AIBU to suggest the Letby trial shows madness of UK legal system

[Neversofaraway]

The babies had post mortem exams, death certificates written and say the cause of death was natural causes.
12 amateurs in the jury say the babies were murdered.
Then, inquests into deaths are started.
What will happen if the inquests decide it was natural causes after all? No wonder the inquests are delayed.
Shouldn't the inquests be done before a murder trial? If there is concern shouldn't the cause of death be established before a trial and not expect a jury to decide on such tricky matters when even the doctors are struggling?

Corrupt is dishonesty, yes? According to the Cambridge dictionary it is dishonestly using your power for gain.

This has permeated all the way through the Letby case from the consultants, the police, Dewi Evans, and yes the judge in permitting Dewi Evans’ input despite knowing he was not presenting a balanced and measured case and the press.

The whole thing is an absolute disgrace.

The study that was used to show insulin poisoning. It was old I remember, and obscure. Canadian I think. Because it is so rare not many pathologists would know about it. And they can't exactly verify it by experiment.

Oh I see. But in the case of the insulin, hypoglycaemia in pre-term infants is well documented and understood. Factitious insulin was not suspected at the time, and the results did not give any of the clinicians pause at the time.

And even more importantly there were no pathologist findings because these babies did not die.

I actually don’t know the study you’re talking about. Do you have more details about its premise please?

I suspect there may be some confusion with Shoo Lees original papers about AE as I have just googled and poked around and can't come up with anything Canadian pertaining particularly to insulin used in the case. And I think this shows nicely that complex medical cases are fraught with the possibility of confusion. Happy to be corrected if there is something specific out there, as I can't claim to be an expert, but I have read quite alot around the case and this rings no bells.

I'm not a medic but what I've never understood about the insulin case is why is the insulin not accounted for? Surely it should be signed off by someone from the supplies? Could any nurse just go and help themselves to a dose of insulin?

Controls are stricter now, but in those days there would be no reconciliation of quantities left in the multi dose vials.

The theory in this case is (I think) that LL removed some insulin from one of the part dose vials on the ward. It’s unlikely that anyone would have noticed that a 10mL vial contained a mL or two less than expected because reconciliation checks are (or at least were) not made.

The quantity of insulin needed (taking into account the adsorption onto the bags issue) to cause the lab results received is unknown.

The jury system is awful. The general standard of critical thinking and knowledge of psychology is nowhere near where it needs to be for random juries to be able to weigh up evidence appropriately.

But can I come up with a better system? Not really.

And this alone makes the insulin convictions incredibly unsafe as they are based on opinion and theory, not beyond reasonable doubt

Yes.

Were the medics asked why they didn’t follow up the lab results that are now being used as evidence of LL being a poisoner? This is what I just don’t understand. Why send off a sample and then ignore the shocking results, unless it’s not that unusual to get weird results? Or are we just talking incompetence again?

I suspect that because the babies stabilised / recovered the medics moved on and perhaos didn't think they were worth pursuing . The insulin results were found down the line when deep dives were done to accumulate potentially incriminating evidence against Lucy Letby. A third case was dismissed as I recall despite showing similar anomalous results. The fact that the lab used clearly states that their results are not suitable for forensic purposes and further testing should be done, should, in my opinion, have excluded them as reliable evidence.

Those babies were at the edge of life before they got to NICU. They died because they were just too poorly to be healed, even by brilliant doctors and nurses. No-one murdered them. I don't know how the members of that jury sleep at night.

I think it is very possible this demonstrates corruptuon. Too many babies were dying at that hospital, there's a reason for that. If it wasn't an evil nurse, it was poor management, negligance, understaffing etc etc. There are plenty of people who'd want to cover that up.

I'm not saying that is what happened, I'm not expert enough to comment, but I do think it's a viable possibility, with so many experts having concerns with the evidence.

Unfortunately the prosecution narrative was that all the babies were pretty much stable and healthy according to the doctors and their experts and the more complex aspects were glossed over. I imagine some of the jurors are questioning it all now given the new information coming to light. I feel sorry for them, the babies families especially, and Lucy Letby. It's a shocking mess for everyone involved, and seriously undermines the credibility of the justice system.

@SnakesAndArrows

Think that was it. I am just a layperson going by memory.

Its an ethics minefield. I remember it vaguely because I do stuff on cause and effect, but with objects, as an Engineer. But can't do that with people. Reminded me of Operation Paperclip at the end of WW2. And how some of the medical stuff was used.