Anyone else doubting Lucy Letby's guilt?

[Nickersnackersnockers]

Don't know if I am allowed to share a link so please Google 'Science on Trial Lucy Letby'.

It's written by a scientist with no association to LL who is asking questions that were not addressed in court.

I am very disturbed by the article. Don't start slinging mud at me, make a large coffee, go read it, come back, and tell me what you think!

I've been following the case since it first made national news back in the new year.

First of all, I had a very similar "she can't possibly be guilty!" gut response. But I've dug into that, and have put it down to a "she could be me" mentality.
We're both white, middle-class girls of a similar age, who had very similar-sounding upbringings, who have worked in similar (but not the same) caring, professional jobs. She could have been me, or any of my mates.

But as I saw more and more of the evidence unfold, it could only really have been Lucy. Yes, a lot of it was quite circumstantial, but I think the evidence was all compelling AND plausible.

I followed the trial closely, I read the reddits and followed the tattle page (not a tattler but that thread was done wonderfully) and I've read the opinions of Richard Gill and Emma Kenney.

I have not a single shred of doubt about her guilt. Not a single fucking shred.

Letby is the most terrifying serial killer in the world. I'd rather get into a car with Ed Kemper than let her care for my premature baby, that is how much she scares me.
(I'd rather have the option to not do either, but I'm making a point of how much I wouldn't allow her near my baby)

I don’t know how credible it is that this organisation has "no association" with LL given that it seems to have been set up entirely focused on her case. If a reputable organisation with a history of successful challenges to miscarriages of justice were to take up the cause I would give it some credence as miscarriages do certainly happen.

For example?

miscarriages of Justice are incredibly rare nowadays because our threshold of evidence is so much more sophisticated.
What about those historical cases where suspects have now been found guilty as a direct result of things like improved DNA techniques?

I know that. Are you quite done nitpicking my one sentence that mirrors exactly how her application to appeal has been reported in dozens of media reports?

So , did you believe before you read Hitchen's article that she was guilty ?
And the link you were lead to makes you believe she's innocent ?

I don't think the jury went by a couple of articles to make their decision .

I didn’t find the article overly convincing (and I approached it with a completely open mind). Yes, maybe Lucy was a bit socially odd and just Facebook searched everyone and photographed all cards she sent, but there is no alternative explanation given for the deaths.

The babies did not just die, they had some very odd symptoms (eg patches of skin turning blue) which could not be linked to a natural cause. These symptoms were consistent with air bubbles having been injected into the blood and which could not have occurred naturally or be in any way linked to poor hygiene.

I've also had a deeper look through the website. Although they claim to gave worked on previous campaigns, none are listed. There is a long list of things they want to do, such as partnering with District Attorneys in the US, but no evidence that they have done so. And finally, not a single staff member is identified by anything other than their first names! If they are reputable scientist interested in the use if science in criminal cases, at the very least they should all have their qualifications listed, along with a publication record. In this actual scientist's opinion, the whole thing is a very dodgy looking and far from independent.

https://www.science.org/content/article/unlucky-numbers-fighting-murder-convictions-rest-shoddy-stats

Like I said I don't have any reason to believe she's innocent, she's been found guilty after all but this is interesting reading about similar cases and the numbers behind them

OP clearly disappointed in us sheeple and has vanished without answering any of the perfectly reasonable questions

So I read the website a few months ago, Science on Trial, just after the conviction.

When I read it, it did make immediately think "oh my god, what if she isn't guilty...." however, I am not an expert or even work in a medical setting. I have absolutely no skills, knowledge or experience to understand and evaluate their argument (which seems to currently be the admission of one expert witnesses statement who is using outdated methodology).

The courts and those involved in the case are experts, they had access to all the evidence involved and they concluded that according to our current justice system there is enough evidence to demonstrate she is guilty.

I don't think it is wrong to ever question judgements but, that needs to be done from a position of acknowledging the limit of one's own knowledge and expertise. Reading a blog will not provide me with the ability to question in any meaningful way the experts who have concluded she is guilty.

Furthermore, the website does not give any background to the authors of the blog - who are they? What is their medical experience and training? Yes the blogs articles include sources but it is perfectly possible to cherry pick academic articles to support ones argument.

So no, I'm not doubting the verdict.

I've always had doubts about her guilt.

I really don't know. I didn't follow all of the trial to be honest and I'm not a nurse/doctor, but it's the insulin that throws me off thinking she's not guilty each time.

There is a few things that people think makes her seem guilty that I don't though, like air must have been injected into the babies because that 'doesn't occur naturally'. I know for a fact that isn't true because I remember my brother being premature in a incubator and next minute he started having a seizure - turned out too much air was in one of his IV's. No nurse/doctor could have done it because we were all sat there for hours so it can happen naturally. The note I don't think should be taken as a confession of guilt - it looked like she was jotting down thoughts or comments or pointers, notes for a therapist or a GP for depression to tell them the things people are saying about her etc, suicidal/depressive thoughts, and there's too much possibility of what that post it note could have been to be taken in a literal context. Looking up the parents on FB personally I don't find that completely unusual, perhaps unethical, but I know a lot of people at work who would search up their 'clients'/'customers' (effectively) to see how they're doing or what happened after - morbid curiosity.

The other thing is that I have 1st hand experience of the NHS attempting to cover their own back. My family had a court case against them for negligence that went on for over 10 years. Conveniently, records went missing or pages of the midwife notes we could get were ripped out/scribbled over. Their expert witness they chose to give evidence in their favour, it turned out was not impartial, they actually paid him a large sum of money each year to consult for them periodically and didn't disclose this. The main doctor involved died in her 40s from unknown causes (or known but not to us at least) before having to give her evidence. Received very threatening letters from their solicitors they arrived 5/7 days of the week, one of which I remember clearly saying 'It would be in your best interests to drop the case'. On the day the incident happened, a mid wife whispered to my mum passing in the hall that she should get a solicitor and scurried off. When it was time for the midwives' to give their evidence, they all conveniently said they couldn't remember the incident so they can't (despite the midwife saying that to my mum and another midwife saying it was her first birth, (surely you don't forget your first birth as a midwife particularly when it was so traumatic). For years my mum went back to that hospital saying something was wrong with her baby and they said she was suffering from Munchhausen's and tried to put her in a mental health facility - as soon as she went to a different hospital they immediately said she was right. In the end they never actually admitted liability but agreed to 'settle' for millions of pounds as long as my mum signed an NDA not to go to the papers. Unfortunately my trust in the NHS is probably tarnished from this so I can believe a coverup story but typically I'm not a ~conspiracy theory~ believer. Very hard one.

The wiki on Tattle is very good in that it details the facts without emotion.

I think it's a normal human response to think that it couldn't be possible for a person to commit crimes like this especially to vulnerable babies. If you look at each case on its own, in isolation, you could start to wonder about someone's innocence and conspiracy theories.

But when you consider the bigger picture and put the individual pieces together then it looks very very different.

We are discussing a very serious legal issue in this thread. It’s important to use correct language. Both in the press and in real life.

I don't understand why all the 'flaws' and weaknesses in the prosecution's case have only come out now the trial is over and were not raised during the trial by the defence team who had years to prepare for the case? The defence didn't present much of an argument for LL's innocence.

The article on that website is spectacularly poor and it's clearly a bunch of grifters shaking their collection cup. The favourite device of those who have no evidence is argument from analogy and it's there in spades. (Sally Clark).

And yes I do believe that a lot of the conspiracists are driven by over-identification with LL.

Talking about Letby’s move to appeal her conviction and whether she may not be guilty isnt a ‘conspiracy theory’ it’s part and parcel of our justice system. Many criminals lodge appeals and then get exonerated. We regularly release people wrongly convicted of crimes up to and including murder.

Thank you.

Conspiracy theorists also underestimate the capacity of professionals with qualifications and experience to be smarter than them.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I'd be very, very careful in claiming that. It dismisses the fact that governments and the criminal justice system have been proven time and time again to fabricate evidence, conceal evidence and lie in court to falsely convict someone so long as they get a conviction.

And the 'higher ups' virtually never face justice.

The Guildford 4, Maguire 7 and Birmingham 7 are notable in the UK. Among many others we don't usually get to hear about.

The atrocities in Guantanamo Bay are more recent, where many innocent men were held without charge in another country from their own, and tortured.

I don't think LL is among this group but anyone doubting the ability of governments or the criminal justice system to deliberately prosecute or detain people that they know to, or suspect are innocent is not a conspiracy theory.

It happens very frequently.

I lump them all together. Armchair detectives and conspiracy theorists.

Please read the first paragraph of the website. The organization was formed with the sole intent to exonerate her. They have a bias. Science isn't biased. The whole thing falls apart on this.

put most basically, because the deaths they looked at were not a random sample; in fact they were just a small fraction of the neonatal deaths that occurred on the ward over that period. The question is, was the death rate of babies on the ward significantly higher when LL was present compared to when she wasn’t? The answer to that is no. The blog I have linked below provides much more detail. From a statistical/ probability perspective the explanation the jury was given for the higher rate of baby deaths (in this hospital at this time) is highly improbable and cannot explain the pattern of deaths that occurred with any likelihood. Any statistician/ mathematician could have stood up and presented this evidence. It is based on wholly objective analysis/ science and the conclusions are perfectly clear. Ultimately, the prosecution knew this and therefore explicitly said they were not arguing guilt based on statistics but relying on the medical evidence. However, they still let the misleading idea seep into the public / jury consciousness that Lucy letby was always present when things went wrong to influence people’s judgement and bias the outcome of the trial.

https://www.chimpinvestor.com/post/do-statistics-prove-accused-nurse-lucy-letby-innocent

I'm only familiar with the case in passing, but the website seems to take issue with the testimony of a Dr. Evans in particular. Did Lucy Letby's attorney not have the opportunity to cross-examine Dr. Evans? The website says "it is evident that none of the normal practices used to determine air embolism as a cause of death were applied by Dr Evans," was he questioned about that? Did her attorney provide an expert to refute it? I assume he had the opportunity to do so.

The problem with your link is that the nurse in question was freed because the overwhelming majority of the medical evidence against her was flawed.
In the case of LL, the trigger to the police investigation was the fact that she was the only person present in all the incidents for which she was ultimately found guilty. Once that was noted, then an investigation was opened, producing a wealth of medical evidence that the prosecution couldn’t dispute.