The investigation of Lucy Letby on Netflix

[TheRozzers]

Anyone watched it yet? It’s a really excellent documentary with loads of footage of her police interviews.

You see the police asking her questions about those ‘confession’ notes.

I won’t put spoilers in the OP but I’d love to hear what others made of her responses.

Mid way through I thought she’s 💯 guilty but by the end I’m really not sure. A lot points to her being innocent.

I feel for the parents of those babies so much, the uncertainty must be horrendous 😞

Agree with this.

But I think while there could arguably (and I stress arguably) be other reasons for these deaths as well as a deliberate act, there are just too many of them. When you look at each case in turn, you have to find other plausible explanations and when that becomes cumulative over 14 different babies, it becomes less and less likely.

Yes agree

Does that not work just as well either way - as you consider the international expert panel's discussion of each case, the cumulative evidence for a failing hospital becomes stronger?

We know seven babies died and seven collapses (as well as more Lucy Letby wasn't charged with hurting). We seem to have two rival explanations - murder or a failing hospital. The failing hospital thesis hasn't been tested in court because the judge forbade it. The evidence from before and outside Lee's intervention, as well as the cumulative evidence in his panel's findings, seems pretty strong to me.

The International Panel's summary reports can be viewed/downloaded here:
International Expert Panel Report (3rd Feb 2025)

International Expert Panel Report of additional 10 cases (2nd April 2025)

Summary of Joint Expert Witness Insulin Report on Babies F and L (2nd April 2025)

The full Press Conference of 4th Feb 2025 including Q&A

Also the death went for 3 to 10 for the year Letby was investigated for - that’s alot with no explanation - presumably structural things were constant until the downgrade

that is a serious jump

The panel of experts viewpoint is irrelevant. It was not evidence in the trial and not subject to cross examination

I thought the judge allowed some comment on it- the defence basically argued that - but the judge just stopped short of letting the defence say that’s why babies died

so they did hear about understaffing - workload - inexperience etc

But there are explanations; substandard care basically.

How can anyone say that a panel of renowned experts stating there were no murders is ‘irrelevant’?

But the care would have been the same in previous years

the experts weren’t at the trial and for every death experts will vary - the jump in death rate and explanation after explanation loses its weight for me - they weren’t examining deaths in light of context of the trial

My understanding is that the defence could ask witnesses whether there were staffing issues or other problems with environment and care, but that they couldn't produce or discuss the evidence from the RCPCH to show that this had been investigated and demonstrated in 2016.

But you are right - I oversimplified things there.

Was it 2016 a unique year for substandard care then?

The report reviewed conditions and events mostly in 2015 and 2016 (some further back)

It would be good for the defence if they’d been able to show a marked difference in 2015

in reckon the judge didn’t let it in because it couldn’t be a reason for the jump

It's an interesting question. I don't actually think we can assume the same standard of care in (say) 2014 and 2015-16. During the period when Lucy Letby's alleged crimes happened, one consultant, Dr Newby, left. Another (anonymous) went on extended sick leave. Who knows what changed happened in the nursing team.

But maybe more to the point, care might have stayed the same, but the babies didn't. From April 2015, the unit was admitting more low birth weight babies and more who needed longer stays in intensive care.

I do think that was the turning point which lead to an increased death rate.

I don't think the judge should have made that call really if that was the reason, but maybe it was.

I’m sure you know better than me - I’m just guessing

Of course but you still have to look at the circumstances of each individual death. People keep saying a failing unit, short staffed and so on but are not specific about how that caused each individual death. You still need a reason why a particular baby on a particular day suffered an unexpected and unexplained collapse.

I think it could well have been, but not perhaps in the way you’re suggesting.

Let’s say for instance there’s a road with poor lighting, numerous potholes and insufficient maintenance. People complain about it all the time and there have been a number of minor accidents but nothing serious. Then one year, there are three serious crashes on the road resulting in fatalities.

That would be a normal (though tragic) occurrence and chances are the comments would be along the lines of ‘well it was only a matter of time … miracle it hasn’t happened before’ sort of remarks. I very much see the 2015/16 year as like that: maybe there were some very unwell babies, bad luck, experienced staff leaving / sick / on maternity leave; banana skins and walking under ladders. I don’t know: I wasn’t there. I do know that ‘there were lots of deaths this year and there weren’t the years before so there must be a murderer’ isn’t hugely plausible.

Yes, and that is what lots of reviews of the situation - postmortems, internal review at Chester, external in 2016-17, UK expert panel in 2024-5, international expert panel in 2024-5 have done. They have looked at each case individually and found reasons for collapse or death

That’s exactly what the conference did.

There was a regional reorganisation going on at the time which impacted on the acuity of cases taken by the CoC hospital. I’ll try to find the details later on

Do you know if the defence experts met with the prosecution at a pre trial conference?

if so in theory they were ready to go?

Oh don’t worry I can’t read it all

it’s such a jump from 3 to 10 deaths

They did, or at least the defence expert witness Michael Hall did. We have leaks in Private Eye and Evans mentioned it somewhere too.

Myers asked to put Hall on the stand to give evidence in Lucy Letby's defence if they could take the cases one by one. It's widely assumed that he wouldn't have put him up for babies F and L (the insulin cases) since the defence didn't have an explanation for their cases then.

But after Evans discussed the case of baby Y, the third insulin baby, after the trial, Hall said that knowing about this could have changed the way the defence understood the insulin cases. (And they have done all the other work on insulin since then too).

This report from Chester Hospital shows how they were taking on more vulnerable babies than before, from April 2015 - July 2016.

Not too much reading in it - lots of graphs.

thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/evidence/inq0001888-draft-paper-from-the-countess-of-chester-hospital-titled-position-paper-neonatal-unit-mortality-2013-2016/

Well you may not bother to read it but it’s pertinent so I’ll post it anyway for the benefit of people who are interested in the wider context. Also spikes do happen. They don’t typically trigger a murder investigation.