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/

Have we though? None of the opinions of the panel of experts in the CCRC application have been formally tested or challenged yet.

Dr Shoo Lee’s panel’s exhaustive report and analysis have been submitted to the CCRC, they directly challenge the findings of the prosecution experts.

Surely at some point fingers of blame would have been pointed at the doctors in charge. Is these deaths are unusual aka this is not my fault?

I think that most NHS organizations protect their doctors at all costs. NHS is very hierarchical and doctors get away with things that would end the employment of other staff. The NHS would claim otherwise, but I have seen it over and over again.

Yes, but the CCRC has not yet reviewed this, nor come to a decision on whether it will refer to the CoA.

But obviously that wasn’t the entire (or in fact any of the) prosecution case was it?

The prosecution said 'there were more arrows pointing towards Letby than away'.

So if, as seems likely, even some of the arrows were based on dodgy reasoning, the whole thing seems unsafe. Its very clear that this unit took very sick babies, some of whom would tragically die. It seems at least as likely that the hospital had systemic failings than that there was a killer nurse. The NHS has a long history of pinning systemic and management failings on individuals so anything which shows this case was less that 100% water tight has to be taken seriously. Its tragic for the parents of those poor babies. But also tragic if someone has been scapegoated because she was more vulnerable than others.

That is true, and you can see in the Thirlwall documents that Chester's management was planning to support the consultants to improve safety on the wards after getting reports back about problems and errors. They showed no sign of throwing the consultants under the bus; but the consultants refused to accept that they bore any substantial responsibility for what had happened.

Isn't that the crux of this particular thread though?

That a memo of potentially great relevance (which appears to contradict the only medical witness' account) was not declared to the police, so the prosecution could not disclose it to the defence.

The email was disclosed to the defence ahead of LL’s appeal against her conviction for the attempted murder of Baby K (which it relates to).

Do you know if the defence used it for the Appeal? Is this info in the public domain?

How is this Memo only being made public in the past couple of weeks and not at the time of the Appeal in that case?

I'm not disputing you. I am genuinely asking. Thanks.

Thank you. I didn’t know that. That makes the clearly misleading data presented to the jury even more appalling.

But it is much harder to get evidence accepted for appeal due to the archaic laws mentioned earlier. There’s absolutely no excuse for it not to have been declared before the trial and not doing so indicates that a key witness was at best unrealiable, and when combined with statistically misleading charts presented to the jury, and the lack of proof any crime took place at all (other than medical negligence, potentially and possibly perjury), this makes it almost impossible for convictions based on circumstantial evidence only to have genuinely reached the threshold of “beyond reasonable doubt” because even the circumstantial evidence is extremely dubious, was misrepresented in court or, in some instances appears to have been fabricated entirely.

Yes, but the request to appeal would have gone in in written form before the hearing date and may have been in already. They are on a tight time limit. That request was based on one issue only (possibility of a fair trial).

So throwing this new evidence in late, if the judge allowed it, would not necessarily have been a great strategy. Probably better to hand it to Letby's new team so that they could add it to the bundle for the CCRC, which was needed either way.

There are some documents that weren't disclosed when they should have been. This isn't one of them. Police had it late too. The interest isn't in when it was disclosed, unlike some of the other new evidence. It's in the content.

As I understand it those experts where not there to go through the evidence but to check on Evan's work.

It’s not for “them to be satisfied”. This was the case they were supposed to be trying to prove in court: that the other deaths weren’t suspicious and these ones were hence evidence of a crime. How can they prove the case if they haven’t even provided the evidence to the jury to prove their assertion that these cases were suspicious and the others weren’t hence these babies were deliberately harmed but the others were not, in their opinion? And the jurors not even being told that other cases existed. How can you be denying that this is deliberately misleading and that nobody could make a valid judgement on the plausibility of various causes with such deliberately misleading and incomplete data?

You don’t prove a case by presenting data in court the selection of which already assumes that the assertion you are trying to prove is correct, excludes all data indicating other possibilities, and includes in the sample of the population only the data that would be relevant if your case is found to be valid and refuse to tell those assessing it even the fact that the data set presented is incomplete.

Surely you understand you cannot draw a logically valid conclusion from premises that already contain as an assumption the assertion you are attempting to prove?! These are the most basic principles of logical reasoning. It’s genuinely terrifying that people who cannot comprehend this are eligible for jury service.

Imagine if the Government did a survey saying they can show that the population is happy with their policies. They collect and then filter the data and exclude all cases where people said “no, we’re not happy”. Then they publish the data they’ve selected only from those who said “we’re delighted with your policies” with a statement saying “we’ve looked at the data and look, here it is. 100% of people think we’re amazing!”.

Would you be happy with this approach?

If, subsequently, it was revealed in the news that this is what they’d done would your response @rubbishatballetbe “well, they only said they were showing how happy with their policies people are. They never explicitly said there weren’t also lots of people who were very unhappy, who actually outnumbered the happy ones, so it’s fine and not at all misleading. The unhappy people were irrelevant because they were only talking about the happy ones.”?

Surely you understand you cannot draw a logically valid conclusion from premises that already contain as an assumption the assertion you are attempting to prove?! These are the most basic principles of logical reasoning. It’s genuinely terrifying that people who cannot comprehend this are eligible for jury service.

I agree, but sadly about 85% of the population will have stopped reading halfway through your first sentence because they think "premises" means "a house, office, or piece of land". And when you patiently explain the other meaning, they will think you are some kind of "lah-di-dah do-gooder" making excuses for baby murderers.

It’s not for “them to be satisfied”. This was the case they were supposed to be trying to prove in court: that the other deaths weren’t suspicious and these ones were hence evidence of a crime. How can they prove the case if they haven’t even provided the evidence to the jury to prove their assertion that these cases were suspicious and the others weren’t hence these babies were deliberately harmed but the others were not, in their opinion? And the jurors not even being told that other cases existed. How can you be denying that this is deliberately misleading and that nobody could make a valid judgement on the plausibility of various causes with such deliberately misleading and incomplete data?

@GivenUpOnSleepIt’s the CPS that makes the decision to charge for offences of this nature, so yes we know they will have been satisfied following the police investigation that the other babies died of natural causes as they were not on the indictment (or possibly they just didn’t have enough evidence to charge LL..).

They did not have to prove anything about the other babies (not sure why you keep referring to them as ’cases’) as they weren’t saying she had anything to do with their deaths.

You don’t prove a case by presenting data in court the selection of which already assumes that the assertion you are trying to prove is correct, excludes all data indicating other possibilities, and includes in the sample of the population only the data that would be relevant if your case is found to be valid and refuse to tell those assessing it even the fact that the data set presented is incomplete.

Er, that is literally exactly how you try and prove a case in court..? The CPS wouldn’t be prosecuting a case unless they believe the assertion they are trying to prove is correct - what would be the point and how likely would they be to succeed? As per previous posts, the prosecution has to disclose beforehand any evidence that might support the defence or undermine their own case, but then it’s up to the defence how they use it.

Surely you understand you cannot draw a logically valid conclusion from premises that already contain as an assumption the assertion you are attempting to prove?! These are the most basic principles of logical reasoning. It’s genuinely terrifying that people who cannot comprehend this are eligible for jury service.

Well I find it equally terrifying that people who can be so assuredly and persistently wrong about something are also eligible for jury service.

They did not have to prove anything about the other babies (not sure why you keep referring to them as ’cases’) as they weren’t saying she had anything to do with their deaths.

A large part of their case was that Letby was on duty for all the suspicious incidents. However, incidents were defined as suspicious because Letby was on duty. If a similar incident happened when she was not on duty, it was not suspicious. One death that was initially regarded as murder was dropped from the investigation when it was realised Letby was not on duty.

I'm afraid the person who is assuredly and persistently wrong in this set of posts is you.

Which incidents were defined as suspicious just because she was on duty?

What similar incidents happened that were dismissed as unsuspicious because she wasn’t on duty?

Which death was initially regarded as murder but then dropped solely because they realised she wasn’t on duty?

And please provide your sources for all the above.

Which incidents were defined as suspicious just because she was on duty?

All of them. That was the sole criterion that determined whether an incident was shown on the chart produced by the prosecution.

What similar incidents happened that were dismissed as unsuspicious because she wasn’t on duty?

At least 9 other deaths and 26 non-fatal collapses. One of those relates to one of the babies Letby is alleged to have murdered (baby J) but wasn't included because she wasn't on duty. And don't trot out the line that these other deaths and collapses were investigated and found to be natural. It simply isn't true. The deaths currently attributed to Letby were also investigated and found to be natural. It is only when the police got involved and were looking for evidence to charge Letby that these deaths were concluded to be murders. They didn't reinvestigate the others. After all, Letby could not be responsible for them as she wasn't on duty.

Regarding the police investigation, it is important to remember that they weren't presented with a murder with an unknown killer to investigate. They were faced with a group of doctors claiming that there were too many deaths happening and that Letby was responsible. It is clear from the evidence that the police did not look at all the baby deaths to see if murders were being committed and, if so, who was responsible. They looked at the deaths that could credibly be blamed on Letby to see if they could find evidence to suggest she was responsible. Excluding deaths and collapses that happened when Letby was not on duty reflects the approach of the investigation. It doesn't mean those deaths and collapses were investigated and found to be innocent. It means they were considered not to be suspicious because Letby could not be responsible.

The prosecution produced this chart at the start of the trial and claimed that it proved Letby's guilt. This was the central plank of the prosecution case. Unfortunately, the defence did not call a statistician. If they had done so, they would have pointed out that the chart is not statistically valid. All it proves is that, when Letby was on duty, she was on duty. And, given that we now know the chart was inaccurate, it doesn't even prove that.

We also know that Dr Evans has changed his mind on at least one death, although he denies it. He gave evidence on baby C that an X-ray showed Letby had injected air into the baby's stomach, leading to the baby's death. We now know that Letby did not have any contact with baby C prior to this X-ray being taken so, if there was air in the stomach, she was not responsible. Evans still maintains that Letby killed baby C but has changed his mind as to how she did it. It is clear from interviews he has given that Evans will never consider any possible explanation for the deaths other than Letby murdering these babies. That is not the approach that should be taken by an expert witness. Indeed, we knew even before the trial that he does not act neutrally as an expert witness should, which is why another judge wrote to the trial judge warning him that Evans is not a reliable witness.

If you really want to understand, read the Private Eye coverage of the case with an open mind - written by a doctor who initially accepted the guilty verdict but is now convinced that she was wrongly convicted.

Prior to Dewi Evans entering the scene, the neonatal pathologist who actually SAW the babies and did the autopsies was satisfied that they all died of natural causes. Dewi came in and ‘decided’ some were suspicious based on a hunch. At least one was in the suspicious pile and moved back when it emerged LL was not on shift. Her being on shift was used by Dewi in deciding if they were suspicious or not.

the Amount of people who say she’s guilty based on being there for all the deaths - well that tells you that the statistics while not being the only part, were used to convince the jury and the public of her guilt.

every baby who died in that period should have been considered and Dewi should have been made to explain how he decided some were suspicious and some were not.

Part of the correspondence which includes Jayaram's email about baby K is the Chester consultants agreeing they will only bring the police examples of collapses where Letby was present. In their testimony at Thirlwall, and even in documents they shared with police, you see it time and time again: baby E, baby G, baby J, baby K, baby K, baby Q - only suspicious in retrospect because of Letby's involvement, not at the time.

David Rose has looked at how a number of suspicious incidents were dropped because Letby wasn't present. Article with info leaked from police enquiry here:
https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-the-letby-case-isnt-closed/

Talk by Peter Elston here with discussion of the same data:

The consultants themselves fell for the statistical illusion. They didn't suspect Letby based on their medical knowledge, but based on their poor understanding of probability. Otherwise, of course, they'd have told the police / the coroner or even their managers that they had suspicions about the various events much much earlier.

If find it really depressing how so many people don’t even understand the very most basic logic and maths and really frightening that such people are allowed to serve on juries.

Of course, as you say, at no point have I declared that Letby is innocent. What I’m saying is that it is very clear that she was mistried and the CPS has yet to prove her guilt to anywhere near a threshold that would constitute “beyond reasonable doubt” in a fair trial so it is unacceptable that she is imprisoned.

The fact that this can happen to someone is terrifying: the jury was deprived of access to much of the relevant evidence; key parts of the evidence that was presented to them being statistically invalid; other so-called evidence presented as fact actually having no scientific basis or as a minimum being highly disputed by more qualified experts; and yet more of the evidence having been provided by an unreliable witness who has been shown to have given inconsistent and conflicting accounts. These are documented facts, and we should all be worried that in such circumstances someone would remain behind bars.

Which doctors, though? The ones who accused her or the ones who say there is no case to answer? (i.e. the panel of 14 experts who say there were no murders.)

I think you’re optimistic there…