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

Not more crass than describing her in your terms. You can’t have it all ways.

What is it in the datix entry you are referring to that you think Lucy Letby might have been using to cover up a crime?

As to dates - she submitted most datixes within a few days of the relevant event. There was a slightly later one for baby O which she raised when the case was being discussed on the unit following first reports from the pathologists.

There is some discussion of datixes she raised in this article: https://archive.is/Ci7TM

I'd imagine anyone would hope that someone would raise safety concerns like this. It seems odd to try to use them as evidence against her.

The pro guilty lobby often resort to implying anyone who disagrees with them is crass/unfeeling/doesnt care about the parents. It’s a distraction technique when arguments are thin or inadequate.

And Datix reports take some time to file - in the middle of a crisis it’s simply not feasible to do one immediately. Another example of ignorance of the processes not getting in the way of having strong opinions.

The point is not that a bad unit couldn't have a serial killer, or that a serial killer wouldn't have a freer hand on such a unit. It's that it's not facially implausible that a bad unit, combined with increased acuity, might account for many of the things ascribed to malice: increased mortality, failed resuscitations, failure to anticipate collapses, etc. It's on the prosecution prove that the combination can't explain these things, and I haven't seen that proof in what has been reported.

The prosecution had to prove she deliberately killed these babies - beyond reasonable doubt. They couldn’t convict if they thought she might have done it. Or even if they thought she PROBABLY did it.

They had to be sure she did it. How anyone could be sure, given the masses of doubt now present, I have no idea.

I suppose, at the time, you don't know what you don't know, if you see what I mean.

It will be huge if she gets a re-trial.

The prosecution made a good case because it was very complex it was enough information for people to convict. The defence was appalling, if half the things we know about now were known the jury would have had a much more difficult choice and that was the defences job. Saying that there's something odd before it even got to trial

Everyone who has ever been involved in IV administration knows of the risk of air embolus. Every time anyone primes a line and removes head space from a syringe they are preventing potential harm. It’s not some niche thing that Letby learned about a few weeks before the first death.

I know. Glad we can agree she'd have absolutely no need to google any of these things. She didn't get access to the higher risk babies until shortly before baby A though. And why does she need to be filing datixes about something everyone already knows about then? And why do you think she can't be killing patients via that method if you accept it's a potential harm.

And in any case, evidence that any babies were harmed by injection of air into their veins is scant. None of them had Lee’s sign, babies don’t have a special “air embolism” cry, and no-one saw Letby do anything untoward.

There was air in their systems. I mean yes there aren't that many tell tale signs of AE but what there was matched. That along with the other evidence. I mean do we really want it to be cart blanche for every psychopathic nurse to kill patients via AE? All they have to do is make sure they don't get seen apparently, how hard do you think that is in a job like that? There's an ambulance driver in Italy right now accused of the same thing-inducing AE in patients, although adults this time.

Where did I say the bar of evidence for medical murders should be lower? If anything it's the innocence side who think evidence for her guilt should be to a higher standard. I've always said it should be fair across the board no matter the crime.

@FancyTurtlesI agree the defence seems to have been really lacking. I don’t care how good her barrister supposedly was: the team did not mount the best defence they could have and made some serious and costly strategic errors.

She's at this point in time a convicted murderer of multiple babies so yes it is more crass to describe her as professional.

No her actions and behaviour proved she did it. Things the doctors couldn't possibly have known about when they accused her. It's like asking if you think a stalker could be innocent of killing their ex girlfriend. Sure there's a minute possibility, but their behaviour already basically proved they did it. She showed she had a pathological need to be in with the sick babies and would get angry if she wasn't assigned to them-this is not normal behaviour. If a man got angry he couldn't work with certain patients who then were abused or harmed or killed we'd almost certainly know he was guilty and had certain victims.

I'd be shocked and very worried if the verdict ever got overturned but thankfully I don't see that happening this century.

Lucy Letby had access to higher risk babies before baby A. Less qualified nurses (like Sophie Ellis) were entrusted with the care of IC babies like this, and nurses had to team up to give medications and babysit each other's children during breaks.

There was no strong convention as to who put datixes in: this was discussed at Thirlwall. But you weren't supposed to avoid recording problems just because other people knew about them. The point was to record risks and raise them formally, so that a formal response was given with an audit trail.

A significant number, in some studies a majority, of premature infants will have air in their systems after CPR. It is very far from sufficient evidence to diagnose air embolism. There are ways to diagnose air embolism - X-rays of living children, foam in the heart at post-mortem, Lee's sign. We can't just conjure up new ways to do it because we can't find another way to prove someone guilty.

There was a single case of Lucy Letby getting mildly irritable when not allocated a child she was qualified to care for, when the nurse assigned to this child was unqualified for the task. That is hardly a "pathological need" for anything.

Your analogy is like deciding someone must have murdered his girlfriend because he once slammed the door after a row with her

@Oftenaddled she always had to be in room 1 how you can deny this is beyond me. She literally told people she found the other rooms boring and found just feeding babies boring.

It was a bit late a week later. The point is there wasn't any risk, the doctors testified they never lost access so there was never any AE risk.

She denied having said she found others boring. You actually have a text from her one night pleased to be away from room one in a peaceful lower needs nursery. She was often in room 2 of course, as the records show. She presumably did prefer being with higher needs children most of the time, having chosen to take the intensive care qualification early. That is not a crime or a sign of criminality, unless we are to suspect all nurses choosing this focus.

It was the prosecution's job to blow everything they could up into evidence against her. It didn't have to be true or logical or rigorous - it was just a matter of flinging mud to see what would stick.

You are mixing up two datixes. The one about air embolism was for a child with a long line left open. The one about lost access was about Child O, the triplet who died. (This was misreported in the press also - ciphers were mixed up)

Datixes are for reporting incidents to reduce future risk. They aren't a call for help with the immediate problem. So to check, when you had time, whether something had been reported and to add the datix if not, was responsible behaviour.

In the case of the lost access, the point was to raise the problem with equipment not being available on the ward for alternative access. (For whatever reason, it's undisputed that the consultants conducting the resuscitation had used alternative access, after some delay)

It's not the same by any stretch of the imagination, also if the girlfriend could have died due to other reasons then people would absolutely be asking questions about whether he killed her or not.

We had a kind of similar case in Ireland a couple of years ago, a woman died and a man was initially arrested for assault, but released without charge and the detectives said they think there was more than one factor at play in the death, no idea what is happening now, but they don't just say ah she had a stalker ex or violent man in her life so therefore he killed her, they would have to actually verify how she died, not just say 'he did it'.

Yeah well she would deny it wouldn't she. Wow you really lap up everything she says don't you?

Others have testified she said it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-65029970

She is also said to have argued with a senior colleague when asked to work in an "outside nursery" where babies were treated in preparation for going home.
The unit was split into four rooms - intensive care in nursery one, high dependency care in nursery two and the outside nurseries of rooms three and four, the court has heard.
On Tuesday, senior nurse Kathryn Percival-Calderbank told jurors Ms Letby was "unhappy" if she was allocated shifts in either room three or four.
She said: "She expressed that she was unhappy at being put in the outside nurseries.
"She said it was boring and she didn't want to feed babies. She wanted to be in the intensive care."

She recalled an argument with Ms Letby who was "upset" at a shift allocation, sometime before June 2016.
"Lucy went into the outside nursery but she was not happy with the decision," she said.

This tells me, if nothing else that she's very unhappy when she doesn't get her way.

And why does she need to be filing datixes about something everyone already knows about then?

A Datix report can be about a specific incident or an ongoing risk. The Datix she made that related to the risk of air embolism was to do with leaving a long line access open. That actually sounds like a risk of infection to me, but I haven’t seen the actual report of course.

And why do you think she can't be killing patients via that method if you accept it's a potential harm.

I don’t think she couldn’t be. There’s no real evidence that she was, though.

There was air in their systems. I mean yes there aren't that many tell tale signs of AE but what there was matched.

After CPR, air in the system is not at all unusual. What tell tale signs matched? Don’t start on about rashes and skin discolouration again because you know full well by now, surely, that this is not diagnostic of a venous AE.

I mean do we really want it to be cart blanche for every psychopathic nurse to kill patients via AE?

No, of course not. But surely you don’t think we should be locking up all health
care staff on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence and dodgy stats?

Where did I say the bar of evidence for medical murders should be lower? If anything it's the innocence side who think evidence for her guilt should be to a higher standard.

Why do you say this? The bar is reasonable doubt, and should be in all cases.

You’re the one repeatedly saying things like: “I mean do we really want it to be cart blanche for every psychopathic nurse to kill patients via AE? All they have to do is make sure they don't get seen apparently, how hard do you think that is in a job like that?”, and going on about her having to prove her innocence.

And I’m not on the “innocence side”. I’m on the truth and justice side. Wild that you aren’t.

As I said, she denied this and did (from her text messages) work happily in the nursery on a later occasion. I'm not terribly bothered by this sort of he said - she said stuff on such a trivial matter.

It's reasonable that she should have wanted to work where her skills were used and developed, and if she was demanding on that point once or twice, it just doesn't amount to a "pathological need" for anything.

That's what her text said - "massive infection risk and risk of air embolism". I should have said the datix was about a UV line though, not a long line.

Well she's a liar then isn't she. Why would any of her colleagues just randomly make that up? It's hardly a trivial matter when it could be the entire reason she harmed babies in the first place. It's like saying a rapist hanging round a class full of women practicing yoga is "trivial". These were her victims FFS.

This was her workplace. All nurse had access to nursery 1. It's where the medication fridge was. They would all move between nurseries co-signing medications and babysitting.

The fact that she may have been irritable about being assigned to less challenging cases twice in over a year is not particularly significant. Only three of the babies she is accused of killing were assigned to her care in nursery 1 at the relevant time, so the idea that she relied on being placed there in charge of them to commit murders just doesn't work.

You are simply hanging far too much weight on vague smears from the prosecution.