Lucy Letby

[kkloo]

New thread as the last one has filled up.

“On 26 May 2017, an email record indicates that the NCA…advised Cheshire police to appoint a panel of relevant experts; they clearly defined the disciplines and provided a comprehensive list. They were: Forensic & Neonatal Pathologists, Forensic Toxicologist and/or Clinical Pharmacologist, a Nurse with experience of special baby units, a medical expert with experience of the working practices on a special unit for neonates, an Obstetrician, and experts to review the medical statistics.”

“The advice was national best practice, but Cheshire police ignored it.

“On 28 June 2017, the NCA advisers followed up with a list of potential experts who could fill those posts.

“Dr Watts points out that the “‘back door’ approach by an alleged expert who is clearly looking for work…should have sounded warning bells for the senior investigating officer and the investigating team”.

Link https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-03-26/debates/250DBCCA-C579-4ABB-8AFC-C2E8D036533A/LucyLetbyCaseConductOfCheshirePolice

But if all behaviour is subjective and irrelevant then why do forensic psychologists exist. They must bevthere for dome reason.

I’m going to need more than David Davis’s unevidenced ramblings to parliament. What even are the ‘hard facts’ he says have been examined here? Where is this email, what did it actually say and what have the NCA said about it since?

Just so we’re clear I don’t care what you “need”. If anything in this case you need to make more effort to get your head round the medical and statistical data and its failures.

If you read the link more carefully you’d see Davis was quoting two retired senior police officers who reviewed the investigative procedures used by Cheshire police: Dr. Steve Watts, who authored the national police guidelines on the investigation of deaths in healthcare settings, and Stuart Clifton who ran the investigation into Beverly Allitt.

I’m not doing your homework for you again.

I have read it and it says that Watts and Clifton’s only Letby-specific references were Thirlwall documents (the rest were generic guidance and standards). Correct me if I’m wrong (genuinely) but I don’t think that email from the NCA has been considered by Thirlwall has it? And if that’s right, where have they got it from and what does it actually say?

none of this has been tested within a formal process

That's fair, as long as that's not cited as reason for the CCRC to ignore it. Otherwise the argument becomes, it should not be heard in court because it has not been heard in court.

Still, it's worth noting that there are non-trivial reputational mechanisms guarding against unreliability, when people with hard-earned reputations put those reputations on the line. There is a running list of experts who have spoken out at https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=Lucy_Letby:_those_experts_in_full .

I do think that the expert panel should have published their full reports for public scrutiny, and not just the summaries. All documents that go into decisions by public bodies such as the CCRC should be public.

Sure, but I don't believe any have commented on this or been given all the information they need to do that. Of course, you are free to take into account what you like, but for me a lot of the non-medical information on this case ends up on the "doesn't tell us anything either way" pile. Everyone has their own definition of strange behaviour so if you are declaring her strange, okay. But in my mind, that doesn't mean likely to be a murderer.

I did initially think the panel should publish everything for public scrutiny, but the reports will get direct expert scrutiny, starting with the CCRC. They're also obviously of a slightly contingent nature until the experts are given access to the obstetrics files: there will be elements to revise, elaborate etc.

And having seen how many senseless but persistent internet myths grew up from the information we have - based on openly amateur analysis - I think there would have been downsides. The mothers' and the children's privacy is another consideration - it needs to be balanced against Lucy Letby's interests of course, by her legal team. So I think the summaries were a reasonable choice in the end

There have been a number of leaks alleged from Operation Hummingbird: early sifting of cases, Dr Jayaram's email concerning baby K (this perhaps from Thirlwall), and the emails and other material Davis, Watts and Clifton have commented on. Both journalists and MPs' offices have ways of verifying sources, but obviously they will often protect these sources. But it's extremely unlikely that they won't have done so before publishing / addressing parliament.

Some corroboration for Davies's statement comes in the subsequent quite unusual public correspondence with Cheshire Constabulary. The police objected to his characterisation of their case as built around one expert, and they presented a counter-argument, but did not deny that claim about the NCA. (I accept that their counter-argument was not exhaustive, but it would have been a straightforward point to deny). Their letter, and Davies's response, linked at https://www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/s/v0sAtcwp1j

Why not get rid of them unless they were VERY important to her?

I keep lots of things that are not important to me. But even if keeping meant they were important, nothing supports the inference that they were important specifically as mementos of crime, rather than e.g. as reminders of work that she loved.

YEs, I've got a drawer full of half used covid tests (ie a box of 5 and 2 used), because various people passed them to me (like dd's student house).
They're all after their best before date and a good number of them the liquid has dried up so I couldn't use them if I wanted to. They would have been got in 2021, and I keep thinking I must get rid of them, but I've not quite decided how.
Should I just chuck them in the bin?
Or take them out of the cardboard and put recycleables in one bin the rest in the other?
Do they need to go to the chemist, like old drugs?

And I've got so much else that needs tidying that a drawer is the bottom of the list because it's away and hidden.

I might manage to sort them when I retire in around 2050...