To think that Lucy Letby will get a new trial?

[NameChangeMay2026]

The previous thread on Letby is almost full. Posting here for traffic.

If we have any lawyers here, what do you think the likelihood is of Letby getting a new trial? I'm a layperson, but I'm going to guess that she will get one. It seems that many, many rebuttals have appeared since her conviction.

YABU - she will not get a new trial. The case is settled.
YANBU - the new evidence/discussion is compelling and she will probably get a re-trial.

I've been mainly convinced of her guilt, but I have started reading the free Private Eye series on the case by Phil Hammond. Now I don't know what to think. Here's the series, if anyone wants to read it. https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

Did you read the full court papers 9r the news reports?

@Oftenaddled the sheer amount of it. Have you dedicated 10 months of your life since the trial to read everything? The prosecution laid it all out-I can't remember the exact words but that the jury would see a pattern emerging. People only think the trial was a disaster because they think she's innocent. If she did in fact do it it was rather a success wasn't it?

I'm a quick reader. Unfortunately all the transcripts aren't available. But I've read all the transcripts that are online and the full Chester Standard coverage lucyletbyinnocence.com/complete-trial.html , all the Thirlwall transcripts and most of the evidence, thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/ , transcripts of the police interviews, the Lee articles, appeal judgements, various press of course, and all that kind of thing. Everything linked at https://lucyletbyinnocence.com/, which is a great resource for all that kind of stuff. Moritz and Coffey's book, McConville's book. Podcasts and YouTube videos I usually read the transcripts. It hasn't taken me ten months. I would read a day's proceedings from Thirlwall in 15-20 minutes. It's been well over two years since the initial trial so there has been plenty of time to catch up.

The jury not only didn't get all the information that's since emerged, but were given actively, albeit accidentally misleading evidence about some of it. It is not a persuasive point.

@Oftenaddled @CheeseNPickle3 okay, so seems like the door entry data was not a big issue, simply a piece of the picture. It did support the idea of Letby always being present for a death though, so I'm surprised her defence didn't take the chance to challenge that, especially as it's a relatively non technical, easy to understand piece of information. Why do you think her defence was so minimal?

Exactly, it wouldn't take anywhere close to 10 months.
There was lots of breaks. I believe per day they listened to maybe 4 to 4-5 hours of evidence.
You can read the transcripts in a much faster time than it would have taken them to listen to it in court.

What misleading evidence? It's the new theories that are misleading if anything.

Incorrect door swipe data.

Incomplete information about the history of anomalous insulin/c peptide immunoassay results from Liverpool.

Assertion that air down a NG tube (later recanted) could cause death.

Incomplete data about the number of deaths and collapses presented in a misleading way (i.e. misuse of statistics).

Assertion that LL failed to call for a Dr that was later proved false by a document uploaded to the Thirlwall enquiry.

Anyone want to add anything? Can you refute any of this Firefly?

We don't know for sure why they chose the defence strategy they did. The jolly contrarian has some theories https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php/Lucy_Letby:_the_missing_defence_evidence

I think that having all the prosecution evidence first was certainly a factor because you're bringing up things that the jury heard about months before in order to discredit them. It's also possible that it might have been damaging to have someone say it was probably natural causes but you couldn't definitely rule out foul play. LL's barrister did challenge the prosecution witnesses so they might have thought that was enough to undermine the prosecution's case.

In a normal murder case the cause of death would be certain (or at least certainly murder) and you could cast doubt on whether your defendant was the culprit. In this case the prosecution had to convince the jury that there had been deliberate harm done, but because they'd established that there were so many incidents and only LL there for all of them (as per the shift chart) there was no possibility of pointing the finger at someone else. The insulin cases were a problem for the defence because at the time both the prosecution and the defence agreed that the evidence suggested deliberate harm.

I don't know how you would challenge the door swipe data - if the prosecution asserts that LL's card was swiped, which only she could have done, she must have been present somewhere and I don't think that was in dispute (data for one door had in/out backwards, but that mostly affected one of the ones she was found not guilty for and baby K - guilty on retrial - by which time they'd fixed it). The defence could say that maybe she'd left but, given that it was her workplace, she was supposed to be there and she'd be adding notes to medical records then the fact that she was there was true.

The door swipe data doesn't tell you exactly where someone was (or if they were alone) so AFAIK they were relying on witness testimony and notes for that.

If you're the police/prosecution and you think someone's a murderer but you have no forensic or direct evidence then rounding up every possible incident where your accused is present and throwing it at a wall to see what sticks is a valid strategy I guess.

Yeah that looks pretty comprehensive! As I said, it's just not a persuasive argument. Regardless of whether she's guilty, inaccurate information was presented to the court and our system didn't prevent that. If it happened once, it could happen again.

But if you’re saying it’s impossible there was a miscarriage of justice for LL because court is so rigorous ( thankfully) then surely it’s not possible for other cases either? . If it is possible for other cases then it’s possible for LL surely? I think she probably is guilty but I’m not qualified to judge. It’s been through court twice and she’s been found guilty so there it is.However IF there is really is any doubt it obviously needs looking at again.

The door data would have actually harmed her case more if it had been presented correctly in the first trial IIRC.

Insulin - even LL admitted at trial that someone had administered insulin, it ‘just wasn’t her’. Any new proof that c-peptide could have been produced in an infant, without exogenous insulin, on two separate occasions, would obviously be of great interest to the CCRC so let’s see what they’ve got!

Statistics - The deaths in the list were the unexplained deaths, where infants were not expected to crash. That’s why not all deaths were included. You could try and argue that these deaths were actually to be expected, which is what Lee did after the fact, but that didn’t work at retrial because the jury were invited to consider this at trial in the first place and didn’t find it convincing.

Air present in x rays post mortem could have been from decomposition, but again the jury were presented with this and didn’t find it convincing - it was clearly more likely to them that it had been administered with purpose.

Whether or not Letby called for a doctor on one occasion was really here nor there when viewed against the great stack of evidence against her. It did not seem to take away from Jayaran’s credibility as a witness at second trial.

So the issue is - these key arguments were presented at trial, and the jury didn’t find it believable. Unlike social media, in the jury system you can’t just shout what you think again and again, and hope people believe it a little bit more. She had her chance, maybe she’ll get another chance, but my view is it’s doubtful given the weight of argument she has to overturn, so I’m left with the conclusion that the correct decision was made.

Insulin - even LL admitted at trial that someone had administered insulin, it ‘just wasn’t her’. Any new proof that c-peptide could have been produced in an infant, without exogenous insulin, on two separate occasions, would obviously be of great interest to the CCRC so let’s see what they’ve got!

She wasn’t qualified to say that someone must have administered insulin. She was told there was no other explanation, so what was she supposed to say other than it wasn’t me?

You haven’t even understood the issue based on what you’ve written so why do you think you’re qualified to have a strong opinion?

You seem quite invested and angry here? It isn’t a strong opinion, it’s the most likely circumstance given what was heard at trial.

The logic of why there was no other explanation other than that insulin must have been administered was as clear to her, presumably, as it was to everyone else in the room. There was nothing she could have said to disprove this.

if there’s new evidence showing that c peptide can be produced naturally, this is of great interest as I said.

Criticising the immunoassay is hard to do for two separate instances - the chances of this happening are incredibly remote. So as a juror, it would’ve been clear to me what was the most likely explanation - and it was the two insulin cases that most convinced the jury.

Looks like it’s you that possibly hasn’t grasped the issue?

So basically we're supposed to believe that just the insulin tests that implicate Lucy Letby happened to be wrong? And that's on top of them already suspecting her way before they even found the insulin evidence? Which they found by looking at the siblings of those that collapsed/died unexpectedly and then realised these twin siblings had wildly abnormal insulin test results? Yeah sure, I'll suspend all disbelief!

Well, there were two similar test results from the same lab in the same year, so yes, it does seem that we are only supposed to care when they can be connected (however vaguely) with Lucy Letby.

Of course, the jury wasn't told about these two results.

@Oftenaddled source? If it's the one where someone wrote the results the wrong way round that doesn't count.

The door data would have actually harmed her case more if it had been presented correctly in the first trial IIRC.

Perhaps, but the data was incorrect, no?

Insulin - even LL admitted at trial that someone had administered insulin, it ‘just wasn’t her’.

She had been told someone had, so how could she possibly refute that?

Any new proof that c-peptide could have been produced in an infant, without exogenous insulin, on two separate occasions, would obviously be of great interest to the CCRC so let’s see what they’ve got!

Well, there’s plenty of new evidence to show that the expected ratios are affected by insulin binding, so yes, let’s.

Statistics - The deaths in the list were the unexplained deaths, where infants were not expected to crash. That’s why not all deaths were included.

Really? How do you know this? And what about all the collapses? You do know that Evans initially identified some deaths as suspicious that were omitted from the table because LL wasn’t there?

You could try and argue that these deaths were actually to be expected, which is what Lee did after the fact, but that didn’t work at retrial because the jury were invited to consider this at trial in the first place and didn’t find it convincing.

Um… no. The reports by Lee et al were not published until way after the retrial. And the retrial was about one baby only.

Air present in x rays post mortem could have been from decomposition, but again the jury were presented with this and didn’t find it convincing - it was clearly more likely to them that it had been administered with purpose.

I think you are confusing air via a NG tube and air (allegedly) administered intravenously. An easy mistake to make for someone with no relevant knowledge. You’re illustrating why juries in such cases aren’t capable of reaching fully informed decisions.

Whether or not Letby called for a doctor on one occasion was really here nor there when viewed against the great stack of evidence against her. It did not seem to take away from Jayaran’s credibility as a witness at second trial.

A doctor giving erroneous information on oath when he could have just read his sentence emails doesn’t trouble you at all?

So the issue is - these key arguments were presented at trial, and the jury didn’t find it believable.

Well, they weren’t though, were they?

Unlike social media, in the jury system you can’t just shout what you think again and again, and hope people believe it a little bit more.

No idea what this means. Public interest has put pressure on the system in the case of MoJs for many years. Do you think the victims of the Horizon scandal would have finally received justice if it hadn’t been for publicity?

She had her chance, maybe she’ll get another chance, but my view is it’s doubtful given the weight of argument she has to overturn, so I’m left with the conclusion that the correct decision was made.

We’ll see, but I also doubt there will be another retrial. A quashing of the conviction, maybe.

If it's genuine Letby was probably on shift for those too.

I don't think you understand the issue here. C-peptide is produced naturally. What the prosecution claimed was that you should always have at least five times as much C-peptide in the body as insulin, or there was artificial insulin in the system.

Lucy Letby was in no position to dispute this - she's not a biochemist or an endocrinologist.

Since the trial, people have pointed out that this ratio hadn't been demonstrated for newborn preterm infants, whose insulin clearance systems are still in start-up mode.

This year, Professors Geoffrey Chase and Helen Shannon, who are working with Lucy Letby's defence, have published a first look at data showing over 200 infants with naturally occuring insulin - c-peptide ratios 'reversed' just like the two in Lucy Letby's case.

The first was taken shortly after the baby was born and before Lucy Letby came on shift. The second was a sample for testing purposes not from her unit at all.

But you are showing exactly that attitude that infected Lucy Letby's accusers - if it can be called odd and she was there, she did it. If she wasn't there, let's not look into it.

@Oftenaddled does not appear angry at all. On the contrary she’s extremely calm.

Don’t do that ‘you are so angry’ rubbish to try to silence people.

i think you don’t understand this at all.

Insulin and c-peptide are both produced naturally by the pancreas in a specific ratio. C peptide does not exist in synthetic insulin.

If there is more insulin than normal this indicates exogenous administration BUT

• insulin may persist in a bound state effectively giving it a longer than expected half-life; the immunoassay doesn’t differentiate between bound and un-bound insulin
• the immunoassay used is not suitable to be used to detect factitious insulin - and it says so on the report
• there was at least one other anomalous result at around the same time that LL could not have had anything to do with
• a lab proficiency test was failed at around the same time because of similar inaccurate results

Well that's clearly never been seen before or her defence would've been all over it. Geoff Chase isn't even an insulin expert FFS all this talk of Dewi Evans not technically being a neonatologist (purely because it didn't exist as a separate specialism where he studied/worked) but yeah lets listen to a mechanical engineer on insulin 😆you couldn't make it up. I think I'll stick with the actual endocrinologists.

You think LL sneaked into the lab at the Royal and interfered with the analysis of the proficiency test sample?