Lucy Letby case expert witness was under fitness to practise investigation

[ITMA2000]

Wow! Pot, kettle, black? Need a new investigation?
Lucy Letby case expert witness was under fitness to practise investigation during trial | Lucy Letby | The Guardian

And as with so many things about this case, it's a problem regardless of whether Letby is guilty or not. Something has gone wrong when this doesn't come out til so much later, whether that's the design of the system or the workings of it. This isn't a discussion that should be capable of happening.

On the Brearey defamation point, always worth remembering that truth and honest opinion are both defences. I don't know what resources he'd have to bring a claim, but setting that aside, you'd have to be very sure that your position won't be worsened by either or both of those being aired publicly.

The statistics have been fully explored by a variety of statisticians including the RSS, so it’s not really debatable that a) the case is based on statistics and b) that those stats are badly flawed.

However, we also know the defence (and therefore the defence’s statisticians) were not allowed by the judge to make reference to the full data on deaths and collapses. Some of the information that’s now in the public domain may not have been known to Dr Oldfield. So I don’t think we can infer that she had a shaky argument, just that the data may have been incomplete and she was hamstrung by the judge’s imposed rules.

Yes, to be quite clear on this point a defamation case can only be won if it can be shown that the allegedly defamatory statement is incorrect. Anyone bringing a defamation case needs to be sure they are squeaky clean.

So it’s vanishingly unlikely that any of the medics would want their practice publicly scrutinised.

Back to FF’s potentially actionable statement that has been deleted, MN may have thought that Dr Lee might take a different view of the risks. Personally I think it’s unlikely he cares much about our MN discussions, but MNHQ will have decided to head that one off at the pass.

my point was that many posters on LL believe the consultants were scapegoating LL - that it’s common in NHS - becuase they thought their mistakes would be found out and they wanted to get in first - but just can’t get past it would be the worse thing to he police involved…don’t make any sense

glad you don’t agree with that

Gosh this dumbs down the statistical relevance big time

there was so much back and forth about this in other threads and now it’s “covert” so not a stand out thing

both the statistics and the view by LL supporters consultants scapegoating LL were debated at length on that thread

if i was defence I would have thought the first thing to do would be to look at LLs presence and relations to deaths - wouldn’t wait from anything from prosecution

So the defence did have a full picture of deaths and collapses opposed to what oftenaddled is saying…

It's not dumbing down. What do I mean when I refer to covert statistics?

I mean that when you say something like, you should note that x number of babies collapsed shortly after their nurse or parents left the room, you are asking people to note and so to accept that this is noteworthy - that it would not be expected.

There is no doubt the prosecution used this approach in Lucy Letby's case.

Why would I describe this as "covert statistics"? Well, statistics is the science of the unexpected. To know whether this fact is in fact noteworthy and describes an unexpected event, you'd have to have more data. What do we mean by "shortly after"? How often do parents and nurses leave the room? How often would this particular nurse be left in charge on her own? How often do collapses happen? What events can precipitate a collapse?

Instead of giving us an openly statistical analysis - this happened y times when, taking all of this data into account, we could have expected it to happen z times, the prosecution suggests we have enough information to judge these events noteworthy. They give us y but not z. They suggest that this is unexpected but do not demonstrate it.

That is why I refer to covert or hidden statistics. It's not an existing phrase so happy to explain it. But I hope that makes more sense of it for you and anyone else interested.

Two things are true:

The defence had more information on more deaths and collapses than it was allowed to share (from the RCPCH reports)

The defence even after the trials did not have full information on deaths and collapses. We know this from the fact that they needed to make FOI requests for some of this data, and that they have since complained to the CCRC that they weren't provided with all relevant reports.

Looking at Lucy Letby's presence in relation to deaths is relatively straightforward. (It's not that straightforward - for at least four of the seven deaths key events happened when she wasn't present.)

Establishing why she might be present at more deaths than other nurses, or why the hospital saw more deaths in 2015 and 2016 is a much more complex issue, requiring extensive data and a proper statistical analysis

I don’t think it was a deliberate orchestrated scapegoating, and I have seen very few if any posters suggesting it was. It’s much more likely to be group-think with an element of arse-covering.

No, I don’t think the defence did have the full picture. But also they knew more than Judge Goss allowed them to speak about at the trial.

Ah thank you. I couldn't find out from a quick google. So not only did she not call Mike Hall but anyone else who might've been able to help her in any way (so the innocent side naively thinks) how inexplicable 🤔

(So much for me deciding to sit this thread out..!)

Haha sorry! Welcome back!

Why did judge goss not allow it - I know it will be about what he’s supposed do

but why?

Because if you believe the consultants genuinely thought she did it why not believe there might just be something in it? It's like admitting there was loads of evidence against her and reason for them to find her suspicious but still not quite getting it...

If I've understood correctly, he argued the defence should refer to specific events (Nurse X didn't call Doctor Y in time) and not general events described in the report (Nurses said they were anxious about disturbing doctors). But I haven't seen the full discussion.

Because they appeared to be going around like they're in bird box when it comes to any of the other issues in the hospital that could have caused all these deaths and collapses, complete and utter blindness apparently, so instead of this looking like a case where their suspicions were correct, instead it just looks like a very clear idea of people getting an idea into their heads, confirmation bias taking over, groupthink cementing it and so on.

It's like admitting there was loads of evidence against her and reason for them to find her suspicious but still not quite getting it...

Well no it isn't at all because there wasn't loads of evidence against her, just a theory, and even now after the investigation and trial there still isn't.

kkloo · Today 06:04
But who believes that theory?
I don't think any of the regulars on here do.
I think what most believe is that they genuinely thought she did it so turned a blind eye to everything else, which is very different to intentionally deciding to pin it on someone they knew was innocent.

on the first thread I joined in loads of nurses and regular posters claiming scapegoating is rife in NHs and was the case here - I believe it was the Netflix doc post

I wasn't serious about him knowing she murdered babies and trying to get her off anyway, that was "for arguments sake" only. As for the revenge thing, I thought it was common knowledge he was angry about the whole thing. I'd be amazed if that goes anywhere near defamation and that anyone would care. Especially if someone can claim a doctor killed a baby in a worldwide press conference and not face any consequences!

There was something in it in the sense that the unit had more deaths than they expected relative to other years, and Lucy Letby was present at more deaths than one might expect relative to other nurses

That's all the consultants had. To that extent, they weren't wrong. But they never attempted to consider why Lucy Letby might be present at more deaths, from a statistical perspective. And as to their own unit having more deaths relative to other years, they claimed to have excluded the explanation that they were dealing with more vulnerable children, but that was just a statement. They never explained how.

So you can follow the consultants so far. You can see why they asked the questions they were asking. But there is no point in being guided by their answers.

I too doubt Dr Lee is concerned about defamation in Mumsnet posts.

But how is it common knowledge that he's angry? Where has he expressed any anger?

Thing is it doesn't have to be a deliberate decision for it to be scapegoating. It can be one person manipulating, deliberately or accidentally, the situation. Perhaps because they think they have spotted a pattern, because they took don't have the full picture.

I've seen firsthand how one person convinced of someone's guilt can change the attitude of most people around, even when the evidence those people have seen contradicts it.
This could be deliberate, or simply that they believe it themselves.

In the case I saw it was totally deliberate. By careful comments, and misrepresentation of facts/actions they were able to convince a whole load of people that their view was the only possible one. People who had known the other person for longer and admitted that what was being said was unlike the person they'd known, still said "I'm surprised but it must be true because he said it".
One person even said that they knew that the person was wrong, but they were backing their position because "they'd be too hard to replace".

Little comments like "Lucy's lost a patient again", or "I expect Lucy was there, as always" could very quickly become accepted knowledge without people really thinking about it.
They don't have to be said maliciously, but that sort of thing becomes a "known fact" quite quickly if even only one person is saying it.
Then when questions start being raised about the unit, it's easy for people to start thinking "actually it was them" than face the facts that there were issues on the unit that they have contributed to.

I'm sure that certain contributors are going to get very excited and start shouting conspiracy theories, but it's a far more likely happening than the set of world experts spontaneously decide to come forward and question a conviction without being asked, isn't it?

And actually what we're seeing here is very similar from those posters. They are making the same points over and over again, despite it being clearly explained to them frequently why they are not necessarily correct.
Either they have a very poor memory, lack of understanding... Or they're hoping that by repeating the same things that any new people reading will take them to be truths.

I disagree - people of their intellect would ask themselves those questions right away - they are dealing in probability all the time surely when weighing up decisions

they won’t be stupid people incapable of weighing up and analysing questions - it would certainly occur to me as a first thought and I’m just a menial person 😂

I don’t doubt for one minute they went through a step by step reasoning

I'm not making assumptions here. In their emails the consultants were quite clear that they weren't statisticians and the one who came closest to engaging with statistical methods questioned whether there was a significant rise in deaths at all.

They were clear that they had nothing against Lucy Letby except coincidence.

We know what enquiries they and the hospital undertook from the Thirlwall Inquiry and they did nothing reassembling the kind of analysis that would be required.

I saw a recent podcast with Jeremy Hunt and he said when something goes wrong in the NHS it's easy to take the rotten apple approach and scapegoat someone instead of looking at systems and processes and staffing etc, and that sometimes people do take the easy option.

Now he didn't say whether it was intentional or not, I'd imagine most of the time it isn't intentional, but a lot of people use the same word either way.

And a google search shows many articles which suggests it seems to be widespread.

Either way, none of us on here made any claim where they all conspired to just pin it on an innocent woman, so not sure why FF is bringing that into it to explain why she came up with her own conspiracy theory.

They would have been covering the selves and wouldn’t set off a chain of events without more than just a hunch

good job it wasn’t just a hunch