Lucy Letby thread

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

As things stand, perhaps the most significant difference between the cases is that no medical expert has criticised the science on which the case is built in the other conviction you've brought up here. The defence expert witness, as I understand it, suggested that alternative explanations existed but did not deny that the prosecution provided plausible explanations too.

That is very very far from where things stand in Lucy Letby's case.

Who knows, some experts could come out in a years' time claiming they're actually innocent and there's another very plausible explanation.

This is a hypothetical that applies to most cases.

It is extremely crass however to try to bring up a hypothetical that could happen in any case and then try to say this could happen in the Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley case when it hasn't happened and there is zero reason to think that it will happen and is extremely far fetched to suggest it might happen given the evidence against them, just because you are so fixated on trying to make the cases seem similar.

You're certainly not one to talk about the moral high ground, your arguments are in the gutter.

Jamie Varley was having dark thoughts? When was this published?

If this woman is cleared of these crimes then they need to look into all the higher up professionals that have passed the blame onto this poor woman who was actually doing her job and should have repercussions for their part and actions involved in this case.

Ravi Jayaram in particular is skating on thin ice.

Can someone explain about the notes found in her house? Where she apparently ‘confessed’ to having done it?

I initially accepted the guilty verdict and was surprised when my adult son said he thought she may be innocent after watching ITV's Lucy Letby Beyond Reasonable Doubt. I have since watched this hour long programme that provides a very compelling case, through interviews / reports from true experts in their fields (that had access to the babies records), that challenge the safety of her conviction and point instead to significant substandard care at the unit. At very least there needs to be a retrial.

Whatever your position or emotions are about this case, people need to be careful about what they discuss in a public forum if they want to ensure any retrial remains fair and unprejudiced.

Suspect that's probably been and gone, tbh. Though honestly I'm not confident the case could even be retried again. The prosecution experts from last time won't be available, and anyone taking it on would have to be ok with scrutiny massively outweighing any fee they might get.

Tbf I would probably have to agree @IonianNerveGrip

Here's a good article on that subject from the Times:

https://archive.is/XQdzG

There are a few things to note. One is that these notes weren't technically a confession. A confession in legal cases comes when the accused admits to the police, prosecution or court that they have done something (even if they do so only temporarily or under duress). These were private notes.

The notes express extreme distress as well as contradictory comments on both guilt and innocence. Lucy Letby herself explained that she was writing about how the process - being excluded from the ward, being the subject of a police investigation - made her feel. That's basically what the expert comment on these reports comes down to too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx214422272o

Gee said that on one occasion Varley arrived at her house with the baby, very flustered and agitated. Preston had a blue plaster cast on his arm.
She told the jury: "He told me how he was having harmful thoughts towards the baby in terms of drowning or suffocation.
"He was still agitated at this point.
"He was very quick to say this was something he was not going to act upon.
"I believed him, I have children of my own and sometimes your thoughts go to dark places."
Varley told her he had told the same to his employer and he was having welfare home visits arranged by the school.
"I did not do anything about it," Gee said.
"I believed it was all being dealt with."

I've always been a bit bemused that people pick up so much more on the I killed them than the haven't done anything wrong bit. Half the internet thinking they're psychological expert enough to have an informed opinion on what a serial killer would/wouldn't do is probably inevitable. But the notes said both. If you think her writing something is a piece of evidence about her motives, saying she both did and didn't do it doesn't help either way.

And of course it just flies straight over your head that it's exactly how people feel when it's claimed Letby is innocent. Even though you insist it's different. To the people who know she's guilty it feels the same as anyone defending them. And I wouldn't defend them, I'm extremely relieved one got a WLO and the other a substantial sentence. I'm trying to point out that's how it feels to have someone defend such evil so you might just get how abhorrent it is-and yet you still don't!

No one thought experts were going to come out defending Letby when the trial had just finished but here we are.

But how you or anyone feels about a scientific challenge to any court case doesn't matter. The question is whether the science stands up, and whether the conviction is safe.

We can all be equally saddened by child deaths and injuries, but the fact that they are tragic events doesn't in itself make them crimes. Science is needed to prove that, in cases without eyewitnesses or obvious murder weapons, and that means we have to consider whether that science is reliable.

Not remotely like anything Lucy Letby said. She is never known to have spoken of wanting to harm a child. I wonder if such dark thoughts really are as common as that witness implied?

It certainly doesn't fly over my head that some people choose to make out that people are doing something abhorrent instead of actually responding to people in a rational way, understanding that no one is trying to cause harm or pain, they just believe the convictions are unsafe.

And it IS a choice at this point, people have explained to you many times (like you are 5) but you still persist in making your little digs and trying to make out that it means something about peoples morals if they are not convinced by the convictions.

In this case the hypothetical has actually happened, that's what seems to fly over your head. This is one of those rare cases where the hypothetical has actually happened, and many experts are saying the evidence does not add up and that the convictions are unsafe.

That is not the case for Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley and you're the one suggesting it, if you think it's so abhorrent regarding the LL case it is extremely abhorrent for you to just imagine the same might happen in that case when it hasn't, simply to try to point score.

Stop treating this like you're 'trying to get through to people' because you're fooling no one. As stated, many of us have explained this to you like you're 5, clearly, plainly and painstakingly and yet you choose to approach every thread as if you don't understand peoples reasons for not being convinced by the verdicts, and instead just want to make out that instead it's just people being abhorrent.

No but I was asked what comments he made.

Lucy just couldn't wait to see her first child death. Being a nurse she didn't have to explicitly say she wanted to cause a death. It's still not a healthy mindset for a nurse to have.

I would think Varley's friend likened it to things like "ooh I could strangle my kid today" but these comments were far worse. Referring to him as "dead meat" and the above. There is a huge difference. I'm actually gobsmacked he was openly saying stuff like that.

Your comment just confirms you are not a nurse and have never worked closely with people who are likely or expected to die.

I've had similar conversations as a carer. It is not because you want anyone to die, it's because you know it is inevitable, you don't know how you will cope, and the worry over reacting badly/doing the wrong thing is at the back of your mind before every shift.

I don't believe I brought up those two in the first place. You can't deny before their horrific crimes they shared similar characteristics with Letby though. They got to mid-30s without anyone suspecting anything about their characters or what they could be capable of. People say the same for Letby-there were no previous red flags. An ordinary sociable woman with lots of friends just doesn't do what she did. That excuse has now gone out the window. I mean you'll always have Shoo Lee to cling to as long as he's enjoying the spotlight but that's about it.

Stop treating this like you're 'trying to get through to people' because you're fooling no one. As stated, many of us have explained this to you like you're 5, clearly, plainly and painstakingly and yet you choose to approach every thread as if you don't understand peoples reasons for not being convinced by the verdicts, and instead just want to make out that instead it's just people being abhorrent.

Funny because I expect most 5 year olds can see that she's very obviously guilty. And yes when you've got people trying to say "I can't wait to see my first death" is perfectly normal for a nurse, they do need someone to get through to them. That's what a normal nurse is thinking about on their very first day is it?

“It took me aback because for me, the thought of having to experience that was something that actually, even though I was a trained nurse, you don’t actively want to happen."

Doesn't matter who brought them up, it's about the arguments you use, and I did see you bring them up in a previous thread when someone brought up Blackstones ratio...something like 'ooh so you'll want Varley to walk free then?'.

Funny because I expect most 5 year olds can see that she's very obviously guilty

Well you would wouldn't you cos you think it's like a game of cluedo.

. And yes when you've got people trying to say "I can't wait to see my first death" is perfectly normal for a nurse, they do need someone to get through to them

You're getting through to no one btw because your arguments are weak and you have never expressed any real understanding of normal human psychology so you can't possibly educate anyone on what is abnormal.

The words the other nurse reported, over a decade later so probably not to be taken as gospel, were that she couldn't wait to get her first death over with. That's a phrase, of course, that we use about things we don't anticipate enjoying. But it will always be possible to find a few things in someone's life you can twist, if that is what you are looking for.

@Oftenaddled I can't imagine that being on anyone's mind, I really can't. And the reason I can't is because it's not normal no matter how much people who desperately want her to be innocent try and claim it is. Especially when I found out it was on her first day! Who even has that on their mind?

@kkloo baby deaths are a game to no one but Letby.

First day is surely a time when you'd be thinking about what challenges you'd face in the future and how you'd cope with them. And that's all I'm seeing in that remark.

The whole case was handled like a game of cluedo, it was Lucy Letby in the ward with air embolism, the next one, oh that was Lucy Letby in the ward with the milk.

The problem was they didn't follow the actual rules of investigation, they didn't actually rule things out properly like they were supposed to before deciding that they had the answers.

Hence why now pretty much every single aspect of the case has been shown to have major credibility issues.

Yet here you are claiming to know that she is innocent. She writes two contradicting pieces of information; that she killed them, and that she is innocent. Do you think anybody in their right state of mind would right this out in a personal notebook? Do you think anybody in that state of mind should be in charge of looking after vulnerable infant babies? Do you possess any common sense?