Lucy Letby (2)

[Oftenaddled]

Not only the second thread of course, but maybe with them filling so fast it is time to start numbering them?

It said in that document baby A had air bubbles in his brain and lungs whilst alive.

What will your response be if it is found that its a miscarriage of justice?

You are quoting a lawyer quoting the Court of Appeal document. The Court of Appeal gives a remarkably selective summary on that point. Here is what the prosecution pathologist said in court:

Q. And there was a response to the air, which suggested that that air went to the brain in life?
A. Yes. However, I need to make it clear to this court and to the jurors that those findings cannot be taken as an absolute proof.
Q. Yes.
A. They are in my eyes and my opinion suggestive, highly suggestive, but if I had no other history, no clinical information, no assessment by a clinician, and I only had those two findings, I would have said, "I cannot really tell you if it's air there and it's not an artefact explicable on the decomposition changes and all the artefacts we made".

Let's bear in mind that Marnerides did indeed have an assessment by a clinician: he was using Dr Evans's reports instead of looking at the clinical notes

Edited to include the link to the Thirlwall document we have been discussing (150 on) @Firefly1987 , since you posted that on the last thread only.

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Written-Closing-Submission-of-Family-Group-2-and-3-7-March-2025.pdf

Yes - and when the disease is investigated, antibodies are measured three months apart. A diagnosis can also be given earlier with specific clinical events, but not based on exploratory testing.

The report’s out beginning of September.

Odd: most who knew LL in person inc the lawyers etc are in no doubt in their minds she did it. Apparently she was chilling in court.

But everyone who’s never met her, inc the zillions of experts who point out there’s no evidence, reckon she’s innocent.

What do you make of this? I’m no expert either, asking wise women.

I don't think we ever know what lawyers think! They don't get to pick their clients. They do their jobs and argue their case and collect their fees.

We don't know what most people who knew Lucy Letby think either.

I think David Davis got this right. He was asked why he didn't go to see her in prison to see if that would change how he felt about the case. He said he wasn't interested in doing that because he has worked in parliament for years and knows perfectly well you can't tell if someone is lying to you or not.

I think experts who don't know her are the right people to assess the science of the case, for defence or prosecution. I think September is the soonest we get the Thirlwall report, by the way, not a deadline. I'll be interested to see it. If it ever arrives, I think a lot of it will be about risk assessment, reporting systems, candour, whistleblowing, reports to coroners etc and relatively little about Lucy Letby. That's my guess!

Ooh, thank you. I don’t think there’ll be a retrial.

@Supersimkin7

Which lawyers?

Well there's not just those findings there's everything else. So far you're not convincing me that everything isn't pointing directly to air embolism...Shoo Lee claiming the mother may have passed on APS antibodies (no evidence for this) just doesn't cut it.

The evidence that the mother may have passed on the antibodies is in medical journals. He didn't just pluck it from the sky.

And why do you think air embolism is more likely than thrombosis?

using Letby's notes for baby E so didn't have an accurate picture

If you need to assume her notes are falsified (i.e. she's guilty) to show she's guilty, the argument becomes circular.

@Dolphin37 no it's the same sort of controversy over Dr J's timings being wrong-but it's ok for people to constantly rake HIM over the coals, and he's not the one accused of murder.

It's simply a fact that Lucy's timings differ from the mum's-so someone got it wrong somewhere.

That's true. So far as I can see the panel wasn't relying on nursing notes in their summary anyway - more likely to be information from Dr Harkness. (Baby 5 in the first report here: https://lucyletbyinnocence.com/#shoolee)

But the prosecution and defence had access to the same clinical notes (apart from maternity notes which weren't used by the prosecution or given to the defence).

Could not be any more of a false equivalence.

Lee's summary doesn't refer to timings early in that evening at all, so there's no evidence of him "preferring" Lucy Letby's account.

lucyletbyinnocence.com/#shoolee)

"Four days later, he developed respiratory distress (desaturation, chest recession, oxygen need) and bilious aspirates from the nasogastric tube, but the abdomen was soft and not distended. He had two episodes of massive gastrointestinal bleeding with at least 25% of estimated total blood volume aspirated from the nasogastric tube. He was given normal saline but 40 minutes later, he suddenly deteriorated, with desaturation, poor perfusion, low heart rate 80- 90/min, and purple patches of discoloration over the abdomen. An hour later, he collapsed again and died despite resuscitation efforts".

But Lucy Letby, Dr Harkness and the midwife dealing with the mother on another ward all noted corresponding times, independently, suggesting that Lucy Letby was correct in her notes

Jo McPartland's review found that "at autopsy there was no evidence of air embolism... A very small air embolism might not be detectable at autopsy, but then would not be expected to lead to death". If I recall correctly, this was also a case where the pathologist who did the autopsy specifically checked for air embolism and affirmatively stated that he found no signs.

It isn’t true at all that those who know LL are sure she did it. Her colleagues, friends and family are adamant that she did not.

I have no idea what behaviour was deemed ‘chilling’, but I think things got to a stage with her where literally anything was reported upon as having a sinister twist. She had a diary with a cartoon dog on it; she held her cat before she was arrested; oh my god, she had a picture on her wall which said something about sparkles, clearly a disturbed woman

Anti depressants, especially very strong ones, and sleeping tablets combined make you feel numb. They manage feelings of depression and anxiety by dulling these feelings but also dull other feelings and can make the person appear flat and disassociated from everything. Combined with sleeping tablets which can make you disoriented and woozy even the next day,

But tbh I don’t like this focus on her character because her personality and whether we like her or not is not on trial. To give another example, I think there is a good chance another shocking miscarriage of justice happened with Michael Stone, who was convicted of attacking and killing Lyn and Megan Russell in Kent in the 1990s and attempting to murder Josie Russell. It was a really horrific crime and I remember how high profile it was at the time. Michael Stone was convicted in 1997 (I think) and has insisted on his innocence ever since. I can’t say whether he’s innocent or not but I can say I believe there’s enough there for reasonable doubt.

That does not mean I think he’s a good guy or that I want to go for a drink with him or that I believe he is a pure and honest soul. By all accounts he was prone to aggressive outbursts, was violent and unpredictable and had already been convicted of armed robbery and assault. None of that means we should say ‘well, we don’t like him so he should just stay in prison.’

None of the above applies to LL, but her personality is not on trial or relevant unless you want to befriend her. She could be the coldest, dismissive, rudest nurse there is and it still doesn’t mean our judicial system gets to convict her of crimes that have not happened.

It's good that Dr Jayaram has been raised in this thread though, yesterday's leak was quite a revelation.

Only as some kind of dig at us of course (as usual 😅) instead of addressing that this is instead more proof that the evidence put forward at the trials was deeply problematic!!

Seeing her bedroom and belongings, she seems like a normal albeit even slightly immature young woman. Even her going out photos show a “normal” young woman. That’s not to say she doesn’t have hidden depths.

I think the police failed to come up with anything that didn’t look entirely normal, hence having to rely on her being crap at getting rid of old paperwork and being a Facebook addict.

.

I'm not saying he did but if there's no evidence for it I'm going to go with the court ruling and say it was 99.99% air embolism. You can't just wave it away because the mother had a condition. This is why Shoo Lee's theories will never stand up to scrutiny.

He does talk timings though-40 mins later, an hour later-this must be in conflict with when the mum said she first saw a bleed.

I don't expect him to be talking about anything happening around 9p.m if Letby didn't notify anyone until over an hour later (which is what was alleged in court)