what you are talking about which is more abrupt and ruder than I like being but you have demanded that a poster provides evidence that she thought there was something odd about the Sally Clark case and then answered my point that she probably wasn’t on MN then with ‘well MN was active when LL’s trial was on’, you have said ‘I didn’t say that!’ when you DID say that.

Serial killer discussions are often somewhat salacious for want of a better word and the reason for that is because most serial killers are sexually motivated which is why I am finding it distasteful in the context of this particular discussion.

Actually, it’s pretty rude of you to suggest I have demanded anything. You know I haven’t. It was a comment on the people who always feel the need to say they always knew something that other people didn’t.

Beverley Allitt was also a convicted serial killer, a nurse who murdered 4 children, without a sexual motive.

You can’t expect people not to mention serial killer because it offends you.

And most serial killers operate within a defined ‘comfort zone’ , so they don’t move away. This is based on statistics.

Because you don't know what you're talking about. And in fairness, it's unlikely that other thread participants do either.

There may well be circumstances where suitably qualified people who understand that we don't know what we don't know could offer informed views on the subject. But that's not happening here, and instead we got the confidently offered and uninformed absolute statement 'That would have been impossible for her. Serial killers do not stop, they only stop once they’ve been caught.'

The defence are questioning the inconsistency between Jayaram’s notes and his testimony. There is no inconsistency around the father’s testimony, so the comparison isn’t relevant.

I’m also a bit confused about why extraordinarily prominent veins are being conflated with a rash or skin discolouration, but perhaps they aren’t and I’ve misunderstood what was being said here.

@nomas talking about ‘typical’ serial killer behaviour doesn’t apply here because there’s nothing typical about it; I’m sure we can agree on that if nothing else. Anyway - let’s move on!

I also wonder why the court of appeal decided to throw the words "blue, blue veins" in. I have a lurking suspicion that they think it backs up Jayaram's description of the cyanosis in other cases (based on Lee's sign). Admittedly Father O does mention a rash like prickly heat (so pretty common) in the other paragraph they refer to, but why throw in the blue veins here?

It's so childish - well why don't you tell him off for lying too, he might be lying as well ...

What the father described was not a symptom of air embolism, even arterial air embolism, so why would the defence dispute it? The panel show very clearly here that they haven't got their head around the evidence