To think Lucy Letby could’ve done more to help herself if she really wasn’t guilty?

[Seymorbutts]

Just watched the new Lucy Letby documentary on Netflix. I think there’s one of C4 too, don’t know if it’s the same one? I’m leaning slightly more towards that she did it, but only about 60% sure she did it. 40% sure she didn’t do it. On this doc there’s a lot of footage of all her arrests and police interviews. What strikes me as odd IF she’s innocent, is how little she protests her innocence, how calm & composed she is. It’s the same during her arrests. I understand she must’ve been in shock when she was arrested so that could explain it. But she was interviewed for hours. Not once did she say “I didn’t do this” (unless directly asked, which she just answered with “no”) “I’m innocent”, “I could never kill a baby”. Nothing like that. Very little crying too. I know she’s supposedly very quiet and reserved and I’m sure was very scared, but I don’t think personality can account for a total lack of defending herself (or maybe she was just following the advice given by her lawyer). But still, if it was me I’d be absolutely raging, and protesting my innocence at every opportunity and giving clear, detailed reasons why I couldn’t have done it when they put it to me that I did. Or maybe she did do it and she’s a psychopath and unable to show remorse, which could explain her lack of any kind of emotion at all 🤷‍♀️ I really don’t know. If she is innocent though, I feel like the way she behaved made her look guilty. Interested to hear if people think she did it or not and why/why not…

There's a big difference between someone not remembering something a few years on and someone giving police statements and court testimony that change over time.

When you have to rely on an eyewitness statement from one person which contradicts not only what others have said consistently, but also what he himself has stated in sworn testimony, you have a weak case. I doubt it would have passed on retrial if Dr Jayaram's earlier email had been revealed to the court.

I suspect that one of the reasons new charges weren't approved is that any witness statement he made would be tainted by that proof of his unreliability.

Seems like he was more sure about the alarms when he later gave evidence:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jun/19/lucy-letby-doctor-oxygen-levels

I thought it was known at the retrial? What about how often Lucy contradicted things she'd earlier said?

I suspect that one of the reasons new charges weren't approved is that any witness statement he made would be tainted by that proof of his unreliability.

I don't see how this has anything to do with RJ necessarily. Why would he be involved in all the other instances? Some of the charges were from Liverpool.

The tube never should've been out in the first place. Zero chance the other staff member left the baby in that situation. Lucy went in there and oh look babies tube is suddenly out and they're collapsing. I mean you don't have to be Poirot do you.

But less sure about the time than he had been a year previously.

You can read about all the changes in Dr Jayaram's evidence on this child over time at https://www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/comments/1irru42/who_what_when_why_how_the_evolution_of_dr_ravi/

One thing science tells us about memory is that earlier versions tend to be more accurate. This has been studied with regard to court cases and miscarriages of justice. Basically, people's memories can change over time - they become convinced of things or yield to police pressures. But if you want accuracy, you should look to the first memories.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661325000270

Dr Jayaram's testimony on the alarm changed over time. Nurse Joanne Williams, who was in charge of Baby K, always said the alarm was sounding. It's an odd choice to believe Dr Jayaram, even before you consider how inconsistent he was on other issues.

I doubt a court will treat him as a reliable witness again.

One of the reasons, I said - possibly weakening some of the charges. I'm sure there were many other weaknesses.

The tube was the wrong size for the baby and tubes dislodged three times that night, including once when a medic transferring her to another hospital was looking directly at the child. So assuming "dislodged tube" = "killer nurse" is an enormous stretch, and would of course lead to hundreds of nurses being convicted annually if applied consistently.

Yep, and it would obviously be extremely unlikely that his later recall was more accurate, so as I said I believe what he said the first time that he didn't know if the alarms were going off.

Can't imagine he'd relish the prospect of being a witness in a retrial. Wonder if we might see some conveniently timed illness, should occasion require.

A pp talked about potential jury problems if there were a retrial. I imagine the whole thing would be an absolute logistical nightmare.

And Thirlwall has revealed information that makes both Dr Brearey and Dr V less credible witnesses too. Meanwhile, how could a future Judge Goss refuse discussion of the state of the hospital and of other patients when these things have been widely revealed through news reporting and, again, Thirlwall? It will be quite a conundrum if a retrial is ordered, and the CPS will need to think hard about whether to defend the charges.

I feel like they'd have to sequester the jury, do they ever do that in England? There would be a huge amount of commentary on the case and the evidence dissected day by day.

I don't think anyone thinks RJ is an unreliable witness except truthers desperate to discredit him and protect their precious Lucy.

Are you joking? Even the court of appeal said legitimate criticism could be made of his testimony.

And the coroner of the day, Nicholas Rheinberg, said that his reaction to Dr Jayaram's omissions was "absolute horror". He derailed his hearing at the Thirlwall Inquiry momentarily demanding to know if Lady Thirlwall had any explanation as to "why on earth" Jayaram hadn't reported his suspicions.

Reliability of witness statements is one of the things the CPS considers, for new charges or for defending existing charges. He hasn't done the prosecution any favours.

It's happened but less common than in the US. And I can't see many genuinely neutral people signing up for it- seems to me this would be one of the easier ones to get out of because you'd just say you had read loads of stuff about the case online, even if you hadn't. Equally, I wouldn't be confident that any genuine obsessive who ended up in the juror pool would necessarily rule themselves out. The temptation might be too much.

But I think happenings during proceedings would be the least of it really.

More stupidty "truthers" - yep we are, does that make you a falser ?

That's not discrediting him as a witness altogether though.

No, but since then we've seen his email contradicting his later evidence about baby K, and he has undermined his trial evidence yet again at the Thirlwall hearing.

The Court of Appeal wasn't asked to rule on Jayaram's reliability as a witness at that point, but on whether his media appearances had jeopardized a fair retrial on baby K. Myers went for very narrow grounds of appeal on that retrial and never asked for a decision on Jayaram's reliability.

I don't think we needed science to tell us memories degrade over time. Who says the alarm wasn't going off by the point nurse Williams came back? It wasn't when Lucy was in there doing eff all which is what RJ has said. She liked to destabilise babies and THEN call the alarm. It's totally consistent with her MO. She just had to wait til the baby was dying first and RJ caught her a bit too early before she sounded the alarm. Assume after that she or RJ got the alarm to work rather than run round the hospital shouting "help" 🙄

He testified that she did nothing when he walked into the room as baby K’s blood oxygen levels dipped. My opinion counts for nothing, of course. But I believe him.

What a big surprise to read that Letby has no recollection of this.

And before that he said several times that he didn't remember if the alarms had been going off.
So given your first sentence there that we need don't science to tell us that memories degrade over time, why are you believing that he had better recall years later? 🤔🤔🤔

Williams also stated that Dr Jayaram entered the nursery after her, you see.

I find that hard to believe in view of the fact that Dr Jayaram sent his fellow consultants an email in 2017 saying that Lucy Letby had in fact called him to the incubator

https://unherd.com/newsroom/hidden-email-casts-doubt-on-lucy-letby-verdict/

Do you find it hard to believe that the doctors and nurses treating baby N for a desaturation had also forgotten that incident - just one of many examples - or is it only suspicious when Lucy Letby can't remember a case? Why should she have better recall than anybody else to prove she's innocent?

No, he entered before. She walked into the room to find him and Letby there. Are you thinking of another incident?

But he also wrote: "Staff nurse Letby at incubator and called Dr Jayaram to inform of low saturations." Calling a doctor is not "doing nothing". And he specifically testified that she did not call for help.

Exactly. Why would he invent the entire conversation of the other nurse saying she had left LL to "babysit" and claim that's why he went in there to check. Also makes no sense he'd make the whole thing up if there was another witness in the room!

I’m not a doctor or nurse but I think it’s wrong to do, well, fuck all, when you’re a qualified nurse and someone is becoming really ill right in front of you, don’t you? Or are you suggesting that she was unable to help, hence the call?