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

I think there is a big difference between 'She did it' and 'They proved she did it'. I rather suspect that if we was re-tried it would fall in they would fail to prove she did it.

No. You misunderstood.

That is all that should have been necessary, and it's the approach her first defence took - to try to prove the prosecution's theories invalid without proving cause of death.

Her defence now has plenty of material on alternative causes of death. But they would never have been able to find dozens of world leading experts on Lucy Letby's salary and legal aid. She's only had access to this expertise because the prosecution case was so obviously problematic that experts were willing to work for nothing.

There’s lots of interesting points made, so I'm going to throw out all the things which make me feel she is guilty to see what’s made of them here - genuinely interested in what Letby supporters have to say on:

Baby E’s mother’s evidence re Baby E’s blood and screaming, which contradicts Letby’s and supports the likelihood of physical harm done. The mother’s evidence timings was proved by corroboration with phone call records.

The altered notes that didn’t fit with other evidence, particularly around child I, but that gave Letby an alibi.

The repeated and unexplained collapses of Child I, and the links with when Letby had access to her, alone - this was really carefully gone over in court. Child I also spent time at Arrowe Park, improved, and was discharged back to COC, so was deemed well enough to no longer need a tertiary setting. What happened to her is just heartbreaking.

also re Child I: Letby being unable to see her from the angle of the door to see thst she was pale, and ‘I knew what I was looking for… at’ in court

The coincidence of two sets of twins both having one with hypoglycaemia that would not respond to glucose, and one with the unexplained rash

on the insulin: I am not sure that the new insulin research actually changes what I think happened with the babies, as that research looks at asymptomatic infants and not those which are showing symptoms of hypoglycaemia. To be of use to Letby wouldn’t it need to explain why a baby might have these insulin antibodies in the first place, but by some mechanism this suddenly stopped working, meaning there was a rush of insulin into baby’s system which was difficult to correct through multiple boluses of glucose - but then suddenly righted itself? Or is there another reason apart from excessive insulin which explains the symptoms these babies were having? So I’m not sure this phenomenon really explains what was seen in Child F and Child L. Child L was hypoglycaemic at birth in any case, and this had been addressed and he’d responded to treatment - but then didn’t respond later on under Letby’s care?

It feels like there’s a concerted attempt to challenge individual bits of evidence against Letby, but no attempt to challenge the detailed timeline that made up the bulk of the case against her in court. I’m still struggling to see her as innocent when thinking of the whole picture.

This isn’t true - legal aid funds are deep for a case like this. Letby had many expert witnesses ready to testify: she just did not choose to call them under advice from her legal team.

Baby E’s mother’s evidence re Baby E’s blood and screaming, which contradicts Letby’s and supports the likelihood of physical harm done. The mother’s evidence timings was proved by corroboration with phone call records.

What about blood and screaming supports intentional harm? Baby E died because it had 2 haemorrhages - at least 20% of blood volume and did not receive a blood transfusion until 30 mins before death. No evidence of air embolism. No evidence of intentional harm.

Haven't the timings been proved to be wrong as well? As the recorded ward timings are not accurate, and there is also one with phone timings that are an hour out due to how the phone company sent them.

Legal aid funds are reasonably deep, but you have to justify the use of them. Justifying a multidisciplinary international expert review of causes of death would have been difficult, since the defence was never under any obligation to prove cause of death. Getting a couple of dozen highly qualified experts working on the case? Unlikely legal aid would be granted. It's not a bottomless pit.

There was an issue that all the clinical notes and witness statements were in line with each other (not just LL) and out of synch with the times of the mother’s call logs. Thus is has been suggested that the phone company may have recorded the time logs in GMT instead BST ie +1 hour.

Yes. Lucy Letby's times tie in with independent records by the doctor in charge of the baby, and the midwife on another ward. The most likely explanation is that the mother's timings are out by an hour. I can't see how else it can be explained.

Child I actually had one of her collapses in Arrowe Park, in front of her parents and doctors, and at least two others at Chester when Lucy Letby wasn't on shift. What it comes down to is whether you trust Evans and Bohin as to whether the collapses when Lucy Letby was around were somehow different from the others. Given that even in court they were still rearranging their facts about causes, I would not be inclined to believe them.

There is a (very sad) explanation for the child collapsing more often by night than by day, as the Thirlwall statement from her mother shows. She and her husband could not be with the baby at night, but at day they kept having to remind staff that their baby needed to be positioned a particular way to breathe easily. While doctors were looking ahead to testing for other issues, they were desperately concerned about the child's respiratory difficulties. (If Lee's panel is right, that is what precipitated the death)

You can read her statement at https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/transcript/transcript-of-part-a-evidence-mother-d-mother-i-tuesday-17-september-2024/

The dispute over whether Lucy Letby could see child I's pallor is based on a reconstruction from photographs of remembered lighting. Lighting, and what angle she was standing at and exactly where, are not things I'd seriously expect any witness to remember several years on.

I can never see why people find the "I knew what I was looking for / at" comment sinister. This was a child who had had numerous collapses. She could surely be looking out for the effects of one whether she caused it or not?

The coincidence of two sets of twins both having one with hypoglycaemia that would not respond to glucose, and one with the unexplained rash

Both rashes and hypoglycemia are common in unwell neonates, and it's not surprising that twin offspring of complex pregnancies in intensive care would both be unwell in the first, most vulnerable, days of life. Neither was noted as having an unusual rash at the time or in contemporary medical records. Discoloration would not be unusual in a child requiring resuscitation.

I'm not sure I understand your point on the insulin cases, @Barbie222 . Higher insulin levels wouldn't imply antibodies had "stopped working", that I can see. Could you explain what you are getting at there?

The altered notes that didn’t fit with other evidence, particularly around child I, but that gave Letby an alibi.

Would you mind explaining what you're referring to here too please?

@Barbie222
It feels like there’s a concerted attempt to challenge individual bits of evidence against Letby, but no attempt to challenge the detailed timeline that made up the bulk of the case against her in court.

It's probably been said but that is how appeals and CCRC submissions work, they don't go through the whole timeline of the case, they try to show that pieces of evidence etc were flawed.

However individuals have definitely pointed to lots of issues with the timeline.

Genuinely shocking, like so much in this case!

I don't really see how else you'd do it, to be honest.

The timeline is made up of many assertions fitted (in my opinion jammed) together. To unpick the narrative, of course you have to unpick the detail.

If there was one big easy alternative explanation, of course one could go with a big bang approach and explode it all. But those possibilities - another murderer? a single unnoticed natural cause for all the other deaths? - are all much less likely than, actually there are different explanations for all of the deaths and collapses, and a variety of flaws in the case for pinning them on Lucy Letby.

Isn't that just what reality tends to look like?

Barbie’s claim isn’t correct though - the case stands and falls on the medical evidence - that evidence has now been thoroughly, comprehensively demolished.

That Barbie focuses on screams and phone calls in Baby E, for example, suggests she hasn’t actually engaged with the medical data, or hasn’t understood how fundamental that is to the case. If that is wrong, the screams and phone calls are by the by.

Exactly and some who are pro guilt have complained many times that those who think the verdict is unsafe pick all the individual things apart and don't concentrate on the bigger things, how many times have we been told 'oh there's an answer for everything isn't there, absolutely anything as long as LL didn't do it 🙄" but there is answers for them all.

And then we're told to look at the entirety and still see her as guilty, even though the 'entirety' of the case is made up of all of the pieces for which there are other explanations. 🙉

Yes, no case can withstand that many challenges to the medical evidence forever, but some think that a narrative (even if not backed up) is enough to keep someone locked up for a whole life order.

One thing that goes through my mind, is if Lucy Letby didn't exist, and no other person could be placed in situ as she was, but all the deaths and collapses had still occurred as detailed, what would the explanation have been? This, to me, is the crux of the matter. The only reason this became a criminal matter is because "she was there". And no matter which way you cut it, that is what drove the investigation, and meant the medical evidence was viewed through that lens and twisted to fit.

Yes, if she's exonerated they're not going to look for the 'real murderer'. They will just say there was no murderer.

@Barbie222

The issue with the timeline is there are times when the procection got it wrong, and she wasn't there.
Or that she must have done something before and set it up and she wasn't there to do it.

@Barbie222

The issue with the timeline is there are times when the procection got it wrong, and she wasn't there.
Or that she must have done something before and set it up and she wasn't there to do it.