Lucy Letby bombshell as new memo from sole medical witness threatens to blow prosecution's case wide open.

[MissJoGrant]

This seems like a pretty major development.

www.lbc.co.uk/crime/lucy-letby-bombshell-new-memo-sole-medical-witness-nurse-conviction/

Because of the nature of what she’s been convicted of, I imagine she is possibly completely isolated within prison which would make a miscarriage of justice particularly egregious.

I believe she is in Low Newton, in which case no, it is very unlikely that she is segregated from others (although she would be in the restricted wing which serves long term "serious" offenders). Nor that she would specifically need to be. It may sound rather odd, but women in restricted units like these tend to rub along reasonably well in most cases. I haven't been to the one in Low Newton, but the one at HMP Durham that used to house people like Rosemary West and Myra Hindley was weird at times, but not often volatile. And believe me - that was a hell of a prison. In my experience is it lower security offenders that are more volatile. But those are also larger populations.

PS I just checked and she is apparently now in Bronzefield, albeit I can't swear to that. Google suggests she is, but HMPS doesn't "advertise" where prisoners are, although obviously the media find out such things. But again, segregation wouldn't be likely as a routine measure

No. Bronzefield, the last I heard. Interesting anyway.

@PhilippaGeorgiou didn’t see your edit.

I just want to add I've found a great podcast on this by John Sweeney who also reported on Sally Clarke's case. It's called Was There Ever a Crime and there's a series dedicated to Lucy Letby. They interview Dewy Evans, statisticians, neonatologists and take you through the whole thing step by step.

That’s interesting, thank you for the response. I had assumed segregation for this type of crime.

I'm not a psychologist, so I can't explain it, but bear in mind that although women (especially younger women) are increasingly involved in violent crime (a) serious violent crime by women is still rare, and (b) it is often based on very different operational motives and methods than those by men. I am not going to say that I know whether Lucy Letby is guilty - as I said previously, I do not know but I am increasingly worried that the conviction is unsafe - but many women in this category of crime are, in many ways, charismatic, popular, and relatively easy to get on with. If you met them anywhere else you'd probably be happy to sit and have a drink with them! They are popularly portrayed as evil, but that is often a result of a double whammy - they are not only guilty of crimes we may not understand, but as women they shouldn't be like this anyway. They offend not just against the law, but on our social construct of what women should be. And that influences everything - there is no way that the law is blind to sex or the stereotypes of sex. Try reading anything by Helena Kennedy if you want to know more about that.

The fact is - and we saw it play out in social media - Lucy Letby was tried and convicted before she ever set foot in that courtroom, and with the best will in the world there is no way on earth the jury were unaware of that. It is impossible to say they weren't. A weak defence - and I suspect the defence were at least partially swayed in the same vein - and a prosecution case carefully constructed but by no means neutral... She did not have a chance. And the problem with all of that is not whether or not she is guilty. The problem is that if she did everything she is accused of and more, she deserved a fair trial; and if British justice is to mean anything she should have had one. It is an interesting point about British courts that we have a very adversarial system. It is a battle between counsel as to who wins and who loses. This is not common in Europe, where the courts are about investigating to find the truth of the matter rather than a battle between lawyers. I don't know if their approach is any better, but it is an interesting view about what courts should do.

I agree with your concerns regarding her conviction. I think I was basing my thoughts regarding other prisoner’s reactions to her on what I’m aware of relating to crimes against children where male prisoners are concerned. I had assumed that would apply where women were concerned too.

Even if her conviction is ultimately overturned, I can’t imagine how difficult building any kind of new life would be.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/mar/17/childrensservices.uknews

This happened to poor Sally Clark some years ago. Poor woman drank herself to death.

I agree. I think this case demonstrates the needs for various reforms to the criminal justice system including:

1. much stricter controls on who can be presented as an “expert witness” in terms of qualifications and experience;

2. the need for panels of expert witnesses to examine evidence and produce reports, not rely primarily on one person;

3. the requirement if any evidence is going to be presented in which the prosecution makes claims about statistical probability for expert statisticians to be among the expert witnesses and validate the accuracy of these statistical claims;

4. overhaul of who can serve on a jury and - at least for complex cases - an assessment of basic scientific/ mathematical competence to be able to weigh up evidence rationally and make appropriate judgements as part of jury selection;

5. complete overhaul of the appeals process to ensure that any evidence misrepresented or omitted or later coming to light that may have changed verdicts results in immediate retrial or acquittal.

Far less than the cost of keeping someone in prison for 50+ years.

Thank you for this recommendation.

I have just started listening to it.

Wow. I didn’t know about the shit in the sinks.

Or the fact that there were very sadly seventeen babies who died within that critical time period but they focused on only seven.

As John Sweeney says, a bit like drawing your target around the arrows.

They just need prosecutors to be more rigorous - they based the entire case off the say so of one person. Dewi decided which ones were murder and which ones were not. He decided everything - the police should not just accept one experts word that there was a crime

I worked on a rehab ward in the NHS and we had an incompetent doctor who was rotated on.

The sister of the ward raised flag with the consultant on day 2, and every single day after that even after people were dying. In the end all the staff including us, the rehab staff were raising concerns multiple every day. It took 7 more medically well people to die over 4 weeks for the doctor to be moved.

The fact is the consultant was a fantastic doctor, but a terrible manager. He just did not have the skills to handle a difficult conversation. It was only when the sister stood over him and made him read this doctors notes that he took action.... .which was to move him to another ward! I assume he was eaten alive in acute and got sacked.

Dewi. It’s a Welsh name and is pronounced differently to Dewey.

You’ve just told us a doctor was responsible for at least seven deaths, and he was just moved to another ward and possibly could still be practicing? And definitely hasn’t been through a court case anything like Lucy Letby’s trial?!

They clearly can’t be relied upon to do that, though, can they? Police aren’t generally the brightest sparks (and often seem totally oblivious to what the law actually states).

Prosecutors will of course do whatever they can to support their case that is within the rules.

Relying on a single expert witness should never be an option. Relying on someone who is not even an expert in the subject area in question should be prohibited.

Judges can only go on the evidence presented in court and hands are tied by archaic rules around grounds for appeals etc, and also have their own prejudices in many cases.

Juries are made up of random people and, frankly, the idea of having my innocence or guilt decided by a random 12 people collected from the street is terrifying given that by definition over 50% of people have below average intelligence, a significant minority aren’t very capable of rational, evidence-based decision making. Over 10% of adults are functionally illiterate in maths and English so the idea they could reach valid conclusions in a complex case involving complex medical data or statistical probabilities is a nonsense.

Jury selection should involve requirement to sit a test involving critical thinking and weighing up evidence for people to demonstrate the required skills to weigh evidence and make rational - not emotionally-driven - decisions. A brief optional training course should be provided to assist anybody keen to do it but who may not be capable already. And only those who pass the test should be considered for selection, as well as screening out for prejudices/ conflicts of interest etc as they try to do already (but not robustly enough, in my opinion).

I think what you're calling for is essentially a move to an inquisitorial system about determining the facts, rather than our current adversarial system which is about who plays the game best.

And nobody should be able to make statistical claims about likelihood in a court room unless qualified statisticians have verified this (more than one). This has happened numerous times with such claims subsequently having been found to be very obviously false.

We all need to be able to have confidence in the system and it desperately needs reform to make it fit for purpose and robust.

I wouldn’t go that far, in the criminal system (although I think an inquisitorial system would work better in other contexts). I think both parties should have someone putting forward their best case. However, what they should be allowed to present should be much more tightly controlled and not include anything that is clearly factually misleading or based on unevidenced conjecture dressed up as an expert opinion.

Juries are not experts hence the needs for expert witnesses so they need to be able to rely on what the expert witnesses tell them so it is imperative these people are competent in the relevant field and their evidence has been verified by an absolute minimum of one other expert but preferably a panel. Otherwise a jury is expected to decide on the competence of the witness as well as the innocence/ guilt of the defendant and - rightly - would usually conclude they aren’t in a position to question the evidence provided by the “expert” witness as they know even less about it and wouldn’t even be able to spot the glaring inaccuracies that were identified in the Letby case the moment some actual experts in the field looked at the “expert” evidence presented in court.

Prosecution/ defence can then try to use the presented evidence to enforce the version of events they are putting forward as they wish, but the evidence itself should be accurate and not misleading. And given this is something that can be amended in the system easily to prevent yet more miscarriages of justice based on similar cases of expert witnesses error, we absolutely should learn from this and put stricter rules in place.

The prosecution didn’t just rely on a single witness..

I’m assuming you’re not making this point in relation to criminal trials generally, as no statistical claims about likelihood were made in court as part of the prosecution case in the Letby trial.

I've never felt her conviction was safe. It's horrific to think she is perhaps innocent and in prison and such an awful traumatising experience. Her life is ruined.

Maybe she is guilty but the evidence used for her conviction has always been shaky but public need for scapegoat over such an emotive issue is huge.

Apologies, first sentence in my post above should be ‘I assume you’re making this point in relation to criminal trials generally’

Implicitly they were, yes. The evidence was deliberately presented in such a way - excluding all of the cases where it couldn’t possibly have been her and keeping the jury in the dark about the fact that they were only seeing a small proportion of the cases - it was presented misleadingly so that they could have thought “well, she is the common denominator. It must have been her”.

There was a chart presented showing which nurses were on shift for each baby death and Letby’s name ticked next to every single one. That presents the data in a statistically/ probabilistically misleading manner when it would have given a totally different picture of likelihood to anybody who isn’t a statistician if it had included the full data set of all of the deaths.

Statisticians should be required to review all data and charts presented to a jury to ensure they are not misleading, even if the prosecution don’t make explicit claims about likelihood. What was their purpose in presenting it if not to imply that there was no other statistically plausible explanation but her guilt? The entire purpose of the court process is to determine a level of likelihood meeting the probabilistic threshold of “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Incidentally, I think there should be much better training for juries also in terms of what that wording means in practice; what level of likelihood or certainty does it indicate? Otherwise there may be wildly different interpretations by different jurors.

In other cases explicit claims about probability have been made by non-statisticians and later been proved to be grossly erroneous. Proper review of evidence that either side wish to put forward by a panel of neutral, appropriately qualified people should be an absolute requirement of the process before evidence is admitted to be used in court.