Lucy Letby - Specifically those who think she is guilty…

[BEAchDays2]

I’ve just been reading massive amounts of posts of Facebook following the new doc out about LL. (Blame a long train journey!) and it got me thinking, those who still think she is guilty what are your reasons?

It does feel like the tide has turned generally. I haven’t watched the new doc yet, likewise has anyone seen it, and is it worth it?

@Oftenaddled none backed up by any evidence.

You think the original pathologists, Hawdon, McPartland, Dimitrova, Aiton, Lee, Modi etc didn't examine or refer to any evidence in their reports? That they just made them up?

@Oftenaddled do you think Dewi Evans and Dr Marnerides just made up deliberate harm? Both sides can't be right. McPartland has since revised her stance on Air Embolism. Modi claimed a liver injury was caused at birth despite absolutely no evidence for it. If there was evidence then I'd accept it, there just isn't.

There is plenty of evidence that subcapsular haematoma occurred at birth, and also evidence that its rupture was caused by a misplaced aspiration needle. It is well documented in the literature that sometimes such haematomas (which arr frequently fatal) are spontaneous, or caused by shearing forces during birth. The triplets were born by extremely fast C section. And then an undiagnosed haematoma could be pierced accidentally even with good technique. (And it’s interesting that the pathologist didn’t know about the fine needle aspiration attempt.)

You could learn about the medical evidence if you tried, but I don’t think you’re interested in anything that challenges your fixed ideas, are you?

That's right. Lee's pansl stated that the hematoma may have been caused by birth injury, Neena Modi explained that this was very plausible because of what we know about the birth, and most recently Professor Bennett explained to the BBC that the parents' account of serious bleeding at the caesarean followed by rapid extraction suggests the use of force in emergency circumstances.

In all this, they've never asserted that the hematoma was definitely caused by birth injury - there are other possible causes, and Modi and Bennett have explained that they are waiting for sight of the obstetrics notes to explore further.

That's an evidence-based approach. From Bohin and Evans, on the other hand, we get gems like "something must have happened", "if you know you know" ... that's what we mean when we talk about no evidence.

McPartland has conceded that some sort of air embolism is possible without froth in the heart, which is a very long way from producing or suggesting there is evidence that any of these children died of venous air embolism without any froth in the heart, any more than the other millions of people who die yearly without froth in the heart.

You’re right- evidence is extremely important. What evidence is there that Lucy Letby caused the liver injury? How did she do it and when?
You’re keen to exclude a plausible and medically validated explanation… so where’s the evidence for what you think happened?

I’m sorry, but the vast majority of you are completely wasting your time and energy. You’re bickering about it as if you were on the jury. Worse, you’re bickering about it as if you were on the jury but allowed to take into account stuff on YouTube. Instead you need to bicker about it as if you were a Court of Appeal judge or one of the CCRC commissioners.

These are spurious criteria, though. We are discussing the case and its background on Mumsnet, a discussion forum used for information and entertainment, not cosplaying court of appeal judges. I don't think anyone here thinks they are advocating directly in this case by posting on a thread about our opinions of the case.

1. You aren’t sorry.
2. You have no idea what expertise people on this thread have to be able to comment meaningfully on the evidence we read in the court transcripts, and the assertions made by others.
3. People “waste their time” talking and thinking about all sorts of things they can’t influence directly.

I'm not saying it's not useful to consider what the CCRC and Court of Appeal might take into account, @eastegg , and no reason not to comment from that angle or on what the case might tell us about these institutions. Always interesting, thanks. But it's not and need not be the focus of all discussion.

The truth is that if there is a miscarriage of justice, there will be a great many problems with the prosecution case. It's extremely unlikely they'll ever be rebutted point by point in a legal setting. Lucy Letby could be freed on technicalities, on specific scientific advances, or never at all. That won't make it any less valid to criticise the standard of expert evidence in the case, or the degree of pseudoscience and guesswork involved.

The Birmingham Six and Andrew Malkinson, for example, were convicted on pseudoscience which the Court of Appeal failed to recognise, and freed on other grounds. It's in nobody's interest to pretend our justice system works so well that we shouldn't discuss the stuff that court might be pleased to ignore.

"Undiagnosed haematoma" being key here-in other words, no evidence. The needle didn't come into the equation until after the baby had already collapsed. You can't blame a collapse on the needle that came AFTER, although I'm sure some will try. It's all "this could've happened, that could've happened" theories, nothing more. If it was explainable they'd have something a lot more concrete than imaginary birth injuries and trying to blame a doctor for what he did trying to save the baby's life who had collapsed out of nowhere. If Letby was still in Ibiza at the time absolutely none of this would've happened. Every baby on that unit was fine and safe whilst she was away.

I don’t think you’re interested in anything that challenges your fixed ideas, are you?

Are you?

1. That’s a bit silly. It’s just a turn of phrase.
2. People having expertise or not doesn’t change what I’ve said which is critical of the whole approach of some posters to rake over the evidence and seek to substitute their own view for that of the jury, which I don’t think we should be doing. You also don’t know what expertise others have. I’ve noticed on these threads scientific expertise seems to be greatly respected but legal expertise doesn’t count for much. Understanding how circumstantial evidence works, for example, is just as important for understanding the case as what air embolism is.
3. I don’t think people are wasting their time because they can’t actually get the conviction quashed via a MN thread. You’ve misunderstood me there.

I completely agree. The energy devoted to this case is baffling, as if arguing online made the slightest difference to any legal outcome. If only the Court of Appeal could consult the real experts of MN…

People are allowed to have opinions and discuss an extremely emotive and high profile case that has such a large amount of controversy around it.

Yes. I’ve said here and elsewhere I’m interested only in truth, patient safety and a fair and effective legal system. If any real evidence of murder or deliberate harm can be produced I will change my mind.

I’m “blaming” the baby’s deterioration on a sub-capsular haematoma present from birth which gradually worsened and then subsequently ruptured, possibly spontaneously, possibly as a result of accidental puncture. There is no evidence that the subcapsular haematoma was caused deliberately by Letby or anyone else.

Legal expertise is completely irrelevant if there were no murders.

People spend hours discussing Harry and Meghan, Bake Off, Donald Trump, and the FA cup, and can influence none of these. Should they stop?

None of those other topics involve arguing dead babies though.

The pathologist who examined the body (and that of his brother) identified a subcapsular liver hematoma there. We aren't in the realms of "no evidence"

It's only going to be medical opinion in a case like this. There's virtually no chance of catching her in the act. Well if they'd kept the contaminated bags they would've done, but I expect the goalposts would just move further and there would be some plausible reason why insulin was found in the TPN bags. Or someone else would be blamed for it because no one saw Lucy put it in there. I'm so perplexed how people can say there is no evidence of murder or harm.

I’m “blaming” the baby’s deterioration on a sub-capsular haematoma present from birth which gradually worsened and then subsequently ruptured, possibly spontaneously, possibly as a result of accidental puncture.

Evidence for it being present from birth?

The pathologist who examined the body (and that of his brother) identified a subcapsular liver hematoma there. We aren't in the realms of "no evidence"

@Oftenaddled omg well yeah when someone violently punches a baby's liver then of course that can cause a liver haematoma. We're arguing about what caused it-Lucy Letby or natural causes. There is no evidence for one before Lucy got near him I'm not saying there's no evidence of a haematoma AFTER she violently attacked him.

One may understand how circumstantial evidence works without necessarily believing that every verdict reached based on circumstancial evidence is correct.

In a case where only the scientific evidence can reveal whether or not a crime has occurred, the circumstancial evidence used to identify a potential criminal is obviously secondary.

Still, there is room to discuss both if that is what you want to do.

What great logic. Maybe lets not even have a trial if there were no murders 🙄it's still very much in question that's the problem. Well in fact the trial did determine there were murders but lets not have that stop people from saying there weren't...

What an odd comment. Are you suggesting some kind of two-stage process exists whereby science decides whether there were murders first, followed by a legal stage on the question of who committed them? I don’t understand your comment otherwise. If you are suggesting dividing things in two like that, I couldn’t disagree more with such an approach.

Of course legal expertise is relevant. To the safety of the convictions, which is what I thought we were talking about.