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!

There were 1,336 successful appeals against both decisions of Magistrates’ courts and the Court of Appeal between June 2019 and March 2020
https://www.law.ac.uk/about/press-releases/wrongful-convictions/

Those that lose their appeal can then go to the CCRC:
The CCRC’s Annual Report 2021/22 has shown that in the last year, 57 cases referred back to the courts by the CCRC were overturned – meaning that during its quarter century of operation a total of 540 convictions or sentences have now been overturned thanks to CCRC referral.
https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/more-than-one-miscarriage-of-justice-overturned-every-week-this-year/

Each case is a persons life destroyed by wrongful conviction of a crime or crimes they did not commit.

No, I don't doubt her guilt. She was convicted of killing babies that were expected by the paediatricians to thrive, she was always present at the times of deaths, the unusual symptoms, the blood result that showed insulin had been given.

She changed notes and times to attempt to cover her tracks.

Blimey are you comparing convictions in a magistrates court to a 10 month murder trial where the defence was headed by one of the leading defence lawyers in the country?

Wow.

Mstxxx Wow. What you have described is shocking.

The other case worth reading is about Lucia de Berk. Think someone posted a link upthread

I wanted to believe it was bad luck, or an unfortunate coincidence. I can see how a department with poor standards of care, stretched to breaking point, taking in patients who should have been transferred to more specialist units who were themselves overstretched could have an unacceptably high death rate and people would look for any answer that wasn’t “you are all shit doctors”. I can see how someone under stress might write those batshit notes. I don’t think it’s that incriminating to take the odd handover sheet home (but not the amount she was hoarding) and it’s odd that there was so many for babies who were unharmed. The Facebook searches are a bit odd and she shouldn’t have done it but it’s not right out there - lots of people search people of Facebook through nosiness. I can see that someone working full time plus lots of overtime would be statistically more likely to be on the unit during a death or collapse than almost anyone else. Probably double the number of times than say, someone with a 25 hour contract. But it wasn’t double the number of time - she was there every time (24 times for these charges) bar the hanging of the second bag of feed for the insulin poisoned baby (babyF?). The next closest was Stephen Breary (10 times) and some of those were because he was bleeped to attend. The vast majority of staff were on shift for fewer than 5 collapses/deaths. She was present for every death on the unit in the 12 months (June 2015-jume2016), not just those in this trial. I can see how witnesses could get details wrong - some of it is remembered from moments of trauma and emotion and other things are mundane events remembered years later, but broadly people do remember stuff.

It’s just too much though. The pattern of her taking over care for a baby while the designated nurse does something else and then that baby collapsing over and over again. The deaths and collapses following her shift pattern - nights only until she was stopped from doing nights and then the daytime attacks starting. The falsifying medical records. The sending away of parents followed almost immediately by an attack. The mawkish way she hung about parents and had to be told to leave them alone. Her presence every single time when no other staff member was even close to that number. The hoarding of the handover sheets. I’m clinical and I’ve taken scraps of paper home in my pocket before. I either chuck in the fire at home or return to confidential waste on my next shit. I shouldn’t do it - it’s wrong - but it’s a mistake - one I’ve made maybe once or twice a year (I’m a very scatty person - most people don’t do this ever). Having hundreds of handover sheets is crazy - it trophy territory. Her lies - dragged out of the house in her nighty - not knowing what “go commando” means, not having any recollection of pretty memorable events, not knowing what it’s like looking from a light corridor into a dark room, her relationship with Dr A. She’s a liar. Her having to move from the dock to the witness box while the court was empty shows her as a narcissist (I’d be interested to know if her knee and thyroid problems are real). Those babies are dead - that’s the crux of it. Babies that were doing well, preparing for discharge, babies with a good prognosis suddenly and inexplicably deteriorating and every time the parents have just gone for some food or sleep of to see their other children, and the designated nurse has just gone on a break of to do another job and there is Lucy. Poor Lucy - such a bad time, so unlucky. Everyone be nice to poor, nice, Lucy. She killed and attacked them on Fathers Day, on their dues dates, on their 100th day of life, on their discharge days and on days when they were being transferred to other hospitals. The last 4 (3 deaths and an attack) were on 4 consecutive shifts - 3 on 3 consecutive days, on a unit that had previously had around 4 deaths a year (one assumes of very sick babies - not those who were thriving with a little extra support). I started off thinking it was a horrible mistake or even a set-up. I don’t have a scrap of doubt now. I don’t even need the insulin to convince me. My thought are with the parents, grandparents and siblings of those who were killed. There is a 7 year old boy out there whose two brothers were murdered while he lay in his cot nearby.

Excellent article. Well worth reading.

It's a worry that there are people out there who think she's innocent.

No. I’m just posting the facts on the numbers of wrongful convictions, which do include murder.
“Arson, Assault with intention to rob, Attempted robbery, Dishonestly making a false representation, Encouraging or assisting offences, False Accounting, False imprisonment, Manslaughter, Murder, Possession of a false passport, Theft, Unlawfully having an offensive weapon, Wounding with intent to cause GBH.”

Why is everyone's first reaction "she couldn't have done it"?? Why? Because she's a white female? How can you judge a person you've never met?

The defence council and the CPS will have been perfectly aware of the potential of people scrutinising the outcome of this case .

The trial lasted 10 months and a leading KC was in charge of the defence.

It is highly unlikely that this is a wrongful conviction.

@SkintMamasita That is hardly comparing like with like though is it?

What do you think all the experts who provided evidence might have missed? I could understand if the case hinged on one piece of medical evidence where there was disagreement amongst equally qualified people, that there could be more of a doubt in the conviction but that is not the case here.

I think it was the unlikeliness of a woman occupying a strategic role in healthcare and operating in a calculated manner in order to harm multiple babies - rather than the fact she was white.

Someone killed all those babies, so who do you think it was?

That honestly wasn’t my first reaction. At first I thought ah hah more proof that women can be just as bad/evil as men.

It was only after reading about the evidence that I started to think she might not have done it. No one has really analysed the probability properly- see the article posted upthread.

Things found at her home were, in my view, made too much of.

The hospitals actions show they knew they had serious failures in their standard of care above and beyond the possibility of a murderous nurse.

Having doubts is fine.

In fact she had 2 not guilty verdicts and 6 no verdicts so even the jury weren't convinced on all counts. Just 14/22 and only 2 of those were unanimous.

However - with regards the unit - it's true they downgraded its status from 27 to 32 weeks.

But only 2 of the babies were under 32 weeks so that really doesn't correlate statistically. It's a red herring the LL supporters keep posting to try and make people believe their age was the biggest factor.

But consultants know when prem babies are unwell. They don't usually just collapse without warning. Even those born under 30 weeks.

Plenty of the evidence can be questioned to pointing to her death - eg the post it's. But plenty of that evidence (post it's) and the notes etc did point to a mindset and oddity which in turn lead to being able to believe the evidence did point to someone guilty.

I think if she hadn't taken the stand and actually said a word she's have created more reasonable doubt.

Zwicky great post

I agree it is unlikely it is a wrongful conviction. I just have doubt that she is definitely guilty. Apparently many on the jury also had some doubts as it took them 110hrs to come to a decision.

This has nothing to do with what I posted.

It was good enough to go through 3 levels of appeal

So explain to me why her defence team didn’t challenge this? Did you know that the stats presented include stillbirths at hospital?

For her to be on shift when every baby died she either has to be guilty or incredibly unlucky

This is not an article about Lucy Letby. It was written in January 2023 (8 months before LL's conviction) and is about another case altogether (Lucia de Berk).

Like I said, all the arguments for LL are arguments by analogy ("this vaguely similar conviction was later over-turned"). They are not arguments based on the specific evidence.

It’s not a red herring when you think of the consequences of there being too many babies for the staff to care for, and these including very premature babies that require more time and intensive care from staff.

The hospital reducing the number of cots and raising the threshold from 27 weeks to 32 weeks means you now have the same number of nursing and doctor staff concentrating their care on fewer babies that are all less premature and thus requiring less intensive care.

One reason why babies older than 32 weeks could have been dying in the original understaffed set up would logically be due to too many babies and not enough staff. Medical staff are taught to prioritise care based on need, and the babies that would be most needy and prioritised for care would be the babies younger than 32 weeks premature as their risk of death is much higher. So, it is logical that the doctors and nurses were concentrating the bulk of their time and care on the very premature babies, while the less premature babies were neglected…thus leading to more deaths of 32 week and less premature babies than you would expect.

You've started a thread about a piece on the internet.

Loads of MNers have told you it's conspiracy theorists and they weren't at the trial to hear all the evidence.

Yet still you want a discussion - about what?

The paper isn't worth the screen space it takes up.

I am personally interested in whether she gets an appeal and the grounds that that will take as it'll be based on actual evidence seen by actual people involved.

But not so much (at all!) interested in a conspiracy theorists rant based on nothing but a few things they've read elsewhere.

These people are as bad as the Christian groups who fund court appeals for children pronounced clinically dead stringing their parents along with false hope.

Reading it, there is no discussion about the overwhelming correlation between LLs presence at the death of each child. She and ily she was present at every single death and she was present at every single one of the unexplained near deaths. This is a massive part of the puzzle and it's not even mentioned in the poorly written obviously biased article.