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?

Two parts that they got wrong @Firefly1987 ? Are we talking about the same trial here?

The one I am aware of, they got the stats wrong, the door data wrong, timings wrong, Jayaram's testimony wrong, some of the causes of death were theoretical, and others were complete fiction.

The entire case was wrong. I'm surprised they managed to spell Lucy Letby correctly, in all honesty.

I think it is connected to a few things:

the emotional response to the alleged crime. The idea of someone getting away with silently and secretly killing newborn babies is horrifying.

the prosecution's statistical claims: the chart, but also the "patterns", which were heavily contrived which they claimed to have seen. I have worked enough with statistics to know that your common sense can scream one thing while an analysis can show another. It's a powerful effect. We were made to spot patterns

The halo effect: your first impression of someone tends to stick. You add new evidence to it accordingly. I think this effect is particularly strong in Lucy Letby's case because the evidence against her was so weak. So the prosecution threw in lots of trivial stuff that didn't move the needle, logically, but was presented as evidence of villainy. It was so trivial that other facts the prosecution didn't even deal in could be added to it, after the trial. So it's possibly to keep building and building this image of Lucy Letby as villain.

Then tribalism, I suppose - there are internet tribes for both sides of this question, and the fact that people don't like to consider they may be wrong. That's augmented when you up the stakes by taking and defending a position online. But I am sure the horror of the alleged crime adds a lot of energy to the defence of the conviction.

That isn't all, and individual incentives may vary, but those are the most important points I can think of.

Yes I was reading something the other day about how attracted we are to stories, and can see that the story that was created was compelling.

When I say I don’t particularly want it to be a MOJ i mean I’m not invested in the case from that point of view. I do believe it is, and therefore would want her to be exonerated. I’m also concerned about women’s experiences in maternity care at the moment. My daughter had a baby last year and it was pretty shocking. The maternity ward and the NICU were literally incapable of communicating with each other. She has an underlying health condition and her pregnancy should have been managed by a multidisciplinary team but the antenatal team couldn’t communicate with the tertiary hospital which manages her. It was all very worrying.

None of that invalidates all the evidence against her though. She was placed cot side for every collapse. They know she was there. Her own notes prove it most of the time. Yes it's very unfortunate they got the door swipe data wrong but what do you want them to do-find her not guilty for that reason? It was testimony from herself and her colleagues that got her found guilty not door swipe data.

The the defence wasn't allowed to refute the expert witness testimony as it was put forward on each count

More preferential treatment people want for her. That's not how trials work that's why. Prosecution presents their case, defence presents their case. Why is she different? Why does an innocent person need the rules bending?

That various consultants were proved to have lied.

Letby was also proved to have lied multiple times. But she's allowed to for some reason. There is controversy over Dr Jayaram's testimony but I don't believe he lied. Not sure which others you're referring to.

The state of the ward

That's what the defence focused on, I believe this whole "sewage dripping from ceilings" has been wildly exaggerated. And staffing levels weren't that bad compared to other units.

and that Letby had won a grievance against the consultants

Weren't we all aware of this when the trial was ongoing? I thought we were but could be wrong. Why does this mean anything? Oh the useless managers were manipulated by her (like everyone on here) so she won a grievance, it means nothing-they were wrong. They're now potentially going to have to pay for being wrong and not listening to the consultants. I wonder if they're partly behind all this good PR for her...

I can't see anything in these points that would make the slightest bit of difference to her being found guilty.

It was testimony from herself and her colleagues that got her found guilty not door swipe data

Stop inventing things. As has been pointed out to you probably dozens of times by now, you don't know what weight the jury gave any particular claim. For any of us know, the door swipe data was persuasive.

And this is why every individual thing the prosecution got wrong is a problem, because any error could've been the thing that the verdict turned on.

As for being cot side for every event she wasn't always alone....

ok if you say so, it was ALL thanks to door swipe data 🙄or more like people have picked out any mistake they can in a 10 month trial and think that=she's innocent. It doesn't. It means people are fallible and there's going to be mistakes in a trial of that length. Did her defence raise it at appeal?

What about the ridiculing of Dewi Evans? The making the consultants into villains? Oh that's fineeee.

I find the insistence on her innocence fascinating. They really ought to study the nationwide brainwashing that's happened to make people think this woman is the innocent party here. How can so many people get things so wrong?

Again, stop making things up. Telling you that you don't know why the jury made their decision isn't the same as saying it was all about one thing. But you do need to understand that it's not for you to decide how they weighed the evidence. Its disrespectful of you to presume you can speak for them.

But its good to hear you acknowledge that mistakes happen. That's right. Some of those mistakes are MOJs.

And the most recent revelation about the door data was only the other day.

So I should change my view, even if she's guilty? Why exactly? I'll change it when the new evidence has actually been tested and if it comes to anything. Not just experts saying "trust me bro".

@ firefly
Please don't answer if you don't want to but have I understood that you are living outside of the UK?
I didn't realise that the case had spread further
Apologies if I am incorrect

I'm struggling with this idea of medical evidence being not being believable until it is tested in court because peer reviews are not good enough. Can you explain?

If your child was sick, you'd go to the Dr, presumably, not the county court, right? Because medics understand medicine, judges understand the law.

Nope UK born and bred. Why did you think I wasn't? Sometimes I'm on here late.

I find the Americans are much more open to her guilt-going by reddit (which I assume has attracted a lot of Americans to the case via netflix) they know about serial killers and female killers. They have no trouble believing she did it.

Because it has to apply to the actual case-if he brings up something like APS antibodies and it's already been tested in court and dismissed as not relevant then it's no good. He needs to be cross-examined on it to see if it any of it applies to her case. We're talking about potentially letting a multiple baby murderer out on his evidence.

Apologies @Firefly1987
I must have misunderstood a previous post

You have dodged Frequency’s question.

Who in that courtroom was competent to “test” and/or dismiss the idea that a mother with antiphospholipid syndrome might pass antibodies to her unborn child? We know the child didn’t have the disease, but we don’t know whether or not antibodies were passed on.

And don’t come back with anything about plumbers. The lack of defence experts is part of the problem here, likely caused by the structuring of the trial.

Nobody was competent because it wasn’t possible to definitively say whether the child had it or not at that stage since it takes multiple tests with two positive results 12 weeks apart. So the person who said the child didn’t have it was incorrect, incompetent or not truthful. They also didn’t mention that antibodies could have been passed on via the placenta even if the disease was not passed on. I think it’s fairly clear the ‘expert’ either didn’t have a clue or didn’t tell the truth.

There’s a subreddit. I think Firefly is more of a Tattle fan.

You also asked why I had little faith (my wording) in the whole trial that is my answer

You missed explaining how Dewi changed his theories mid trial?

but

The the defence wasn't allowed to refute the expert witness testimony as it was put forward on each count
More preferential treatment people want for her. That's not how trials work that's why. Prosecution presents their case, defence presents their case. Why is she different? Why does an innocent person need the rules bending?

Its not prefencial treatment. it has happened in other cases and would allow for greater understanding of what went on.

That various consultants were proved to have lied.
Letby was also proved to have lied multiple times. But she's allowed to for some reason. There is controversy over Dr Jayaram's testimony but I don't believe he lied. Not sure which others you're referring to.

Yes there is Jayaram and I would include DE changing his views during the trial, includuing the "well something bad musty have happened" when he was backed in to a corner and the other married Dr that claimed that she was chasing after him for which we have nothing but his word, Yet he cared enough to warn her that she was going to have a grievence put in against her.

The state of the ward
That's what the defence focused on, I believe this whole "sewage dripping from ceilings" has been wildly exaggerated. And staffing levels weren't that bad compared to other units.

You don't know if it was exaggerated, but any sewage issue should be sorted oout ASAP, and equally if there were sewage issues in a hospital I would expect it to be either sorted or the areas closed down.

and that Letby had won a grievance against the consultants
Weren't we all aware of this when the trial was ongoing? I thought we were but could be wrong. Why does this mean anything? Oh the useless managers were manipulated by her (like everyone on here) so she won a grievance, it means nothing-they were wrong. They're now potentially going to have to pay for being wrong and not listening to the consultants. I wonder if they're partly behind all this good PR for her...

It goes towards the consultants not be an unbiased source of information and possibly carrying a grudge towards Letby.

But this is all from the first trial. doesn't inclyde some of the stuyff that went on in the second. or any of the information that has subsequently come out.

Yes. Incidentally, the first trial was told that Lucy Letby was removed from the ward, raised a grievance, and was not allowed to return to the ward.

What the jury wasn't told, of course, was that she won the grievance, against the two named consultants who led accusations against her. This meant that Johnson was able to present her as a fantasist for suggesting doctors were ganging up against her, when in fact the findings of the investigation gave some support for this.

It's enlightening to read excerpts from the transcript of Kinsey's examination here, particularly the parts I've bolded:

Q. Is antiphospholipid syndrome hereditary?

A. Not that I'm aware of, but I'm not an expert in antiphospholipid syndrome itself.

Q. Did the antiphospholipid syndrome pass to either [Baby A] or to [Baby B]?

A. No, that is not the case. I can explain that in a little bit more detail because if one looked at the blood results, it would show that there were antiphospholipid antibodies in the circulation of the babies and this is because there are two types of antibody: IgM, immunoglobulin M, and IgA, immunoglobulin A -- sorry, IgG and IgM, sorry.

MR JUSTICE GOSS: I was going to say, I don't think we really need --

A. Okay.

MR JUSTICE GOSS: Obviously it's very helpful of you to offer to do it, but the important thing is that neither [Baby A] or [Baby B] had this condition.

From a brief discussion at:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/comments/1k7def3/comment/mq23p50/

Presumably, evidence from an expert in APS, or from an obstetrician having viewed the mother's file and considered the impact of APS, would be of interest to the Court of Appeal given that the jury never heard from anyone expert in this condition

Not exactly, no. The CCRC and Court of Appeal can certainly consider findings contrary to what was presented by the prosecution at the original trial. Otherwise you'd rarely be able to overturn anything.

The question is how you get to these findings. There, you're looking for some combination of new evidence, new legal argument, or a rationale for re-examining evidence available to the original defence in the interest of justice.

they know about serial killers and female killers. They have no trouble believing she did it

I don't think anyone doesn't "know about serial killers and female killers" (that they exist), but we also know how rare they are (on the order of 1 in a million nurses), relative to alternate explanations (misdiagnoses and medical errors). So I need correspondingly strong proof that it's indeed the rare thing. If a kid tell me he saw a tiger on the street, I'll be very skeptical -- not because I don't know about tigers, but because fabulist kids / actors in costume / AI videos are so much more common than roaming tigers. And that's when the cost of error is just getting fooled by a kid, rather than a wrongful life sentence + letting health system errors go unfixed + wasting millions on useless inquiry + worsening the nursing shortage by scaring people from nursing.

So the baseline picture leads to the need for rock-solid proof, and instead we get things like "when you know, you know" or "baby collapsed, died" from the main medical expert. Or diagnosis by exclusion, when we know that doctors missing some pathology is quite common: e.g. one mother in the case was not given antibiotics for hours, presumably because doctors "excluded" infection. It's the big mismatch between the level of proof needed, and the type of proof offered, that's the core problem with this case.

Yes. Even the judge seems to have been unimpressed by the main medical medical expert. The transcript for the application to exclude Dr Evans's evidence is now online at https://lucyletbyinnocence.com/transcripts/day_052_09-01-2023.pdf

Someone on twitter excerpted some actual words of wisdom from Judge Goss