If you were previously on the fence about Lucy Letby’s guilt, have the Thirlwall findings swayed you either way?

[KwellsBells]

I personally have always thought she is guilty, and even more so since the report findings were published.

YABU - still on the fence/ still believe she is innocent

YANBU - she’s guilty

No I think it’s over simplified to say the death rate went up, it was more like who was dying. Babies everyone expected to do well and go home died, babies just waiting to be discharged died, babies transferred from other hospitals where they had been given more specialist care and recovered well enough to go to Chester before going home.
There were problems on the unit but also a lot of experienced doctors and nurses, how were they all of a sudden getting it wrong about how sick these babies were? Not just once, multiple times

If LL is the common factor as to why babies were unexpectedly dying and the doctors and nurses were perfectly capable of dealing with that volume and acuity of cases, why did they feel the need to downgrade the unit to a level 1 at the same time as she was removed from the ward, why was it rebuilt and why has it never been reclassified? If the "expected" number of deaths is about 3 a year and LL was charged with 7, you're still a long way off the 18 that happened during the period in question.

IIRC one of the babies was transferred 5 times between different hospitals. That doesn't seem like a picture of health. I think the implication was that they were basically well but needed "just a bit of help" but I don't think that's the case.

There weren't lots of experienced Drs and Nurses.
The consultants were barely there and the nurses were short staffed.
Hence LL doing so much overtime.

I don’t want to argue the detail of the case and deliberately mentioned only one of a number of issues.

My point is not that it’s impossible that she killed them, but that the law requires that her guilt be proven beyond all possible doubt, and that this has not been done. For example the fact that the only doctor claiming to have seen her actually do anything wrong turned out to have “forgotten” to tell the court that she had in fact called him to that baby when he claimed to have happened on her unexpectedly doing something suspicious to it. The court didn’t know that, so they believed his version.

As for the babies all doing well and being expected to go home, again, that’s unclear. Yes it was claimed in court, yet several of those babies were originally determined to have died of natural causes - so how come nobody queried their deaths before they had a serial killer to blame for them?

But as I say, those are only a couple of the problems with the conviction, and I’m not going to get into the whole thing. I’m simply saying that the notion that a female serial killer operating with impunity in a failing hospital and, more widely, failing maternity system, beggars belief unless ALL other possible explanations have first been explicitly eliminated. Which they have not.

It’s so difficult but I do think from what I’ve read there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her

They had form for it.

Melanie and Patrick Robinson’s baby, Noah, died after a series of blunders at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2014.
Noah was born by Caesarean section 12 weeks early on March 20, weighing just 1lb 7oz, after Mrs Robinson developed potentially fatal pre-eclampsia.
Despite his size he was given a good chance of survival.
But an inquest heard he died less than four days later after doctors mistakenly put a breathing tube into his gullet, which connects to the stomach. It should have gone into his trachea.
They also ignored five warning signs – from X-rays and other equipment, which they wrongly assumed were faulty. Mrs Robinson said there was only one senior doctor on duty when Noah began to deteriorate on March 22.
Recording a verdict of misadventure, coroner Nicholas Rheinberg told the inquest in Chester in February 2015: ‘There were very considerable signs [the tube was incorrectly positioned] and I find it surprising these signs were not realised.’
He said an assumption that equipment was faulty was ‘extraordinary’.
‘Shouldn’t the first assumption be the tube is in the wrong place, or that’s a strong possibility?’ he asked.
‘It’s like flying an aeroplane and seeing the oil gauge come on and you assume the gauge must be wrong, rather than the oil pressure is low.’
Mrs Robinson, who now has a daughter, was dismayed by the hospital’s level of care.
‘We put our trust in the doctors to look after Noah, but they didn’t do what they were supposed to,’ she said. ‘We feel terribly let down by the NHS.’

https://archive.ph/9IfxW#selection-1765.0-1797.150

It seems blatantly obvious to me looking at the evidence and even some of the parents statements to Thirlwall that this hospital did not improve and was constantly making mistakes. For one, how did they make such a basic mistake with the mother of baby D and not give her antibiotics when she had PROM?

There's also other parents speaking out now about how unbelievably appalling the COCH were when their babies were there, there was a radio show on it a few months ago, can't remember what it was, maybe someone on here can remember, but the mistakes they made are shocking.

Seven babies died. None were close to discharge. Dr Evans went on a bit about how he would be telling the parents to get the nursery painted but look at the medical testimony, even from Lucy Letby's accusers among the consultants. There is no suggestion any of these babies were close to discharge. Six of them died within the first few days after birth, when babies are most vulnerable. The seventh was waiting to be evaluated for surgery at another hospital and suffered recurrent deteriorations (not all around Lucy Letby) meanwhile.

The one child who deteriorated when expecting discharge started to do so hours before Lucy Letby came on shift. She wasn't found guilty on this charge.

Unexpected deaths and collapses happen. A condition like baby O's (found by the original pathologist as well as Lee's panel) is usually unsuspected, then fatal, for example. But there is also the question of whether these deaths and collapses would have been unexpected in a higher level neonatal unit, if they had not been prevented in any case through better treatment

"The one child who deteriorated when expecting discharge started to do so hours before Lucy Letby came on shift. She wasn't found guilty on this charge."

Is that the baby who was allegedly given insulin in a bottle of milk prepared and then put in the fridge by LL before she went off shift, and later given by a different nurse? That sounded completely implausible as a way of committing murder: doesn't a serial killer "need" to control their murders in some way? Why else would they do it? If they're leaving it to chance and other staff members as to how/when a victim dies, what are they getting out of it?

But that means 1 out of every 100 neonatal units will have such a spike each year. This means such spikes are regular occurrences across a whole country just by random chance. When you add to that baseline probability an extremely poorly run and dirty hospital with understaffing and substandard medical care and doctors making a couple of rounds per week rather than per day despite the fact that fragile babies will deteriorate rapidly without fast diagnosis and treatment, and staff without appropriate experience to care for the more risky babies they were now caring for, it’s not surprising that CoC hospital had such a spike: these factors would raise the probability of a spike in deaths there far above the baseline.

It’s also unsurprising that when the unit was downgraded and ceased caring for such fragile babies the ration of deaths to patients dropped. When you add to all of that the fact that there is not even evidence beyond reasonable doubt that any of the babies who died were murdered (in fact there is no medically plausible explanation for how they could have been murdered because the methods put forward by the prosecution do not make sense scientifically, while the medical evidence provides plausible explanations for how their deaths could have been caused by natural causes/ medical negligence and delays in diagnosis and treatment) it is bizarre to have someone in prison for this supposed crime when there is not sufficient evidence even that there was a crime for which to seek a suspect at all:

Firstly, it must be demonstrated that murders took place. The evidence doesn’t support this.

Secondly, once/ if it has been demonstrated that there were murders, if someone is suspected of perpetrating the murders it should be proved beyond reasonable doubt that this suspect committed those murders. There has to be a plausible explanation of how they did so, and evidence beyond reasonable doubt that this specific person did commit this crime.

Neither of these things has happened. This conviction is the most obvious miscarriage of justice in my lifetime and one of the worst failings of the UK justice system in history.

This is not to assert that LL is innocent. It is pointing out the fact that it is for the prosecution to prove that she committed murders, not for her to prove that she did not. They clearly have not done so to anything close to the standard required (beyond reasonable doubt).

Personally, I think it will fundamentally undermine our legal system and lead to abolishment and replacement of the CCRC if they try to cover up these proven failings in the judicial process and refuse a retrial in this case. That said, it’s unclear how a fair trial could possibly take place now.

It is in all of our interests that the state cannot lock us up for life with mere accusations and insinuations and unconvincing circumstantial evidence when there are other much more plausible explanations for what occurred, and when it has not even demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a crime took place at all; then false and inaccurate evidence misleading evidence was provided to the jury (e.g. on probability); false claims made by a supposed expert who isn’t an expert in this field of medicine and had been shown in other unrelated trials previously to be an unreliable witness, regarding impossible methods of supposed murder being postulated by him as undeniable facts and yet later withdrawn by him or disproved post-trial; false evidence provided claiming that it is unequivocal victims were murdered when this is not the case; false claims that there is no other way something could have occurred when this is demonstrably not the case; non-disclosure if vital evidence by the prosecution; other witnesses giving contradictory accounts proving that they lied and were unrealiable; etc.

Habeas corpus. Give up this principle at your peril. It is extremely concerning that some posters have even based their comments on her “demeanor” or personality. Do they think everyone who has a personality they don’t warm to is a murderer? Some of these comments are quite terrifying, frankly, that people with such reasoning could be part of a jury judging any one of us for something of which we were accused.

The jury in this case was quite clearly misled in material ways so this is not their fault - they made their decision based on the misleading and, in some areas, factually wrong evidence with which they were provided - but it is clear that their verdict obviously should not stand because a jury presented with the facts now established could not possibly convict beyond reasonable doubt. In fact the CPS would never have brought the case per its own guidelines had the police investigation been done properly by people who actually understand maths and science, or the CPS staff themselves understood it sufficiently to challenge the police’s unevidenced conclusions rather than accepting the police assertions that their misunderstanding/ misrepresentation of the evidence hugely overstated the case against the accused. This is a huge failing of the judicial system and should worry us all immensely if we value our freedom.

There was no allegation of putting insulin in milk. Overfeeding with milk was one supposed cause of death, and insulin added to parenteral nutrition feeds was another.

The adding of insulin to feeds is the only way that Letby could have been in the frame for hypoglycaemia that was prolonged and occurred while she wasn’t there. It seems unfeasible for many reasons.

This one was baby N (second charge) who fell ill in the early morning of the day he was meant to go home, hours before Lucy Letby came on shift. He continued to deteriorate and had to be transferred to a more advanced hospital instead, where he recovered.

It happens a lot with this case that one incident gets exaggerated or misremembered and applied to lots of other cases. Baby N was expected to go home that day (but Chester didn't have the supplies on hand to treat his haemophilia and had to order them in). None of the babies who died were expected to be discharged when they deteriorated, and I can't think of any of the others who were on the verge of going home either.

Yes sorry that was it - I just remembered it being claimed that the baby had been given the insulin in a feed, and that since LL was not the one to have given him that feed, she must have cunningly prepared it all in advance ready for an unsuspecting nurse to take it out of the fridge and give to the baby.
But parenteral feeding rather than a bottle of formula then - ok. Same point really - it just seems implausible for so many reasons, as you say.

Im impressed how certain people are about something that hasn’t happened yet & may never will.

i find it difficult enough to be 100% sure about things that DID happen.

As do juries.

I don’t honestly see it’s relevant.

Believing someone may not have been justly convicted - and while I’m not sure she’s innocent or guilty, Im pretty confident the conviction is unsafe - is not the same as leaving them in charge of your baby (if I had one: I lost mine & am too old now to have more).

And if / when she gets out of prison I do not suppose she’d be the same person as she was going in (not to mention her nursing qualification expired).

Sally Clark was innocent of murdering her children, but by the time she came out of prison she was a complete wreck & drank herself to death very fast. I wouldn’t at that stage have wanted her as a babysitter either.

Some things that certainly need to happen going forward are

1. The police set up a much more professional national unit of medical/ scientific/ statistical/ forensic/ financial etc experts who operate outside the jurisdiction of local police forces and are called in for relevant cases so that expert officers with the appropriate expertise investigate complex cases which are beyond the capabilities of standard police officers. In more minor cases where they do not need to take over the investigation entirely but where there is complex/ specialist evidence, rather than investigating the case directly they should provide instructions to local officers and review the evidence gathered to sense check it prior to submitting a case file to the CPS;

2. The CPS also need a panel of relevant independent experts to review files and advise in complex/ technical cases because they do not currently have the expertise to make the decisions whether a case has a reasonable chance of conviction in such cases and therefore make appropriate decisions on whether to prosecute;

3. There need to be much, much stricter rules about who can be appointed as an expert witness in court by either side, and an independent panel of expert witnesses who do not work for either side containing more than one expert with expertise in each area relevant to the case, to avoid groupthink. The prosecution and defence should still be able to call their own expert witnesses but this independent panel of objective experts should provide their evidence in court and both barristers can challenge them during questioning (with the input of their own expert witnesses beforehand). Likewise any of the prosecution/ defence’s own expert witnesses could be challenged by the opposing barrister with input into their questioning beforehand from the objective panel of experts, who would be able point out any flaws in the partisan expert’s reasoning. This is absolutely necessary because some cases are very complex and neither judges nor barristers in general have the detailed knowledge to do their jobs properly in such cases without an unbiased panel. Having several people with each specialism on a panel to review all of the evidence together without any loyalty/ bias to either “side” and provide challenge to each other and the expert testimony of any experts called by the prosecution/ defence will substantially reduce the probability of groupthink with barristers/ judges/ juries trusting unreliable testimony that sounds convincing but turns out to be factually wrong after the fact, even based on knowledge at the time, due to individual bias/ blind spots/ knowledge gaps/ inappropriate specialist expertise of the witnesses called;

4. In cases where there is a lot of complex technical information beyond the understanding of people who do not have expertise/ training in that field, the jury should be composed of people with specific knowledge in this area which enables them to actually assess accurately whether the threshold of “beyond reasonable doubt” has been met. This is not possible in some complex cases for twelve people selected at random from the public to do. For example, if cases come to court re. Grenfell, the jury should include fire safety experts (but ideally from other countries so no potential vested interest), builders, structural engineers, architects, chemists, etc. Juries are already provided with a legal appointee to answer any legal questions they may have and are given directions on points of law from the judge but they often receive far too little instruction on technical/ scientific matters to be able to understand them sufficiently to accurately assess and critically examine the strength/ weight, credibility, significance and accuracy of the various pieces of evidence provided in court. They are left at the mercy of one or two specific “experts” (who often, are not anywhere near sufficiently qualified to be able to make the unequivocal statements which they make, or even if they do state that something is merely their “opinion” in the absence of the jury having the knowledge base to consider the credibility of the assertions jury members with no specialist knowledge presumably feel they have no basis upon which to reject the expert’s opinion). This is a huge problem in many cases now ranging from complex frauds to cyber-crime to medical cases, etc.;

5. The legal profession should encourage more people to join the profession at post-graduate level/ from other professions so that they at least have some expertise in a specific technical field from their first degree and ideally some experience of actually working in the sector prior to qualifying in and entering law. This would increase the numbers of specialist barristers available over time and ensure they have a greater depth of knowledge about the underlying subject of their specialism, not just the laws in that area;

6. The CCRC really needs replacing and the rules governing the allowed criteria for appeals/ retrials/ quashing of sentences need to be revised. The current criteria lean far too much towards protecting existing verdicts and are far too narrow. The criteria should be focused on ensuring that we are as sure as we can be that a verdict was correct, not just that legal process as it stood at the time of the trial was followed (not to mention that even in cases where it’s clear that the legal process was not followed correctly, the CCRC often refuses to refer the case back to the courts by claiming that this would not have made a material difference while providing no evidence to support that assertion).

This case has highlighted some serious, glaring flaws in our judicial process which put its integrity and the freedoms of all of us at risk. Unlikely and unusual events do happen because that is the nature of probability. It is quite shocking that a clear miscarriage of justice so egregious as this has not been reviewed as a matter of urgency and quashed when it is so clear that it contravenes all of the most fundamental principles upon which the integrity of our legal system rests.

Ironically, if the CCRC do not do the only correct thing they can do here, in a misguided attempt to “protect” the judicial system, they will in fact undermine public trust in the judicial process to an almost irreparable extent and, I believe, set in motion the abolishment of their own organisation and much more significant reforms, although this will move at the rate of a glacier as everything does in law.

Oh, and finally, we really need to start funding our legal system properly, if we want anything resembling justice in which we can have confidence. That doesn’t have so much impact on this case because LL’s lawyers are working pro bono (because it is so obvious a miscarriage of justice has taken place), but for justice for the rest of us, the underfunding of the legal system is making a mockery of justice to an extent which sadly many people seem to be oblivious. Legal aid also needs reinstating properly for all who need it. I highly recommend reading “The Secret Barrister” for an outline of what purports to be “justice” these days. It is also available as an audiobook.