Lucy Letby thread

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

Several cases? And yet he claims if COCH was his hospital it would've been shut down! Guess his own place of work was horrifically negligent too then. Or he's you know, exaggerating.

No, there's a simple explanation for the number Lee saw.

Lee and Tanswell (his supervisor) wrote the first of Lee's two review articles on air embolism in the 1980s. This included observations on the cases they had seen.

Why had they seen cases? Because surfactant wasn't widely used in the 1980s to give elasticity to premature babies' lungs - trials were underway. So if they were in an advanced enough facility to be placed on a ventilator to save their lives, there was a risk of rupture to the pulmonary arteries, causing arterial air embolism.

Surfactant has transformed our ability to save premature children. We used to save 5% with respiratory distress syndrome below 1.5kg. With surfactant it is 95%. And with premature babies with any respiratory distress (which is pretty much all of significantly premature babies) now routinely receiving surfactant, the risk of damaging their lungs through ventilation is much reduced.

In the 1980s, Lee was able to make proposals to change the manufacture of equipment used in ventilators to reduce the risk of air embolism. So you see, observing and reviewing these cases was very much worth doing, and his work in this area saved lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_George_Davis

Just came across this case. He killed by injecting air into patients. They had difficultly proving some of the deaths so didn't bring charges for them-shows how hard this method is to prove. He confessed later on to another death so he definitely did it.

That's very tragic. In this case, though, we have images of air in the brain while the patient was still living. That is one of the recognized signs of air embolism that was lacking in Lucy Letby's case.

Nobody is denying that air embolism exists and can be administered deliberately. But there is no evidence that this happened in Lucy Letby's case, unlike the case above. In her case, all the symptoms the prosecution claimed meant air embolism have much more common explanations that are consistent with the children's medical histories.

@Oftenaddled clearly not for the ones he wasn't charged with? So he got away with those, even though we know for sure he killed the others. That adds weight to LL being guilty too imo-it's clearly very hard to prove. If she hadn't tried to poison babies with insulin maybe she would've got off the AE charges. This man is a good example as to why you can't let HK serial killers get away with it-imagine if they didn't have those scans you say they relied on to prove it? Would they have had to let him go? And yet there's no question he killed them.

There's no evidence any baby suffered an air embolism during Lucy Letby's time at Chester.

There are plausible explanations for all deaths and collapses.

I know you are troubled by the fact that some murder methods might not be easily detected. But that doesn't mean Lucy Letby killed anyone.

Does it help to note what Lee's panel explained about the air embolism claims? They said that you wouldn't just need to inject an air bubble. You'd need to flush the line afterwards to restart it (or people would notice it had stopped). But an alarm would sound first. And in all of the air embolism cases there were other people in the room. So how was Lucy Letby supposed to inject an air embolism and then flush the line after the baby's collapse, without them noticing?

Is it not more likely the children died of something else?

I don't think Ward Platt's agreement carries much weight in your argument. He was also a prosecution expert in the Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony cases which both led to convictions that were overturned.

How do you reach the conclusion that criticism of Dewi equals scapegoating?

Here you are, arguing for a lower bar for reasonable doubt in the case of healthcare murders.

That adds weight to LL being guilty too imo-it's clearly very hard to prove.

This is not logical. There being a difficult-to-detect method of murder doesn’t mean that the method has been used. At all. And for a person to be found guilty of murder, there needs to be evidence of murder.

You also missed my question last night. What evidence is there that air embolism caused or contributed to any babies’ deaths or collapses?

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?

You've made lots of comments like this before, while denying that you'd accept a lower standard of proof in medical cases and instead insisting that the rest of us want a higher standard than normal, when neither are true.

I expect to see the same standard all murder cases, concrete evidence of murder and then concrete evidence that the accused was the one who did it.
I certainly wouldn't be ok with accepting theories when there are other valid explanations for what caused the death/deaths.

But on the other hand you think that if a person might be a serial killer and it's difficult to prove (REALLY prove) due to the alleged nature of the method of murder then you're content with theories of harm even when there are other explanations.

Lee has identified many incidences of poor, delayed care contributing to patient harm at COCH. These are the reasons he said that a unit with such problems in Canada would have been closed down.

Back in the 1980s, Lee was working at the cutting edge of neonatal care. In those days survival was poor, as outlined by Oftenaddled. For you to use this to attack him is disingenous, or ignorant. Only you know which.

I've listened to the podcasts recommended
I have serious doubts that the conviction is safe
This should be concerning for everyone

It's not a lower bar if you've got circumstantial evidence-which the Letby case did. I can't seem to find that much info for the above case. This guy didn't use insulin, Letby did. Which is a bit more than circumstantial evidence. I believe those test results to be accurate, you don't which is fine. But at the time of the trial they were certainly seen as accurate and proof of attempted murder as well. Although obviously she was suspected by the consultants way before they found the insulin. If you've got an impossible to detect method of murder then I think we can all agree that's a problem.

This is not logical. There being a difficult-to-detect method of murder doesn’t mean that the method has been used. At all. And for a person to be found guilty of murder, there needs to be evidence of murder.

Well you'd be saying the same thing for the above serial killer, and any future ones. We know the above was true because he eventually confessed. Obviously in 99.99% of units it wouldn't be indicative of murder as there would be other plausible explanations and no circumstantial evidence pointing to one staff member.

You also missed my question last night. What evidence is there that air embolism caused or contributed to any babies’ deaths or collapses?

Because I think I answered it earlier in another thread. Sudden catastrophic collapse, inability to resuscitate, one of the babies suddenly started responding after a long time (because the air block finally moved) which the doctors couldn't explain. Rash in some of the babies, air in the x-rays. No natural decline as would be expected. no other explanation. One staff member present each time.

Rash in some of the babies

Why is this indicative of air embolism?

@Firefly1987 Have you read any of Lee's report? All of the things you have pointed out as unexplained or evidence of murder have been disproven or explained.

The collapses were not sudden or unexpected; the early warning signs were missed.

The tests have never been seen as accurate enough to use in court, as stated on the manufacturer's website. Antibiotics, which all the babies were on increase the risk of false positives. Regardless, the C-peptides were within the normal range for neonates.

The air in the X-rays was in the stomach; this is not evidence of arterial air embolism. Evans himself has admitted that no babies were killed because of air through the NG tube. Air in the stomach is common in babies on CPAP, and can also be a result of resucitation or infection.

Lee's rash is only seen in 10% of arterial embolisms, so why did Evans' find it in 100% of the babies he examined? Could it be that it was not Lee's sign, but a symptom of something else, such as sepsis, which we know causes a rash, and we know was present on the ward. There was no other evidence of air embolism when there should have been.

It's not strong circumstantial evidence though.

I've mentioned on here before that we had a case in Ireland where they couldn't tell the cause of death when the victims remains were found in a forest, and the state pathologist was very surprised by the guilty verdict due to the lack of forensic evidence, but in that case the circumstantial case was ridiculously strong, the killer had been messaging the victim saying he wanted to kill her etc, she was saying she didn't want to be killed,(very dark BDSM relationship), loads of evidence he had an obsession with wanting to murder women, both of their phones that they used to contact each other were dumped together along with her personal belongings etc etc. there was an incredible amount of circumstantial evidence which pointed directly to murder.

The only other possible explanation was that she had killed herself, but there was just no way when looking at all of the other evidence that this could have been what happened, because the evidence was so incredibly strong and pointed directly to murder.

What does the circumstantial evidence in the Letby case actually show?

https://archive.is/beZX3

The papers include one written by an American paediatric neurologist in 1981, which described an almost immediate, but transient dark blue skin discoloration in a full-term baby boy after air was accidentally pumped into a vein in his scalp; another written by a South African neonatologist in 2003 which noted an infant with a venous catheter that developed ‘blue-black skin with blotchy red patches and extremely pale feet’ ; and one by an Israeli doctor, in 1996, which also described flitting skin mottling in a baby who had air mistakenly introduced into their circulation via an intravenous line in the foot.

I don't think you quite understand what "unsafe conviction" means @Firefly1987. No one is saying she is innocent. We are saying the evidence did not meet the threshold for reasonable doubt as it was presented in court.

Evans testified that air embolism could be the only possible cause of death. This is factually incorrect. No one is arguing that the diagnosis in Lee's reports was incorrect; they are only debating the rash as it presents in air embolism.

Even if that article is taken at face value (I CBA to do any further reading on it tonight), then the conviction is still unsafe. There are other possible causes for the collapses and deaths, causes which are far more common than an implausibly stealthy serial killing nurse.

@Frequency No one is saying she is innocent. We are saying the evidence did not meet the threshold for reasonable doubt as it was presented in court.

Yeah I know you think that. I don't, doesn't mean I don't understand. It's your opinion only, it's not set in stone.

Evans testified that air embolism could be the only possible cause of death. This is factually incorrect. No one is arguing that the diagnosis in Lee's reports was incorrect; they are only debating the rash as it presents in air embolism.

Lee got debunked. Maybe he'll go away now. If the deaths were natural causes the doctors would've seen what happened to the babies before. Now unless Shoo Lee can find some super obscure never before seen virus or affliction that was only operating on that unit in a one year time period, then it was air embolism.

Drs have seen what happened to these babies before, that's rather the point. None of the causes of death Lee pinpointed are obscure or unknown. They are common in neonates and usually treatable. Unfortunately, they were either not picked up on time or not treated correctly in these cases.

No one has "debunked" Lee. The debate is whether air could cross into the artery via the heart, and whether this could cause a rash, something which Lee has never denied.

@Firefly1987
Yeah I know you think that. I don't, doesn't mean I don't understand. It's your opinion only, it's not set in stone.

So you understand....great, maybe you can stop equating the 2 things then over and over?

I gave in and looked into the claims made by Prof Clarke. Lee addressed all of them back in Feb '25.

https://pubpeer.com/publications/457C9A9DF7B389621C9FEC4CE3FE7D#2

Yes. Clarke admitted after the Daily Mail published that article that he had missed the reference to additional sources in Lee and Zhou's article (if he had read it at all), so had inaccurately claimed they had missed certain articles. Not exactly reassuring.

Lee and Tanswell had deliberately excluded one, which they did not believe had been air embolism, but that was the case with the infant whose entire back turned blue black (1981). I have no idea why anyone thinks that sounds like Lee's sign (pink/red discoloration branching out along arterial system with skin otherwise cyanosed).

The consultants were perfectly satisfied with the causes of death for babies, C, D, E and I at least until they started thinking they were seeing patterns. Some causes of death remain unascertained in any setting, as with baby A. They were part timers in a level 2 neonatal ward, with nothing like the experience of level 3 consultants or full time neonatologists.

Why would you consider them more likely to identify cause of death than the pathologists who examined the bodies, or the genuine experts who went through the case notes? They spent most of their time on the pediatrics ward at a provincial hospital, and filled in at neonates one week in six. Not one of them concentrated on the neonatal unit. Until they started taking on more acute cases in 2015, they'd have seen about one infant death each every two years. They weren't experts in treating newborns at risk. That's how all this happened.

I’ll ask you again. Why does a rash indicate air embolism and not anything else?

Lee’s sign is characteristic of air embolism, but the babies in question did not exhibit Lee’s sign.

The existence of hypoxic skin discolouration (such as in the photos in that article) is caused by other diseases, including systemic infections and blood clots.

Hull’s article is junk, and Clarke misunderstood and misrepresented Zhou and Lee’s paper. The latter is not a matter for debate.

'air in the x-rays' - is that the x-ray that was taken before LL met the baby?