Lucy Letby thread

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Starting this as don’t think we have a new one.

Al the major forums that followed the trial at the time-tattle, Lucy Letby reddit sub and websleuths. Although websleuths I think stopped their discussion a few months ago when it got inundated by truthers and there were lots of arguments (that site is heavily moderated) but you can read hundreds of pages from before they closed the thread to any new posts. All know she's guilty and would obliterate any innocence arguments in about a minute.

By obliterate, you mean ban, right?

If anyone had any scientifically sound counterarguments to the new information that's been released since the trial, the media would be all over it.

I can guarantee that eminent professors and their ilk are not hanging about on Reddit threads where anyone with a dissenting opinion is called a "truther" or accused of loving baby murderers.

What those three have in common, then, is that they are all closed forums. The reddit sub bans people who express doubt about the conviction, tattle life is invitation only, and websleuths, you tell us, has suspended discussion rather than debate.

That's interesting. I don't think any of them would obliterate anyone here. We've talked about the subreddit. Tattle just snipes. Websleuths I find virtually unreadable but like tattle, it's mostly just griping on this case when I've looked at it.

Plenty of members of the reddit forum also followed the trial, of course, and don't agree the verdict is safe, so they can't post there any more.

I appreciate the fact that you are willing to talk to people who disagree with you on this topic, anyway.

and that she couldn't possibly believe that anyone with any intelligence or understanding of the case would believe this could have been a miscarriage of justice, so she instantly loses credibility.

I see the same thing from the innocence side. Is it not the view of most of you that you'd have to be crazy to believe she's guilty at this point?

I do agree it's a shame they can't allow more discussions from the other side but at the end of the day the convictions stand, and she has plenty of subs defending her.

It's complete nonsense, hence their excitement when Susan Oliver posts a video or article.

No, I have no issue with people thinking she's guilty whatsoever, what I have an issue with is people saying that the evidence is sound despite the evidence now being shown to be incredibly problematic, they really do have to suspend reality to reach the conclusion that there's no issue with the evidence whatsoever.

I think most of us here feel the same.

Believing she is guilty despite the issues with the evidence is different than believing she's guilty and convincing yourself that there's no issues with the evidence when quite clearly the evidence and investigation are riddled with issues.

What those three have in common, then, is that they are all closed forums. The reddit sub bans people who express doubt about the conviction, tattle life is invitation only, and websleuths, you tell us, has suspended discussion rather than debate.

Yes but if the PP wants to learn more she can always go back and read the discussions even if she can't participate. Didn't know tattle life is invitation only now, wasn't when I joined. It was a shame websleuths closed their main discussion, I think there is still one running about the inquiry though.

I appreciate the fact that you are willing to talk to people who disagree with you on this topic, anyway.

Thank you. I think I am drawn to debates/arguments 😆at least you know your stuff, you could teach Amanda Knox a thing or two. Apparently she was still talking about the insulin cases as being insulin deaths and overfeeding being deaths-the babies didn't die in any of those cases! She's really not helping when she can't even get the basics right.

She can go back and read, but as most things they say go unchallenged because they ban everyone there's a lot of misinformation being spread.
It's a bit like chatgpt, you have to go elsewhere to test the claims.

Thank you. I think I am drawn to debates/arguments 😆

I think that's why you butt heads with people on here, especially me because the others have more patience that I do but I think most of us on here want good faith debate, and aren't drawn to arguments.

I think most of it would love to post any of the new updates and hear arguments for and against, without the vast majority of comments ending with digs/insults.

@kkloo I definitely don't want to have heated arguments. It can be a fine line with a case like this. If it was more balanced with a few people arguing the guilty side I'd be happy to sit back but like I said before, if I see someone making comments I don't agree with I find it very hard to ignore. I just can't believe we're at this point where more people believe in her innocence than not. I would prefer it if the pro-guilty people joined in more in these discussions but they tend to stick to their own subs. There's still plenty of them though even if we are outnumbered.

I think most of it would love to post any of the new updates and hear arguments for and against, without the vast majority of comments ending with digs/insults.

I am looking forward to this new book coming out next week, I mean I doubt he'll change my mind but I'm interested in what he has to say.

I definitely don't want to have heated arguments.

Well then, you could try presenting reasoned views without resorting to insults and jibes, and without introducing new squirrels.

I just can't believe we're at this point where more people believe in her innocence than not.

I don’t “believe in her innocence”. I think that since the trial (and, indeed, during the trial) that it has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that there were any murders or attacks. And if there were no murders or attacks, then neither she nor anyone else is guilty of murdering or attacking babies.

Do you understand this? I’m not asking you to agree, I’m asking whether you can understand and accept that people genuinely have good faith grave concerns about the safety of the conviction, because the medical and statistical evidence of there having been any murders or attacks is weak.

It’s a simple question. If you can’t answer it without resorting to ad hominem attacks, ask yourself why that is.

I would prefer it if the pro-guilty people joined in more in these discussions but they tend to stick to their own subs.

Ask yourself which “side” has created its own echo chamber, and then ask yourself why they have done that.

I’ve just read the last several pages of the websleuths thread, and am not seeing any obliteration of the posters who are questioning the safety of the conviction.

The last post, as the thread was being closed, says

The jury has spoken and there is absolutely no reason to still be bickering and resorting to rude comments toward other members, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the jury's decision.

The verdict-questioning “side” are not the ones throwing the insults and posting in shouty caps.

Thank you, I hadn't heard of Websleuths so will check them out. The other two unfortunately are extremely poor quality groupthink territory, but that's what happens when someone turns up to the trial most days and thinks that means they know what they're talking about.

I don’t “believe in her innocence”. And then saying And if there were no murders or attacks, then neither she nor anyone else is guilty of murdering or attacking babies. How is that not believing in her innocence?

Do you understand this? I’m not asking you to agree, I’m asking whether you can understand and accept that people genuinely have good faith grave concerns about the safety of the conviction, because the medical and statistical evidence of there having been any murders or attacks is weak.

Yes, I just think you've been massively mislead.

Ask yourself which “side” has created its own echo chamber, and then ask yourself why they have done that.

Probably because they think the new "evidence" is nonsense and there's no point arguing about it!

Your last point is what I struggle with the most. How does a 20-year-retired, unnoteworthy pediatrician's medical opinion hold more weight than an internationally renowned neonatologist and Professor and a panel of11 other experts of similar standing?

I genuinely cannot begin to understand how people still have faith in the evidence Evans gave when he himself has backtracked on at least some of it, and it has no support from the wider medical community.

It just makes no sense to me.

This is such a good point. He offered himself as an expert witness when he was a paediatrician, not a neonatologist, and it sounded like a case he could do. I mean surely the police's response is thanks, but we’ll choose our own expert from our panel.

Except anyone can set themselves up as an expert witness, who is paid and shouldn’t allocate guilt but advise on the evidence. They’re not supposed to go in assuming guilt or looking for evidence to “prove” guilt. Evans didn’t do any of that.

Exactly.

Evans made things up, things that have never been seen in medicine before and have no basis in reality. His evidence is quite literally a badly written, unresearched piece of fiction. They might as well have asked James Patterson to come up with causes of death; at least then they might have some sense.

You have misrepresented what I said.

I said I don’t “believe in her innocence”. I think that since the trial (and, indeed, during the trial) that it has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that there were any murders or attacks. And if there were no murders or attacks, then neither she nor anyone else is guilty of murdering or attacking babies.

You chose to omit the bolded section about reasonable doubt. And my last sentence is conditional; hardly the faith-based position you attribute to me.

To be clear - there is, in my view, reasonable doubt, in abundance. This means the conviction is unsafe. This is not the same as believing someone is innocent.

I think she 's guilty and so presumably did her legal advisors. Or else why didn't they call any expert witnesses for her defence.

No one knows why the defence did not use their expert witnesses, but they were defending Letby with one hand tied behind their backs; we do know that.

The defence experts believe that the babies died because of poor medical care, but any evidence the defence had to support this was ruled inadmissible, so how could they make their case?
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Noah Robinson's death was inadmissible. As were the reports from RCPCH, which highlighted a failing unit, and they didn't disclose to the defence that they approached Hutton.

Don't you think if his theories were so outlandish they wouldn't ever have been backed up by Martin Ward Platt and Sandie Bohin? AND a pathologist for the baby with the liver injury? It simply makes no sense that everyone would jump on board his crazy theories. If anyone is being scapegoated surely it's Dewi Evans at this point. All I see is criticism of him.

It's almost like two realities at this point-what happened in court where everyone was basically in agreement this was deliberate harm and what's happened since. It's all just speculation and theories. I'm not saying the court system is infallible but it's certainly more robust than just believing any old expert that wants to put his 2 cents in! Shoo Lee only collected the cases of others together, he's not an expert in air embolism. It's not even his work.

Well Lucy was basically experimenting on babies, how often do you expect to find what she did in medical literature? Aside from other known healthcare SK cases it'd have to be accidental and most nurses are trying to avoid what she was deliberately doing. If some serial killer finds some new way to harm they should get away with it because it's not covered enough in medical literature?

What evidence is there that any of the babies had air embolism?

I think that when there is zero physical evidence and no eyewitnesses to "the new ways to harm," there should at least be some studies into the viability of the theories put forward, especially when other, more common causes of the symptoms that do exist in medical literature are present.

Lee saw several cases of air embolism himself. That's when he saw "Lee's sign", the distinctive discoloration he has described. It's also what prompted him to write his first study. That was the first of two review studies, where he gathered together all of the published information on cases of infant air embolism.

That's how you study rare events like this. Doctors study case studies, and scholars gather them into literature reviews.

This work makes Lee the pre-eminent expert in infant air embolism.

It's a good question. We don't really know what Platt Ward wrote. We know Bohin mostly backed up Evans's theories. It's a shame she wasn't asked to work independently

My assumption is that she (and others) were persuaded that there were too many cases to be innocent, and there is no smoke without fire, so they went along with Evans. She perhaps didn't check Lee's work herself and just used Evans's interpretation. She may have believed Evans when he said that air in the stomach was a clinically proven murder method.

When you read her evidence at trial, she says some pretty incredible things. I don't know why she would, unless she really believed it was necessary to put a murderer away.

It's a shame that we will never know how the expert reports would have looked if Cheshire Police hadn't relied so heavily on Evans