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

Frayn's argument was that there was unlikely to be a testing error, because the values were too high. He hasn't discussed the possibility that there was no testing error, but that the tests were measuring bound insulin, which is what Chase and Shannon have proposed. Nor did he comment on the possibility of reaction to antibodies, which again would not be a testing error in itself.

That's not to say no endocrinologists disagree with Chase and Shannon. But there's no reason to think Frayn was referring to work by Chase and Shannon which had yet to be published. The fact that endocrinologists don't anticipate new developments doesn't mean they won't consider them or accept them once they are published. Science moves on, and practising scientists are used to that

Changing a will in your favour is a provable criminal act.

It's a long way from murder. He also killed the vast majority without doing this so clearly wasn't a primary motive.

Forging prescriptions is a provable criminal act.

Again a long way from murder and there will have been doctors who have done this and not gone on to kill their patients.

Nobody else was treating the patients he killed.

That's true, but irrelevant if they were all natural causes.

Changing a will in your favour (when you're a doctor and not a relative and so wouldn't be expected to be a beneficiary) and then the person unexpectedly dies? Definitely suspicious when you've been caught doing other related crimes.

Making parents uncomfortable, neglecting your designated baby to go in the room with a grieving family, hoarding hundreds of handover sheets, being animated making up memory boxes and treating deaths as gossip-whilst not illegal is definitely suspicious. Especially when doctors who didn't even know any of the above think you are harming babies.

Yep. It'll go to through higher courts if they don't allow it. Will take a while but she'll get one eventually.

This is what I think too having had a similar experience.

What I also discovered in my experience is that it can be harder to defend yourself against a lie than the truth when it comes down to he said/she said. Especially if the other person is higher in the business than you. People defer to the higher authority, and (as one person directly told me) they're harder to replace so they want them to be right.

The reason is that if you are telling the truth, then they know what you are going to say, so can put in measures to make what you say seem the lie. The (honest) person listening to what they say thinking "well what he says must be true because he wouldn't know what they'd say."

One of my examples (one of many) was over photocopying. I had one day a month (consistently the same day) where I did a huge amount of printing on our one printer. It basically tied the printer up all day once I'd set it going. For the rest of the time we did little printing, so it didn't normally matter.
Person T came in and wanted to have a large amount (3000 sheets) of printing for something they were involved in externally. So nothing to do with the business.
I suggested he came back the next day (my day off) and he said he couldn't because he had meetings all day. So I said to him that if he left it on my desk, then I'd pop in first thing on my day off, set the printer going, I'd ask someone to keep replenishing the paper, and he could collect it at the end of the day. He agreed.
When I popped in the next day, there was a note on my desk to say not to worry. I left it there.

On the following Monday when I came in, the note neither was there nor in the bin. I was told by someone who was in that T had come in and picked something off my desk and put it in his pocket.
I got called in by my line manager, and spoken to by at least two members of the SLT because T had been in a meeting with them and said he'd had some things he'd wanted to print, and I'd refused to do it for him.
Now despite my explanations and that all three of them said that they'd never known me refuse to do anything asked, they believed him because:

1. They knew he wouldn't ask for printing done for this external organisation because he'd told them on Friday, that he'd taken some stuff to the printers as it wouldn't be fair to ask for that much - even though I had proof he'd done similar amounts in the past.
2. He wouldn't have let me come in on my day off because he'd said to them "only on Friday" that it was important that days off were respected - even though I had witnesses that saw me come in, and they knew why I'd come in.
3. He was very nice about it and told them that they shouldn't speak to me about it because he was sure I'd just "misunderstood", so there wasn't any reason why he shouldn't have told them.
4. I had printed the stuff I'd needed the day before because he'd told them he'd have asked the day before but knew that was the day I did the printing - even though it was in the diary when I did it and at least one of them had seen me printing it.

Despite them all knowing that his story was out of character for me, and there was evidence backing my side, they believed him because he had laid the foundations to make my side of the story less believable - and they didn't see why he would have said these things because "he didn't know what I'd say". The fact was because he knew what the truth was, he did know what I'd say.

And this is what I suspect happened. One of the consultants who was scapegoating her for whatever reason, whether it was to draw attention away from the situation in the ward and their own negligence or they genuinely believed that or some other reason, was able to bring the others to believe him because he got in first with his story - and laid foundations.

It would be quite easy to do. One person saying "really, that was Lucy's baby again wasn't it?" "She's been really unlucky hasn't she." "Didn't expect that baby to die - was it Lucy on duty? Again?", "I'm a bit worried about Lucy. Maybe she'd taking on too much, but her babies don't seem to do as well as I'd expect"...
would go gently into people's conscience and it could very quickly become established that her babies were dying more than the others, then others would comment too - in fact wasn't that what her grievance was about?

@Firefly1987 and @Barbie222 I was convinced of her guilt, but having read more, I am now not sure what to think. I would be really interested for you to read the Private Eye reports and the New Yorker article and to hear your thoughts on both. The first link is an article by Unherd, and it's quite short. The New Yorker article is long but I find it an easier read than the Private Eye reports, which take some dedication.

https://archive.is/PJmKM

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

It seems that the two consultants, Jayaram and Brearey, may have put two and two together and made five. If this is what happened, I don't think it was done m

Even to say I have “blind faith in her being innocent” is to misunderstand both the burden of proof and where it lies.

She didn’t have to prove her innocence. The prosecution had to prove she was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And there is reasonable doubt in spades in this case.

Sorry, wasn't finished writing.

It seems that the two consultants, Jayaram and Brearey, may have put two and two together and made five. If this is what happened, I don't think it was done maliciously. I can imagine that they developed tunnel vision through worry about the cluster of deaths on the unit, latched on to the fact that LL was often at work when things happened, and just saw confirmation bias from there on. I can imagine that stress could produce that kind of thinking.

@Firefly1987 @Barbie222 I couldn't edit my previous post to link the New Yorker article. Here is it. Would be interested to know your thoughts, because I was also convinced of her guilt, but reading some of these resources really made me question things, which feels wrong. I'd love to know if these resources make you feel the same as me.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/lucy-letby-was-found-guilty-of-killing-seven-babies-did-she-do-it?_sp=e7cd8dac-65bb-4ac7-bb29-8ff135473538.1780110745380

An article on Justice Gap today about the grievance Lucy Letby took against the hospital. The draft grievance finding criticized the doctors for accusing Lucy Letby based on "gut feeling".

https://www.thejusticegap.com/lucy-letby-bullied-by-doctors-whose-suspicions-were-fuelled-by-gut-feel/

It's notable that Dr Jayaram only made his allegation about Lucy Letby standing over baby K doing nothing, and started claiming she musf have dislodged baby K's tube, after this process, despite being interviewed for his side of things. That was over a year after baby K's time at the hospital.

Agree with this. Not a conspiracy or intentional cover-up. Just a mistake that snowballed, with disastrous consequences.

"Dr Green notes that ‘given the positive views of LL’s competence, capability and flexibility regarding when she is needed, LL is likely to be in a position where she may be looking after the sickest babies on the unit and coupled to the fact that she works full-time and will work extra shifts when asked, increases the likelihood that she might be on duty when adverse events occur.’"

😲 It's so terrible to think that someone innocent might be locked up.

The more I read, the more I realise how unsafe this conviction might be. On Part 1 of Private Eye, I see that Baby C's cause of death was already certified as natural causes by a pathologist post-mortem, and only after the two consultants developed their tunnel vision about Lucy was it suggested that Lucy had done X,Y, Z, even though no evidence of those things had been picked up post-mortem.

And now we're told that, far from air in babies stomachs post-mortem being a sign of murder, it's normal and expected where babies have needed help with breathing via a bag and mask and/or have had high-pressure ventilation and/or experienced resuscitation attempts.

WTAF? Weren't we told that Evans thought LL had pumped air into the babies' stomachs in order to squeeze the lungs, or something? And now we find that there are all these other reasons that such babies might have air in their stomachs? Good God.

Yes - five of the seven children Lucy Letby was convicted of killing had postmortems showing natural causes.

One - baby A - had a postmortem which couldn't find a cause. So he had a coroner's inquest where the coroner judged the cause of death unascertained, natural causes unless caused by a medical procedure.

The last - baby E - didn't have a postmortem because the consultant in charge of his care told his parents that there was no need.

So interesting. Why on earth (or was it?) wasn’t this flagged up during the trial?

The more and more I read the more I’m convinced that her conviction is unsafe but there are posters here who haven’t read the other evidence (notes) and are convinced of her guilt.

It's so terrible to think that someone innocent might be locked up.

It is. And it's also terrible to think about another of the possibilities these various issues might lead to, which is the possibility that she's eventually freed because the convictions can't stand but nonetheless is actually a babykiller. The best case scenario here is that despite all the blunders, the system did actually get the right person but it's been executed so badly that a substantial number of people can't trust the conviction. That's a problem.

Some have refused to consider that article or anything else at all, instead dismissing them immediately and deciding that the entire campaign has only arisen because LL is white and blonde.

‘Babykiller’ isn’t a word and can we not use it? There’s something horrible about it and it isn’t respectful at all.

The best case scenario is that no murders took place, the hospital sorts its shit out, the people who are culpable for this travesty face the music and she is freed as soon as possible. Of course there’s no way to un ruin her life unfortunately.

It is. But I've no particular attachment to it as a term, it's just what came out, but I'm happy for any other term to describe a person who's murdered babies that people prefer. Can't see how there's a non-horrible one, mind.

Can you honestly not see the difference between ‘babykiller’ and ‘convicted of the murder of babies’? Anyway, if you can’t see it then you can’t, I guess.

As I said, I'm quite happy to respect your personal preferences, unexplained or otherwise, in such a minor semantic matter.

In terms of redress and the wider best case scenario, I think the most important factor would be systemic change to reduce the MOJ risk in the future. So for example it's not any one person's fault that our adversarial system and the flaws in the way we use expert witnesses meant eg Dewi Evans could give inaccurate, honestly meant evidence to the court about the Shoo Lee paper. He didn't create the set of circumstances that allowed that to happen, rather the structural factors created him. It's awful that the prosecution presented some poor statistical analysis to the court, but they were acting within the boundaries of what's allowed, so the way to remedy that is to amend the systems. And actually we'd need to do that even if Letby was guilty, the Royal Statistical Society have been telling us about the risks since she was at primary school.

There are some specific things aspects of the case where music could be faced too, like say Dr Jayaram misleading the court. I think David Davis wanting him investigated for perjury is reasonable and would personally find it hard to trust him to look after my kids after the way he's behaved here. But whether he'd meet the mens rea test for the offence or not, hard to say.

Baby killer as two words is an adjectival phrase. It's fine. And that's exactly what LL is accused of being. In our society we have free speech, as long as it's not hate speech, which "baby killer" is not. I'm sick and tired of people attempting to police what others may or may not say. We've already had people trying to shut down this discussion and trying to shut down the discussion about the three women found dead at Brighton, and now another person comes along and tells us that we may not use an adjectival phrase.

I, for one, will not have my speech policed. If anyone thinks that anything said on MN is illegal, they can feel free to report it to the actual police. Otherwise, I will ignore any attempts to put a metaphorical hand over my mouth. 😡 I mean, who do people think they are, telling others what they may or may not discuss or what words they may or may not say? If "baby killer" is THAT offensive to you, don't read about Lucy Letby. Change your behaviour rather than attempting to curtail others' freedom of expression and control others' speech.

Don't encourage censorship. We have free speech and no one has the right to try and stop freedom of expression, provided it doesn't come under hate speech.

Two is not “the vast majority” of endocrinologists. And Prof Frayn was speaking two years ago, and a good deal of new scientific information has emerged since then. Presumably you can name a few more?

It doesn’t really matter what anyone on here thinks. Her case is being reviewed which might bring about a recommendation for a re trial. She’s been turned down for appeal twice, so don’t assume this will happen anytime soon.