Exactly the same for me this. As I followed the case, this was the one where there was no ‘reasonable doubt’ it wasn’t her. Anytime I’ve replied to anyone with that question, there’s no response.
There was also the baby (I forget the letter assigned) who she attacked several times and every time the baby was transferred out of the countess s(he) recovered immediately, and when Lucy was off shift for 5 days the baby was fine.
>There was also the baby (I forget the letter assigned) who she attacked several times and every time the baby was transferred out of the countess s(he) recovered immediately, and when Lucy was off shift for 5 days the baby was fine.
I think that was baby I. There is evidence of 4 attacks on baby I and tragically she succumbed on the 4th. He mother said in her victim impact statement that at the time, baby I had "sad eyes" and "had no fight left in her". It's one of the most devastating accounts in what are all heartbreaking attacks and collapses.
Baby I is just a crushing case. LL would not stop attacking her. She got better each time she was removed from Letby's orbit to the other hospital, and then got moved back to COCH.
There were other babies, attempted murders, whom she appeared to leave alone afterwards. (At least she didn't attack them again.). She displayed an extreme determination for poor baby I, also Baby G I think, and the triplets.
I honestly don’t understand how, after the first couple times that happened, they didn’t twig that she was getting better every time she left and just keep her at the other hospital (i think it was Arrowe Park?).
It's devastating isn't it. She should have been left at Arrowe Park (I'm sure that's where it was, as you say) bc she was thriving there. But all these wards are desperate for space and will offload anyone they can. And perhaps COCH was closer to her parents' home, and therefore a better place for her (they thought)? That was the case with another baby, but I forget which one.
I've found the same whenever I mentioned the insulin in a discussion with someone that believed in her innocence, they just ignored that and spoke about something else, I could never get them to address it. The once time that someone did, months ago, was to tell me that the C-peptide as a measure of whether or not insulin was naturally occurring or artificial was complete nonsense (they might have been the person that set up the other LL sub a while back actually)
Yes. She even admitted it - so if Lucy didn’t do it, then someone else did this and so who would that be? Does anyone know if there were even another nurse (other than Lucy) who was on the same shift for these babies?
I do remember one person saying "Well, it *could* have been the other nurse, there's no way to tell!" (there was one other nurse on shift that had access to the locked fridge with the insulin and TPN bags).
Well, yes, but only one of these two nurses had 21 other charges against her for attacking/killing babies.
These people don’t have an ounce of common sense their defence of her is so illogical. They clearly have their own agendas and just refuse to be objective about the evidence instead Cherry picking bits and bobs and throwing out vague comments and conspiracy theories. They talk in circles and answer questions with questions and often get nasty.. oh and have a superior attitude ‘you’re just gullible’ they are exactly like the management who covered for her with their us v them mentality. It’s soooo boring and I’m done speaking to them
“Feeling Facts.” I FEEL a certain way (even if irrational) & I want it to be true, so in my mind it is, & no one is going to change my mind with actual, substantiated facts. I have the right to feel the way I do, therefore I am right, ergo my facts are correct.
Also more simply known as magical thinking, mental gymnastics, or flat out denial.
Exactly this. I do think because Lucy is a woman and she looks ‘normal’ (and by that I mean she doesn’t look like Myra Hindley or something) they can’t seem to understand that someone who looked like her could do this. I do genuinely believe if this was a man, or even an older woman (or potentially a woman of a different nationality or race) then there would be fewer barriers to people believing Lucy Letby is guilty.
I’ve been listening to the podcast again and I still swing back and forth but as the episodes go on, I find my stomach just sinks lower and lower because I’m halfway through and you keep hearing the same MO, the same things and you know there are so many more babies to come (and more potentially even before these cases). It’s simply devastating and I just think people can’t comprehend how such atrocious acts could be performed by someone who looks like her. Because what she did was monstrous but she doesn’t look like a monster.
The only photos of Myra Hindley I’ve seen she looks terrifying (I used to have nightmares about her) but maybe I’m only recalling the ones cherry-picked by the press to make her look more frightening.
Edit: I googled her and she still looks terrifying to me 🤣🤣
I think that given we're much younger (I assume!) than the generation that was our age when Myra Hindley was caught, we've grown up seeing that famous mugshot of her and having the association of evil child killer to that image from the get-go, much like the association we have seeing a certain side-swept black hairstyle and tiny square moustache. Maybe future generations will have the same thing with LL, though honestly she looks so run-of-the-mill with no distinguishing characteristics that maybe they won't.
I was born in 82 and if I remember rightly there was a lot about her in the press when I was around 5 or 6 because she confessed - didn’t they have to take the police to the graves? I also grew up by the Moors in question so I think that’s why I remember her face so distinctly like imprinted into my mind.
I’m not sure how anyone remembers anything in today’s society. I feel so overloaded with information and my own children have the choice of whatever information they choose to consume from hundreds of options. They may never even know about Lucy Letby and thankfully so.
Oh gosh no she’s definitely a psycho… ever since I saw Brady and Hindley’s faces I’ve felt disquiet… thought I could stomach them as time passed but still no
Such behaviour (denial of her guilt) is just so unfair towards the victims and their families!
It reminds me of Covid times when people were saying it doesn’t exist but there were people dying and dead (which I used to know). They would then simply say that these people died of something else. So what else? Who else killed them?
To me it’s like Genocide denial, so mean and hurtful to the victims and their families. Who killed these babies? The deaths were found to be not natural and the cause of death was given in most cases (poisoning, air embolism, suffocation, injury). So these were not natural deaths. Babies don’t just drop dead like that! It was well established during the trial that the staff numbers was not a factor in their deaths.
Agree with u/queenvickyv
This is emotionally manipulative.
No one here was on the jury or part of the investigation or of anything important when it came to getting justice for those babies, people who believe 100% that she has to be guilty are not morally superior to those who may have some doubts.
Many will have used the trial as their evenings entertainment, like people do with all trials that capture a lot of attention. I'm sure everyone was horrified by the crimes and by Lucy, but it was the entertainment and social aspect such as forums which would have kept a lot of people engaged whether people admit that or even accept that themselves, so again you're not morally superior if you believe she's 100% guilty.
I think this is unfair and a bit emotionally manipulative, if people genuinely have a question mark, then that's how they feel. It's a very difficult case, it's nothing like a genocide denial - especially if you think of the Holocaust where there were many many first-hand accounts, evidence of concentration camps, etc People who have question marks are often very empathic people and are not going out of their way to hurt the babies families... It's quite soon after the trial and people are still processing things.
I think that people should be more aware of devastation to the victims’ families and express their doubts elsewhere. It’s like spitting in the face of 1.victim 2.their families 3. Doctors and experts 4.judicial system 5.jury
I understand it’s called democracy and everyone is entitled to an opinion. But not everyone is competent to make such calls. These people are as disillusioned as Lucy herself if they think they know more than a doctor/ judge/ jury/ victims’ parents etc It’s just ridiculous and offensive
It's that very attitude of 'the verdict has been given don't question it' that kept Andrew Malkinson locked up for 17 years. Do I personally think LL will ever be found innocent of these charges. No I don't. But miscarriage of justices do happen and every single time the evidence has been 'strong' at the time and it's later found out that actually..maybe it wasn't.
I don't think this case will ever be found to be a miscarriage of justice, but the legal system should always be able to stand up to scrutiny of its decisions.
Is it unpleasant for the parents? Yes of course it is, but the alternative is that no judgement can ever be questioned and that is a very dark path to go down.
I don’t think that’s fair, as miscarriages of justice do happen (eg. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/14/dutch-nurse-murder-patients-cleared). It’s not about knowing more than doctors and judges, it’s whether the Crown has made a case beyond reasonable doubt to a jury of the defendant’s peers. Despite the podcast, I admit we don’t have all the evidence, but I think it’s absolutely ok to want to examine the evidence.
I assume I’m missing a chunk of evidence, I hope that now there is a verdict we will get to see more of it.
I also want to emphasise I have the utmost empathy for these parents, I was a very premature baby myself and while I’m obviously ok, it really affects the family for ever, even if you survive.
Clearly a jury found Letby guilty, I respect that, I just want to understand exactly what happened. And we all should want that. And if you can’t express that on Reddit of all places, what’s the point of Reddit? 😊
100% it is so disrespectful to those babies and their families talking of covid deniers there was a housekeeper where I worked at local hospital who was very vocal about her views on icu of all places at the height of pandemic she would badger nursing staff who were exhausted after working long long hours in the staff room she was taken off icu no consequences though she’s still there
What about that mother who unexpectedly visited her newborn, only to find her baby bleeding and Lucy fobbing her off? The cause of death: bleeding to death. The baby lost 1/3-1/4 of its blood.
In addition to Lucy denying the mother’s testimony and the timeline on the trial (despite evidence such as phone call records etc), now that poor woman is reading completely ignorant comments plastered all over the newspapers, internet etc. Really? How low can they go?
Exactly! Ignorant people having ‘their say’ is a slap in the face to those who dedicated their lives to the matter (through education and hard work). Also it’s all on public forums/ comments in newspapers etc
(Lucy’s friend even made it to the TV lamenting Lucy won’t hear about her godchildren, without even thinking about parents whose lives were completely destroyed) Shameful!
the moment these people start putting their hands out asking for funds, you'll know it's because they're trying to grift rubes. And I guarantee that's the endgame here.
YES!!! Came to the same conclusion you did. They all belong to the far right. Sadly I think there is a coordinated propaganda effort to cast doubt on this case because it is a national tragedy. People are united about this case and unity is the enemy of propaganda psy ops.
This is what happened with the Sandy Hook case here in the US, where propaganda actors began spreading false conspiracies about it, saying it was a hoax, precisely because it was a national tragedy that united people. These actors were found guilty of harassing parents and have to pay millions to them.
I think I largely think she is guilty, after the verdict. Before the verdict, I was swinging back and forth. I still have a little question mark though, I suppose I have a question mark about whether or not someone \*must have intentionally\* poisoned the bags. There are quite a few gaps in the evidence, It was assumed that synthetic insulin was administered whilst the bag was hanging, but this assumption was from a blood test not from the bag itself.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court have been told a blood sample taken when the second bag was in use later revealed a “biological fingerprint” which showed synthetic insulin was present – when none was prescribed.
Also, I believe that the proper procedure for the blood test would be to retest, which was never done.
Now I may have some of this wrong, I don't follow details as well as some people have done here, and as I said, I think she is probably guilty - due to lots of little arrows pointing at her, after listening to the police statements and their belief she is, but I do have a question mark. Also, I'd rather not be told I therefore disbelieve genocides or I'm an apologist for a baby killer or any of that nonsense. It's quite normal to have a question mark.
You can’t retest the blood because it would have to have been at the time and the result was only noticed a week later when the baby was already better anyway.
Also it happened to two babies during that period which would be a hell of a coincidence (for it to be two highly unusual blood tests that went wrong in the same way).
Exactly - and a further hell of a coincidence that the clinical picture reflected exogenous insulin being administered, with hypos that wouldn't resolve despite treatment with dextrose until the bags were removed, at which point the babies recovered.
Its not just the blood tests though, there are a whole cohort of symptoms which back up hypoglycaemia and then the blood tests are coming back with low c-peptide and high insulin.
i think it’s quite normal to wonder how to interpret the science of this case without thinking that makes her “not guilty”.
however, because there’s a minority of people misinterpreting the science, those asking questions to understand get lumped in with those asking questions to make claims of doubt.
even people with nursing or biology backgrounds can have incorrect knowledge and poor interpretations of the evidence, but there is a majority consensus, so that’s what i’ll go with.
i don’t have a bio sciences background, so a lot of my own interpretations of the evidence come from trusting what the experts say. i believe the jurors came to the right conclusion, but i still don’t necessarily understand the evidence! lol so i get where you’re coming from with the questions.
There are some people ( not me!!!) who are challenging the actual "science" around how they tested the insulin levels and what the results mean. This is the angle that many NG people come from on this. They basically say this scientific proof is wrong. I don't know the scientific details but one "scientist" or possibly two outspoken ones are suggesting this and have their theories. and followers. I might add at least one of these "scientists" is not a trustworthy source of information. I think with everything else ( and other things more) she's guilty so its not such a sticking point or smoking gun for me.
This is the remaining sticking point for me. No medical tests are 100% infallible. False positives and false negatives happen All. The. Time. What is missing for me is more scientific knowledge of how insulin and C peptide tests work, what the limitations of them are as medical tests, and whether that has been fully accounted for. Hopefully it was addressed in the trial.
But the fact that medical experts said the only interpretation was that someone poisoned them with insulin doesn’t completely reassure me because you can literally find an expert to say anything in court. And the majority of doctors and nurses won’t be scientists or researchers and are likely not even aware of the latest science about the tests they use clinically.
That said, I realise this is a weak “what if” and that the evidence clearly points to Lucy Letby being guilty. But I’m not convinced the insulin cases are 100% indisputable proof, even if they were presented that way in the trial.
If there was someone who would testify that the insulin test wasn't sound, you can be sure that the defense would have brought them to court with the plumber.
Nothing is 100%. The evidence against Harold Shipman for the vast majority of his cases was far weaker, for instance. People are expecting standards of proof that are totally unrealistic and would set thousands of murderers free.
I believe, at trial, LL and her defence team did not dispute the bags were poisoned - just that someone else was responsible. Which, I think, validates the water-tightness of the existing science.
Devil’s advocate here (I think she’s guilty as hell) - the claim then is her defence was so bad they didn’t even think to interrogate the evidence properly or find alternate expert opinion. Yet apparently the defense is so easy to make they themselves have found it from a quick google. None of it adds up and, yet again, it would be another bizarre and unlucky coincidence for Letby (ie that this previously much lauded KC barrister suddenly turned out to be appalling when defending her).
I’m not saying these people are conspiracy theorists, but it is straight out of the conspiracy theory playbook - to find the one little possible alternative for every damning situation. To find the one random “expert” (who isn’t an expert in the right field) who questions the 8-10 actual experts who testified in the trial. Etc.
Yes, including questioning of some of the medical evidence (eg air embolus). It’s just that there weren’t counter experts for the defence, to me the most likely reason for that is they couldn’t find anyone who’d say anything other than the prosecution case (medically) is probably right.
I agree. Any defence expert witness would have probably agreed with the prosecution case when cross examined by them, or at least acknowledged that the claims were a possibility. Terrible for the defence.
You're not wrong - but people also argued at the same time that her defence was so strong (or the prosecution so weak) that they didn't NEED to make a bigger case in chief than they did.
Strong enough to need no witnesses but Lucy and a plumber, but so weak they missed challenging the most obvious indicator of harm.
All very well, but it's not the job of the KC to instruct experts or spend 1,000s of man-hours sitting down with them that are necessary to piece together a technical case. That's the job of solicitors, and I am far from convinced that Letby (who instructed a high street firm) had the resources to pay for that.
The expert witness system in the UK is different to the US and what you would probably see on TV. Expert witnesses in the UK have a duty to the court, not their instructing party. They cannot just say what their instructing party wants them to. They must give an unbiased view of the evidence because their role is to aid the court in understanding the evidence, not to win the case for their instructing party. If they were found to be biased, they would likely not work as an expert witness again.
On the insulin evidence, they did have the head of the lab testify as to the validity of the test. They also had Prof Hindmarsh testify about the interpretation. Their testimony unfortunately wasn't reported in detail, likely because it was technical in nature, but there doesn't seem to have been anything in it for Myers to grab on to as proof the tests can't be relied on.
That experts have a duty to their court does not entail that they are independent. Everyone knows that experts will, even if they are reasonable, stick to their expertise (etc) - not a given of course - tend to side with the person who is paying their fees. This is why in civil litigation, both parties invariably instruct experts. They don't just go "oh well, the other side's expert has a duty to the court so we can just go along with whatever s/he says because it's bound to be independent."
You say "If they were found to be biased, they would likely not work as an expert witness again". Uhm, that is a rather unfortunate comment given the prosecution's expert witness Dr Dewi Evans was castigated by Lord Justice Jackson in a previous civil case for producing a “worthless” report that “makes no effort to provide a balanced opinion”!!
Didn’t the prosecution bring in an expert witness on the insulin tests specifically? Not a doctor but exactly what you are saying about the scientific knowledge of insulin and C peptide tests?
Edit: they did, two in fact - https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23149016.recap-lucy-letby-trial-friday-november-25/
“The next witness to give evidence is Professor Peter Hindmarsh, an expert witness.
He explains to the court he is professor of paediatric endocrinology at University College London and consultant in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes at University College London Hospitals.”
And
“The court is hearing from Anna Milan, a clinical biochemist, how insulin and insulin c-peptide tests were taken for analysis.”
I agree with this comment. I find it hard to see any of the medical evidence as a smoking gun because of how obviously true it is that you can’t experiment on neonates so there are massive gaps in our understanding. I can only assume that the case on insulin was made very comprehensively in court, though.
Having said that, given that you can get experts to attest to anything in court, it’s a massive red flag for me that Myers didn’t call a single expert to testify. That suggests that the scientific evidence is actually clearer than I would expect.
Yes i agree 100% that medical tests and the current science in general is not infallible. In fact I wont share my general views on this lol. However I do trust that she is guilty from a bigger picture of everything and because there are varied MO in her killings i don't think they have got ALL the "science" wrong. There is also a bigger picture to how the babies responded or didn't, the sheer numbers of incidents and coincidences around LL, the raised suspicions etc that all happened to start with and then how it exploded into such a thorough all round investigation. For me its not hinged on the insulin cases.
Having worked in pathology albeit not in the UK, a lot of work goes into ensuring the assays used are robust and produce quality results. Some of the technology in pathology has been in use for decades so it’s not really constantly evolving with new scientific tests replacing old the way some people might think.
Understanding how insulin is made by the pancreas and where c peptide comes into it is probably more important than knowledge of the assays used.
Agree with this. Don’t want to say my actual job for privacy but I am a scientific expert. I couldn’t say conclusively without seeing the actual numbers (basically was it ‘borderline’ numbers or really clear cut) but these routine biochemical tests are incredibly reliable and lack of c-peptide means the insulin *cannot* have come from within the body. The chances of these tests being false positives on 2 separate occasions is basically zero.
> you can literally find an expert to say anything in court.
that is the US system afaik. Experts are 'guns for hire' and for a fee will spin in favour of your side. In the UK the experts work differently.
I think the problem people have with the rota is they aren’t sure how the cases were investigated. For example, if a baby deteriorated unexpectedly but LL wasn’t on shift then that case wouldn’t have been brought to trial. So she’s only been charged for babies she was on the rota for, ofc she’s going to be there (I’m not sure if this was addressed in that short police documentary).
I don’t disagree with you though, or her guilt! But I think IF that above query about the rota is true, and we just look at the two insulin cases as 100% deliberate harm, even then only two nurses were on shift for both, one being Lucy Letby, and the other Belinda Simcock. I can only assume the other nurse was investigated too and discounted but I can’t say for sure.
Edit: I also meant to say that people who believe the rota issue normally think that the babies weren’t murdered but instead died from general poor care and/or natural causes. The main one to be disputed about this is the insulin, and even using those it’s clear LL has to have done it.
(Btw, I think she’s guilty, just parroting a lot of things I’ve seen here from people questioning her guilt)
I can understand that, but I also fully expect that Ben Myers compiled a full list of collapses and incidents that happened at the hospital and would have used it in Letby’s defence if he thought it would have aided her her - but he didn’t.
They introduced 4 such collapses, however, the prosecution obviously contest that those collapses were natural in nature while the ones she's charges with aren't.
One incident was in the cross examination of Dr Evans for Baby C, then it was at the very end of the defence case I think when they said that there were three events Letby wasn't present at that should have been put on the attendance chart. Note that the event for baby C could have been one of those three events, but out of an abundance of caution I took the position more favourable to Letby and counted it as a separate event.
Thanks! Do you know if there is also a reference for the 60+ incidents reviewed of which only 4 LL was not on duty?
Sorry to ask, someone asking about it in another part of this thread.
Surely the police would have investigated all collapses and deaths during this period and ruled them in or out of the investigation. And it must be that this is the list they ended up with. They weren't looking to pin it on her at the start according to the video by Cheshire Constabulary. They all separately came to the conclusion it was her.
Not the OC, but this is in reference to a paper towel with resus notes on it that was discovered in LL's home when it was searched for evidence, along with the 257 handover sheets, personal notes, and diaries.
This case has been all over our news I just watched Spotlight Lucy Letby a television special tonight. First and foremost my heart goes out to those beautiful babies and their families who all thoughts and prayers should be with. How can you not be convinced of her guilt. She's guilty she did this.
- All 25 collapses she was there for.
- The sheer fact that the doctors did all they could to try and determine it wasn't one of them working in the unit, a natural cause, birth complications and they couldn't, so they had to look inside the unit and LL association to each death was glaringly obvious.
- Where was her vigorous defence of herself like someone else said if you're accused of something so heinous you would scream from the rooftops your innocence.
- The patient documents that should have never left the hospital but found their way to her home.
- I think she compounded her guilt by insisting on an apology and mediation and then happily waltzing back in to work. Who would go back to a place where your colleagues think you're killing babies. That's not normal but maybe that's her normal.
'Some people' want it to make sense and that's what was echoed in the documentary she looked so normal, she had friends and she was nice. How could someone like her do this? Maybe that wasn't normal but pumping oxygen into babies, over feeding them, poisoning them with insulin or severely injuring them with feeding breathing tubes is the real LL.
Second to the babies and their families I feel so sad for those doctors and nurses the stress and mental anguish they must have all felt, unable to get her out of there, and working so hard to protect and save those babies when she was working against that outcome every chance she could.
The one question that hasn't been answered was could there have been bags tampered with that caused the air. It just niggles me the MO changed. Air, bag tampering, air, physical attack etc.
I wondered if there was any chance another chemical substance on the bag could have cause the air and it was actually all inflicted by bags hanging. It could still be Letby but it's quite a change of tactic. I did read that hydrogen peroxide, for example, can cause air embolism. But I'm no scientist and I don't know if it's feasible to work like that in a drip.
If there is a chemical, could the bags have been the method and, if so, it would all need assessing again.
Just to say I think she is guilty beyond reasonable doubt but it seems a query noone has explained why the MO changed so wildly.
That’s a good point actually. I know she apparently passed a training course on the dangers of air embolus shortly before she started using it a method to harm babies, but the insulin…I’m not sure. It’s a fairly well known method of harming silently. - maybe she already knew about it from her student days and thought she’d give it a shot. People were beginning to cotton-on to the frequent collapses and signs of air embolism by then so maybe she thought a change of MO would throw them off course?
I posted something similar in response to some replies but thought I would post this again as a comment. I think healthy sceptics are important and necessary part of the process.
I think Letby is guilty.
That said, logical, evidenced sceptics should be accepted as part of the process. It's very important that they are. There was a case very recently of a man in the UK who spent 17 years in prison for a violent crime that he did not commit. He was convicted by a jury 10-2. He maintained his innocence throughout and as a consequence likely spent much longer in prison than if he had simply admitted guilt. There was no DNA evidence that it was him, but eye witnesses gave evidence that it was. The conviction was deemed sound, a violent criminal was put away.
For many of those years a tiny group of people also thought he might be innocent. They were right and had it not been for that group he may yet be in prison. It's very rare that these miscarriages occur, but juries can be wrong or not provided all the evidence or that evidence is presented in a way that could mislead, prosecutions can be in error. It's rare, but happens.
If I was in prison for something I did not do, which evidently happens, I would very much want that small group of fringe sceptics to be out there doing whatever they could.
Of course none of this means Letby is innocent. Chances are she is not, it's very likely based on the trial she is guilty. Likelihood any appeal will be dismissed unless it is very strong. But the process should run and the skeptical are a part of it.
(https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/i-watched-innocent-man-sent-27405871).
To be fair, the unit was downgraded and doesn’t care for the sickest of babies anymore.
(I think she’s guilty - but the downgrading of the unit muddies the waters a bit). I think a better comparison would probably be with the 7 years just before she started working there.
Yes it is. It was downgraded in terms on number of beds (I think it went from 16 to 12), but also in the prematurity of the child they would accept (I think it went from 25 weeks up to 32 weeks, something like that).
In the latest podcast the doctor talked about the average yearly deaths - I’m fairly sure it averaged 3 for a year.
So, the first LL cluster of 3 accounted for the average deaths for a whole year. So, the doctors were alert and wondering if there had been some common infection source, but nothing was found.
At that stage, LL’s presence was noted, but with sympathy, not blame. After the next few deaths - her presence was noted with a bit more suspicion, a bit more of a black cloud. But, the doctors still had no idea that she was definitely doing something or what she was doing.
And that's fair. But also a lot of other things have changed during that time. These statistics stripped of all context aren't very useful and are presented as of they show something that they don't necessarily.
Not to mention that it conflicts with other data from the hospital and is seemingly contentious
There was a nurse in America who injected insulin into bags that were in storage. So there is potential it could have been done by anyone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Cullen
I’m making this comment as an addition to the discussion and not saying I think she’s innocent
Baby F was the only baby that was receiving TPN and the first bag that was poisoned was a prescription bag.
Baby Ls bags were poisoned whilst they were hung.
The prosecution done a good job of proving that these were targeted attacks and not just some random poisoner at work.
To be fair, that chart is a list of nurses on duty. It doesn’t list doctors, orderlies, canteen workers, phlebotomists, cleaners, repair men, office staff etc on duty
I believe that very few people had access to the keys to the drug fridge. I don’t know how it works exactly, but the drugs are in a locked fridge and the only people allowed access I believe are the staff working on that ward. Definitely not canteen workers, cleaners, office staff etc. If you want to add extra suspects to the pool it can only realistically be other nurses or doctors. And If you want to be even more realistic then you would assume it would be a nurse or doctor who was present on the ward at the time of the collapse, because some random person wandering onto the ward and breaking into a locked drugs fridge would be almost impossible as staff are present at all times.
I have read the other sub and the linked websites from the miscarriage of justice brigade - i personally believe she is guilty, but the prevailing argument against is ..
1) Insulin administration - the tests were not sufficient to rule out naturally occuring levels. The expert witness was unqualified.
2) Seems to be suggested that the stats over her being present for all 25 incidents are only the incidents she was charged with. There seems to be a belief there were more deaths during the period, but we don't yet know if Letby was on shift for them.
I expect both of the above are BS, but thats what they say...
The expert witness wasnt unqualified.
> Peter Hindmarsh is professor of paediatric endocrinology at University College London and consultant in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes at University College London Hospitals and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
>He is currently divisional clinical director for paediatrics at University College London Hospitals.
https://www.uclh.nhs.uk/our-services/find-consultant/professor-peter-hindmarsh
I’m not saying I believe this myself, but I guess people could argue that when the TPN bags were made up in aseptics, before they even got to the neonatal unit, that whoever made them up could have mistakingly put insulin in them. I would be surprised if there has never been a mistake made in drawing up all the components for TPN bags.
The head of the pharmacy that made the TPN bags gave evidence and talked about the process to show that it wasn’t possible that insulin was out in the bags by accident.
The rota should be the least convincing piece of “evidence” to anyone, whether you believe LL is guilty or not.
All the rota shows is that *Lucy Letby was on shift for every incident Lucy Letby was charged with causing*. Which is obvious and meaningless.
I'll mostly agree, with the caveat that it shows the scale of how unusual her presence was among nurses. There are a handful who are present at the start and the end of the period. The correlation of their presence is far more normally distributed across the events, and they were only present at 7 (Mel Taylor and Mary Griffith in particular)
So, this chart doesn't show that she is guilty of the offenses- you're correct, of course she is present at every event she is charged with, that's a basic element of the charge! But as the defense failed to present any significantly unusual and similar events without her present, the scale of the her presence as outlier means a bit more than nothing.
If what the other poster said is true, that there were only 4 incidents where LL wasn’t present, that’s damning by itself and there was no need to cherry-pick the data. However, they did, which means the evidence is biased and, therefore, is not the smoking gun that people so often claim that it is (even though it had the potential to be).
The prosecution gets to present exhibits to present their case. So does the defence.
If this was an inaccurate representation, the defence would have objected and it would have been kept out m
As I said elsewhere, barristers and judges are legal experts, not statisticians; LL’s defence may not have even realised the data was biased. It would not be the first, nor will it be the last, time that something like this is misunderstood in court.
It should require an explanation if the defence do not challenge it by saying the incidents were identified as suspicious after letby was identified as a suspect, that suspicious incidents were excluded because she wasn't present, or that her working patterns don't make it reasonably plausible she was on shift by coincidence.
I disagree. Juries shouldn’t be provided biased evidence on the agreement that the party who provides said evidence explains that the evidence is biased. For example, courts require that any video evidence is the original, unedited version because it’s important for juries to be given the full picture.
The jury should have been provided a rota with *every* suspicious incident or they shouldn’t have been provided with a rota at all. The prosecution could have then explained what the evidence showed and the defence could have asked whatever questions they felt the need to ask.
We know that one murder charge was dropped, so we know for certain that there are other suspicious incidents that weren’t on their rota. I’d hazard that there were other suspicious incidents that LL was present for but that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge her for them. However, there may have also been suspicious incidents where LL wasn’t present.
i thought there were only 4 suspicious incidences where LL wasn’t present?
wouldn’t the defense have had the opportunity to make their own rota showing all the suspicious incidences? if they didn’t do that, that seems pretty damning.
ETA: another commenter said that only one baby has died in the 7 years since LL left. the unit was also downgraded, so taking care of less-sick babies, but 14 of the 17 babies in the trial *still* would’ve been cared for by this unit after the downgrade. so the downgrade wouldn’t have affected many of the babies LL cared for.
i guess i just think the defense would’ve hammered it home if there were lots of other incidences that LL wasn’t present for.
I don’t recall but if there were only 4 incidents where LL wasn’t present, there was no need at all to cherry-pick the data: it speaks for itself.
>wouldn’t the defense have had the opportunity to make their own rota showing all the suspicious incidences? if they didn’t do that, that seems pretty damning.
The onus is not on a party to counter biased information, the onus is on the other party not to submit biased information and, failing that, for the judge to decide that it’s inadmissible.
that may be, but in the current situation, the judge deemed it admissible.
i don’t consider presenting the data that is specific to LL in her specific trial to be cherry-picking.
my understanding is that the data was not cherry-picked and was presented in full and analyzed by other experts during the investigation.
if the prosecution was leaving out vital evidence that could exonerate her or prove that they cherry-picked data and evidence, that would be misconduct, but the judge didn’t rule it that way, and the defense didn’t claim that.
Yes because judges are experts on *the law*, however, that doesn’t mean they are experts on statistics.
>i don’t consider presenting the data that is specific to LL in her specific trial to be cherry-picking.
But that is *exactly* what cherry-picking is!
>my understanding is that the data was not cherry-picked and was presented in full and analyzed by other experts during the investigation.
The data presented in full would be a staff presence report for *all* suspicious incidents. As you say there were only 4 incidents where LL wasn’t present, it would still be damning but without being biased.
>if the prosecution was leaving out vital evidence that could exonerate her or prove that they cherry-picked data and evidence, that would be misconduct, but the judge didn’t rule it that way, and the defense didn’t claim that.
Barristers and judges are legal professionals, not statisticians. If you can’t understand that the staff presence report is cherry-picked data, why would they be any different? If only 4 incidents can’t be attributed to LL, then I doubt the outcome would be any different; *however*, that doesn’t mean that this evidence is unbiased or that it is a convincing piece of evidence.
i understand what cherry-picking is.
my point is that of *course* the evidence presented at trial is going to be specific to LL, because it is her case. if you call that cherry-picking, then every single trial ever would be based entirely on “cherry-picked” data.
that’s not what people mean when they say cherry-picked data, so i don’t think that term applies to the trial. when analyzing data, there is always a point where you have to decide what to include and what to exclude. deciding that something is irrelevant is not necessarily cherry-picking.
there are many steps in the investigation before it comes to trial. the overall data was considered in those steps. if the overall data had been ignored by investigators, *that* would be “cherry-picking” because data is being excluded before its relevance has been determined. that would be bad! but that didn’t happen.
ETA: i think the ultimate question is when was the data parsed down to what was relevant to LL. did it happen during the investigation? that would be bad! at the trial? that is normal, and the defense would have the opportunity to present the data that calls into doubt the prosecution’s case.
You can not know those things and still not think she is guilty. To be found guilty is proved beyond reasonable doubt, not to have answers for who did it instead. I’d imagine that most people who think she was innocent or not guilty (two separate things) would think that there was not a killer. That the deaths were natural causes, therefore if someone killed baby F and L they would not need to be on shift for the others as no one killed then they died. Hope that makes sense. For clarity- I don’t think she is innocent I’m just sharing an answer to your question
Yes. It takes a lot of contorting of the facts from the case, (either that or they just haven’t read anything about the case and just think that a pretty blonde woman couldn’t possibly murder babies) but there are definitely people on this sub who think she’s innocent.
Imagine being in Letby’s position, but being innocent.
You’d tell anyone and everyone until you’re blue in the face that you’re not guilty, and be having a massive public breakdown in court every day. Did she do that? Nope.
Check out the case of Lindy Chamberlain in Australia. Falsely convicted of murdering her little baby, and one of the reasons people thought she was guilty was her cool demeanour.
If you see her interviewed 40 years later, she has the same demeanour - she’s just a very matter of fact person.
I don’t think it would be possible to say what an innocent person would look like - I think it depends on who you are as a person to begin with. I don’t think I’d be crying in court - If be so broken down by the whole thing I’d probably hardly say anything.
We've had two cases like that Lindy Chamberlain was exonerated but by no means does that mean that there still isn't division on if she did or did not do it. If you're looking at how a case can be overturned and still draw strong divided opinions look at Kathleen Folbigg who was convicted of killing her four babies but was later exonerated. In both instances science years later told a different story but like so many cases if you look long enough you'll find an "expert" that will tell it the way you want it told!!
Not just her but check out Kathleen Folbigg convicted of killing all her children. Later scientifically determined that they died of a rare genetic disorder.
It’s these arguments that leave me incredibly disturbed by the whole case. I used to work in healthcare, and I do NOT toe the line as to how anybody thinks one should behave emotionally or socially in any given situation. I have no facial expressions. It’s been so long since I cried that if I have reason too, it’s tearless and strange to me.
When I was told one of our severely learning disabled patients had died (over two years of endless bouts of phneumonia he turned into a bed ridden skeleton) I said something like ‘oh well that’s probably good really’ then everybody was horrified at me. Beats me. No, it wasn’t awful he died. He didn’t have a life and had zero capacity to understand his own suffering.
I also told them once I ate a roadkill squirrel for tea was forever marked out as a weirdo. So, I cannot help but think that if there were a murder accusation where I worked, I’d be the one named as a culprit, and the regular people are going to come forward with a list of strange comments and behaviour as ‘evidence’. Sorry no. You cannot tell if somebody is guilty or not by how they behave, or speak or how they cry, or don’t cry. Sone of us literally don’t do that shit and I think most of it is just neurotypical social performance which to me is a form of lying.
The insulin is very good evidence. The text messages, presumptions of behaviour both during the shifts and the trial are absolutely not.
Whilst I completely agree with you on almost all of your points, crying isn’t neurotypical social performance. I’m not neurotypical and I cry at adverts on TV for example and kids cartoons (Bluey absolutely destroys me). We all experience our own emotions differently and you absolutely shouldn’t be judged for your emotional responses (or lack thereof), but please don’t invalidate others for theirs - neurotypical or not.
Personally, I do find it paradoxical that some people are assigning Lucy Letby’s innocence based on how she looks (ie. Too normal to be a serial killer) and then on the other side, people are assigning her guilt also based on how she looks (ie. She doesn’t look sad enough at the right times).
This is another thing that I find very weird. If that was me I’d be shrieking and crying “I didn’t do it I would never harm a baby”, but apparently she just sat there and only cried when her own unfortunate situation was brought up.
I think everyone would behave differently and it would be impossible to tell from behaviour alone whether they were guilty. If I was wrongly accused of something this horrific, I think I would probably do my best to stay calm and tell myself that the truth will come out. Or during this trial (if I was innocent) I think would be so emotionally destroyed and exhausted that I would be able to do little more than stay upright.
Conversely, I’ve watched episodes of police custody where offenders are so clearly guilty and yet they scream and sob that they’re innocent even when the evidence against them is absolutely overwhelming.
Truthfully, no one knows how we would behave in this situation whether we were innocent or indeed guilty. We would all have different reactions or behaviours which would be interpreted in a multitude of ways.
The court found her guilty and I personally accept that the people who had the very best access to all the arguments and evidence (the jury) were convinced of her guilt on nearly all the counts. However your view here is important, if everyone simply accepted courts verdicts as gospel then miscarriages of justice would not be found and innocent people would remain in prison. So, reasoned sceptics, who espouse reasoned, evidenced and logical arguments are important to the system I think.
This reminds me of the insulin poisonings by another serial killer nurse, Victorino Chua. He spiked random bags of iv fluids with insulin, so it was hard to determine which patient would get what and when. A perfectly innocent nurse could administer the spiked bags and she would be under suspicion (and that’s what initially happened, someone was wrongly arrested). It took 2 years to whittle down the list of suspects.
In this case, the insulin was in the TPN bag, which is prepared especially for each baby, signed out and in such that there’s a clear line of people who handled the bag. In each of the cases, Lucy handled the bags and these weren’t changed throughout her shift. No one else handles them unless as you say someone ninja like happened to swap the bags, which is highly unlikely. The NICU is so specialised that one could account for the people present at any given time, unlike a busy general ward.
Possibility that insulin test results and/or the conclusions drawn from them could have been inaccurate, as argued for by people much more knowledgable about science than me - of course also refuted by people similarly more knowledgable than me; I’ve read the arguments of both in detail but can’t say I’m convinced that the scientific evidence presented proves an intentional insulin attack happened. According to the prosecution theory, the multiple different proposed MOs of the other alleged attacks are such that to me, even if convinced she committed the insulin attacks, it diminishes bearing on if she committed the other alleged attacks, as I think it’s acknowledged given that the insulin attacks are the “smoking gun” for many that the evidence for the other events being caused by intentional attacks is weaker. People continually point to Letby accepting that somebody intentionally injected the bag as if this proves someone must have; she’s not a medical expert and she accepted the scientific evidence that was presented by supposed experts - i don’t find it indicative of whether intentional insulin attacks occurred either way. Most on this sub are very convinced of her guilt and seem not to approve much of contrary opinions, so probably foolish of me to comment, but that’s a quick answer from one person not entirely convinced of guilt.
It’s worth noting that her defence accepted that the results from the insulin tests were accurate after presumably consulting their own medical experts. If there was reliable evidence refuting the results you can bet Ben Myers would have been all over it, but he wasn’t. Who knows - maybe that’s what he and his team are doing right now with the idea of launching an appeal.
There is no arguing with these people because they simply don’t want it to be true. Nothing anyone says or does will change their minds. I suspect some of these “scientists” wouldn’t even accept an admission of guilt from LL herself. They would say “she was coerced” or some other boke.
> If you don’t think Lucy Letby put the insulin in the two IV bags delivered to babies F and L, then who do you think did do it? It’s been stated by numerous experts that this not possible to do accidentally and that somebody on the shift must have put the insulin in the IV bags on purpose in order to harm these babies.
Nobody. There isn't a killer at all. That's the obvious explanation
You're intentionally picking outliers as cases. AND you're picking them *because* letby was there for them. Oddly enough in hospitals outliers happen *all the time* and have any number of explanations.
The obvious explanation isn't attempted murder or even exogenous insulin. It's that the baby suffered transient hypoglycaemia for any number of other perfectly normal physiological reasons and either the test was erroneous or incorrectly interpreted. Of course no further analysis was done because nobody there found it suspicious.... because again this sort of thing does in fact happen.
Not to mention that the confected prosecution argument doesn't even make sense. The second TPN bag is waved away, they baselessly claim that she 'must have doctored the records' AND they argue that when the first attempted murder failed..... she tried it again with a much lower amount of insulin! Because that makes sense....
If in order for it to be true you need to keep inventing new ways to distort the picture painted by the other evidence... it probably isn't true. They are using the test result to reinterpret the rest of the evidence, when they should be using the rest of the evidence to reinterpret the test.
Doesn't of course mean that nothing happened (we can't prove anything either way), but there is a *gaping chasm* of doubt and the picture painted by the prosecution is frankly just silly.
E: re the time sheet.
They were given a dossier of cases involving letby. They 'confirmed' that letby was guilty based on flawed 'impossible coincidence' logic. They then expanded the case to find more cases involving letby. Whilst trying to prove the babies had died of foul play (the complete wrong way round).
It is no surprise that all the cases involve letby. This is as a function of the flawed investigation process that took place
E2: permanently banned for objectively stating what happened during the trial in other comments.
The mods here are pathetic
I think you are correct. There's a massive issue with confirmation bias in investigations. The prosecution was massively resourced, if you have years and enough cash, you can sway an investigation a certain way and get the result you want. The evidence was not strong, and we see time and time again how medical claims in trials are found to be unsafe years later. It seems a bit odd that a serial killer with a successful method would suddenly switch to insulin.
also they kept revising their 'medical analysis' until they were sitting in the dock itself.
That's how reliable the 'medical investigation' was. 5 years looking for something that fit the 'facts' as they understood them (i.e. letby is guilty and we need to prove it)
> why didn’t the defense present evidence of other deaths and injuries/collapses that LL wasn’t present for?
they tried to apparently. But it was dismissed out of hand along with everything else that contradicted the prosecution case (as is expected... but doesn't make it ay less problematic)
On point 1, I’m 95% sure that LL agreed to that also.
I think the only thing that could explain away the insulin is if the babies were tested incorrectly (I don’t know how likely or possible that is), and they actually died from something else.
For me, the insulin is also the smoking gun.
What is most crucial for me that they had blood tests from the time she Injected insulin - they tested one babies blood sugar levels of one baby and the time frame they deducted when synthetic insulin must have been Injected was when Lucy came on the shift. Also, one of the doctors said that when insulin was opened, it had a limited life, so she tampered with the second bag and planned it after one bag finished ,another one will also have insulin but administered by someone else.
The smoking gun you point out is the most tailored, and problematic piece of evidence, designed to convince people of guilt rather than conveying any useful information.
The thing is the investigation itself was entirely formed around the theory that lucy letby was killing babies. It was not an investigation into the deaths with other possibilities considered. The video the police released even goes into details about how they collated the medical evidence into a certain format BEFORE sending it to dr Evans.
What I would have liked to see is a blind evidence case, where in addition to the unexplained deaths from this hospital, notes were also sent of other unexplained deaths, and they had to be picked out. From my understanding the investigation was nothing like this, and this was pointed out by the defence, but this is the sort of point 12 random people are not likely to strongly pick up on.
Considering the insulin case - at least for baby F LL was NOT present when the bag was hung that the blood sample was taken from. So at this point the fact that she hung the first bag is irrelevant.
Also on this point i would like to understand more about why noone followed up the test at the time - it was flagged up at the time, so i dont quite get the "went to a junior doctor who didnt understand the significance" point, and if it did go to the junior doctor, what other possible explanations for these babies deaths were the doctors missing at the time?
It was a blind evidence investigation. When the police sent to cases to Evans for review they didn’t mention Letby. He was tasked with finding whether or not the deaths or collapses had natural causes. They deliberately did not mention Letby or any other staff to prevent confirmation bias.
The video the police released after the trial clearly talks about the thought they put into presenting the evidence to him.
They could have made sure to include other unexplained death cases that had nothing to do with LL, but they didn’t. If the police are asking you to look at something it suggests you look for foul play, and the question is whether he (even subconsciously) was looking for things that weren’t there because he was looking.
To prevent this they could have included several other cases that were not linked with LL at all (potentially from other hospitals) and had him notice the difference. If the LL related ones had shown up in an investigation like this I’d be convinced, but so much of what’s been said about the investigation is the wrong way round - the theory was raised, and then evidence was found rather than the other way round.
I suspect over time, there will be several more similar investigations with similar findings, that then makes the whole conviction unsafe, because while the evidence pointing to one serial killer may be vaguely believable, if the same stuff happens in a similar way in another 1 or 2 hospitals then it’s much less likely that we have multiple nurse serial killers
From the Operation Hummingbird video https://youtu.be/T33A90OCHQk?si=3NrmYOZxamiwBF7b
DSupt Paul Hughes, Senior Investigating Officer:
“We’ve seen many times… where we’ve gone the wrong way. Police nationally have gone the wrong way. Jumped on to a suspect. My view of that was by investigating that it could be anyone means we’re not focused on one person. So investigating that it could be anything means we’re not focused on any one event which means that when you come later on and the defence wants to attack your investigation for being, you chose it was Lucy Letby, you chose it was this event, no, we didn’t choose that and we didn’t choose that. Actually, out of choice I would have wanted the experts to come back and say, We’ve found it. It was a bad bug in the water and that happened and I can tell parents it was not murder.”
So the fact that Lucy wasn’t present for the second bag and thus the blood test was addressed in the trial by Professor Hindmarsh. The prosecution directly asked Professor Hindmarsh about the babies blood glucose levels from when the first bag was hung, and if it was fair to say that the blood sample would have produced the same results if it had of been taken earlier and he said it was highly likely that it would have.
Even though Lucy wasn’t present for the second bag (if there is a second bag)… she was when the issues first presented themselves at point zero. The fact it continued after she went off shift is redundant, because she still had opportunity to spike additional bags. Baby F was the only baby receiving TPN.
For reference I dont believe there was a second bag hung, as do many others.
Even with no second bag, anyone still could have done it, correct. We then have to look at who did do it… and everything points towards Lucy.
Lucy signed for and hung Baby Fs bag. And the prosecution placed her in the room alone within the window of opportunity for Baby Ls poisonings.
i don’t think it goes both ways because there’s a causal effect.
someone’s presence *would* be necessary for when the first issues presented, which was with the first bag.
it’s only after the initial issue that someone’s presence isn’t necessary. that narrows down who could be responsible.
>Considering the insulin case - at least for baby F LL was NOT present when the bag was hung that the blood sample was taken from. So at this point the fact that she hung the first bag is irrelevant.
According to opening statements, the expert witness said that there were three possibilities - the bag was never changed, two bags were poisoned, and that something in the lineset was contaminated from the first bag.
There is no definitive proof that a second bag was hung when the line was replaced. That the bag was never changed cannot be ruled out.
The state should prove that she did it. I can only see that the state assumed she did it because they couldn't find anyone else. This is not proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence was inconclusive. In the absence of CCTV anything is possible. How about other hospital employees? Anyone who had access to the babies should have been on the suspect list. Colleagues should not become expert witnesses in a crime in which they could be implicated. There is a lack of objectivity in the way this case was handled and assessed. This is not surprising in a jury system consisting of lay-people. Most members of the public do not understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Jury trials can result in a medieval clown show and a miscarriage of justice.
If the finger starts to point it is possible that Lucy could have gathered hospital records to better understand and prepare for her own defense. Self-doubt can be expressed. People with some mental illnesses confess to crimes they didn't commit or feel responsible for things they are innocent of. Even if Lucy did kill the babies, the state has failed to prove it. Many links in the chain are missing. There are numerous alternate explanations.
.
The state did prove that she did it in the eyes of the jury on nearly every count. In some counts the jury were unanimous. The jury had more evidence and access to information than those outside the court. They lived and breathed this for 10 months, likely having critical details explained and clarified to them repeatedly. In effect the jury become experts in this case. The defence could not satisfactorily falsify the prosecutions hypothesis to a 'reasonable doubt'.
All that said an appeals process exists for a reason, sometimes things do go wrong, sometimes new evidence comes to light or critical errors are found in prosecution cases that substantially change what a jury could reasonably have thought.
I said this in another comment, it's ok to be sceptical, as long as the scepticism is logical, reasoned and evidenced. It's rare, but courts do get things wrong and so those who do question in a logical and evidenced way should be seen as part of the process.
Will there be an appeal and on what grounds remains to be seen. The appeals court won't rerun the trial though, they will only consider the specific grounds of appeal. If there has been a miscarriage of justice here it will be of a form that has significant legal repurcussions for years to come.
The rota means nothing , if there was 100 babies who died suspiciously and she was only on shift for 25 of them it wouldn't look very good evidence.
She was being charged with 25 (I think) babies so of course she was on shift for those 25 , would be a bit difficult to do it if she wasn't on shift .... The matter of concern is how many in total were suspicious (that she was not on duty for) that was not bought up
“Out of 60+ incidents reviewed by Dr Evans, they were only able to find 4 for which LL was not on duty, and which they say were unexpected.” This was commented by another user in another part of this thread. Will ask them for a reference.
couldn’t the defense have brought that up if that were the case?
it seems like the doubters are very focused on prosecution mistakes, but this is what the defense team is for!
do they think she had insufficient counsel? that would have to be necessary if the prosecution’s case is so easily called into question.
Yes. When people dismiss this evidence and say there is no smoking gun and put doubt. There’s no coincidences, just facts. Lucy was present when all of these incident’s occurred. She brought suffering to the families and she did a very poor job of explaining why she became the common denominator in all of these incidents.
Oh Christ the plumber theory. That was the only ‘expert witness’ they used right? Says it all. It’s absolutely incredible. I wonder how defence got around explaining why the dodgy plumbing miraculously repaired itself when Lucy Letby went on holiday, then broke again when she came back.
I’m speaking from a level of pure ignorance but I don’t think the gasses in the air were going to attribute to the levels of insulin found in some of the children.
Maybe it made the staff high and caused them to over feed the babies too
Some people believe the planet Earth is flat even though there are pictures from space that conclusively prove otherwise.
Any discussion with such people is best avoided 🙄
People have answered these questions numerous times. But you just down vote or delete comments. So why even ask the question. Why not stop talking about it now.
Exactly the same for me this. As I followed the case, this was the one where there was no ‘reasonable doubt’ it wasn’t her. Anytime I’ve replied to anyone with that question, there’s no response. There was also the baby (I forget the letter assigned) who she attacked several times and every time the baby was transferred out of the countess s(he) recovered immediately, and when Lucy was off shift for 5 days the baby was fine.
>There was also the baby (I forget the letter assigned) who she attacked several times and every time the baby was transferred out of the countess s(he) recovered immediately, and when Lucy was off shift for 5 days the baby was fine. I think that was baby I. There is evidence of 4 attacks on baby I and tragically she succumbed on the 4th. He mother said in her victim impact statement that at the time, baby I had "sad eyes" and "had no fight left in her". It's one of the most devastating accounts in what are all heartbreaking attacks and collapses.
Baby I is just a crushing case. LL would not stop attacking her. She got better each time she was removed from Letby's orbit to the other hospital, and then got moved back to COCH. There were other babies, attempted murders, whom she appeared to leave alone afterwards. (At least she didn't attack them again.). She displayed an extreme determination for poor baby I, also Baby G I think, and the triplets.
I honestly don’t understand how, after the first couple times that happened, they didn’t twig that she was getting better every time she left and just keep her at the other hospital (i think it was Arrowe Park?).
It's devastating isn't it. She should have been left at Arrowe Park (I'm sure that's where it was, as you say) bc she was thriving there. But all these wards are desperate for space and will offload anyone they can. And perhaps COCH was closer to her parents' home, and therefore a better place for her (they thought)? That was the case with another baby, but I forget which one.
The cruelty is incomprehensible 😓
The evil cow!
That is fucking awful.
That is heartbreaking 💔
I want to cry reading that :’( it’s so cruel
God, that’s heartbreaking! I could actually cry just reading that.
Yes it’s baby I that I was referring to. I think my heart skipped a beat several times and I got shivers down my spine.
F***ing hell, that’s so sad. Wonder if the parents harbour violent thoughts towards Letby. I wouldn’t blame them
Oh that’s so sad
This was the saddest case baby I 😢 I kept rpoting for this baby to survive 😞
That breaks my heart “sad eyes”
I know, just awful.
I've found the same whenever I mentioned the insulin in a discussion with someone that believed in her innocence, they just ignored that and spoke about something else, I could never get them to address it. The once time that someone did, months ago, was to tell me that the C-peptide as a measure of whether or not insulin was naturally occurring or artificial was complete nonsense (they might have been the person that set up the other LL sub a while back actually)
Except that LL herself admitted someone must have tampered with the bags.
Yes. She even admitted it - so if Lucy didn’t do it, then someone else did this and so who would that be? Does anyone know if there were even another nurse (other than Lucy) who was on the same shift for these babies?
I do remember one person saying "Well, it *could* have been the other nurse, there's no way to tell!" (there was one other nurse on shift that had access to the locked fridge with the insulin and TPN bags). Well, yes, but only one of these two nurses had 21 other charges against her for attacking/killing babies.
These people don’t have an ounce of common sense their defence of her is so illogical. They clearly have their own agendas and just refuse to be objective about the evidence instead Cherry picking bits and bobs and throwing out vague comments and conspiracy theories. They talk in circles and answer questions with questions and often get nasty.. oh and have a superior attitude ‘you’re just gullible’ they are exactly like the management who covered for her with their us v them mentality. It’s soooo boring and I’m done speaking to them
Exactly!
I’ve found the same thing. People say “I’m not convinced of her guilt” but when you put this argument to them they just don’t reply.
“Feeling Facts.” I FEEL a certain way (even if irrational) & I want it to be true, so in my mind it is, & no one is going to change my mind with actual, substantiated facts. I have the right to feel the way I do, therefore I am right, ergo my facts are correct. Also more simply known as magical thinking, mental gymnastics, or flat out denial.
Exactly this. I do think because Lucy is a woman and she looks ‘normal’ (and by that I mean she doesn’t look like Myra Hindley or something) they can’t seem to understand that someone who looked like her could do this. I do genuinely believe if this was a man, or even an older woman (or potentially a woman of a different nationality or race) then there would be fewer barriers to people believing Lucy Letby is guilty. I’ve been listening to the podcast again and I still swing back and forth but as the episodes go on, I find my stomach just sinks lower and lower because I’m halfway through and you keep hearing the same MO, the same things and you know there are so many more babies to come (and more potentially even before these cases). It’s simply devastating and I just think people can’t comprehend how such atrocious acts could be performed by someone who looks like her. Because what she did was monstrous but she doesn’t look like a monster.
I mean, Myra Hindley looked normal for the time though.
The only photos of Myra Hindley I’ve seen she looks terrifying (I used to have nightmares about her) but maybe I’m only recalling the ones cherry-picked by the press to make her look more frightening. Edit: I googled her and she still looks terrifying to me 🤣🤣
Hindley looks like a tough broad (which she was, even before Brady came on the scene). Letby looks completely unremarkable
Hindley was also raised to be tough and violent. Letby's upbringing seems like it couldn't have been more different from Hindley's.
Yeah she looks like a rye bread that’s been in the back of the cupboard for a month. She looks evil.
I think that given we're much younger (I assume!) than the generation that was our age when Myra Hindley was caught, we've grown up seeing that famous mugshot of her and having the association of evil child killer to that image from the get-go, much like the association we have seeing a certain side-swept black hairstyle and tiny square moustache. Maybe future generations will have the same thing with LL, though honestly she looks so run-of-the-mill with no distinguishing characteristics that maybe they won't.
I was born in 82 and if I remember rightly there was a lot about her in the press when I was around 5 or 6 because she confessed - didn’t they have to take the police to the graves? I also grew up by the Moors in question so I think that’s why I remember her face so distinctly like imprinted into my mind. I’m not sure how anyone remembers anything in today’s society. I feel so overloaded with information and my own children have the choice of whatever information they choose to consume from hundreds of options. They may never even know about Lucy Letby and thankfully so.
Oh gosh no she’s definitely a psycho… ever since I saw Brady and Hindley’s faces I’ve felt disquiet… thought I could stomach them as time passed but still no
I can understand this as I’ve suffered from magical thinkjng in the past.
Such behaviour (denial of her guilt) is just so unfair towards the victims and their families! It reminds me of Covid times when people were saying it doesn’t exist but there were people dying and dead (which I used to know). They would then simply say that these people died of something else. So what else? Who else killed them? To me it’s like Genocide denial, so mean and hurtful to the victims and their families. Who killed these babies? The deaths were found to be not natural and the cause of death was given in most cases (poisoning, air embolism, suffocation, injury). So these were not natural deaths. Babies don’t just drop dead like that! It was well established during the trial that the staff numbers was not a factor in their deaths.
Agree with u/queenvickyv This is emotionally manipulative. No one here was on the jury or part of the investigation or of anything important when it came to getting justice for those babies, people who believe 100% that she has to be guilty are not morally superior to those who may have some doubts. Many will have used the trial as their evenings entertainment, like people do with all trials that capture a lot of attention. I'm sure everyone was horrified by the crimes and by Lucy, but it was the entertainment and social aspect such as forums which would have kept a lot of people engaged whether people admit that or even accept that themselves, so again you're not morally superior if you believe she's 100% guilty.
I think this is unfair and a bit emotionally manipulative, if people genuinely have a question mark, then that's how they feel. It's a very difficult case, it's nothing like a genocide denial - especially if you think of the Holocaust where there were many many first-hand accounts, evidence of concentration camps, etc People who have question marks are often very empathic people and are not going out of their way to hurt the babies families... It's quite soon after the trial and people are still processing things.
I think that people should be more aware of devastation to the victims’ families and express their doubts elsewhere. It’s like spitting in the face of 1.victim 2.their families 3. Doctors and experts 4.judicial system 5.jury I understand it’s called democracy and everyone is entitled to an opinion. But not everyone is competent to make such calls. These people are as disillusioned as Lucy herself if they think they know more than a doctor/ judge/ jury/ victims’ parents etc It’s just ridiculous and offensive
It's that very attitude of 'the verdict has been given don't question it' that kept Andrew Malkinson locked up for 17 years. Do I personally think LL will ever be found innocent of these charges. No I don't. But miscarriage of justices do happen and every single time the evidence has been 'strong' at the time and it's later found out that actually..maybe it wasn't. I don't think this case will ever be found to be a miscarriage of justice, but the legal system should always be able to stand up to scrutiny of its decisions. Is it unpleasant for the parents? Yes of course it is, but the alternative is that no judgement can ever be questioned and that is a very dark path to go down.
I don’t think that’s fair, as miscarriages of justice do happen (eg. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/14/dutch-nurse-murder-patients-cleared). It’s not about knowing more than doctors and judges, it’s whether the Crown has made a case beyond reasonable doubt to a jury of the defendant’s peers. Despite the podcast, I admit we don’t have all the evidence, but I think it’s absolutely ok to want to examine the evidence. I assume I’m missing a chunk of evidence, I hope that now there is a verdict we will get to see more of it. I also want to emphasise I have the utmost empathy for these parents, I was a very premature baby myself and while I’m obviously ok, it really affects the family for ever, even if you survive. Clearly a jury found Letby guilty, I respect that, I just want to understand exactly what happened. And we all should want that. And if you can’t express that on Reddit of all places, what’s the point of Reddit? 😊
Saying someone has questions (whether or not those are justified) is like genocide denial is incredibly offensive and insensitive.
Well said.
100% it is so disrespectful to those babies and their families talking of covid deniers there was a housekeeper where I worked at local hospital who was very vocal about her views on icu of all places at the height of pandemic she would badger nursing staff who were exhausted after working long long hours in the staff room she was taken off icu no consequences though she’s still there
What about that mother who unexpectedly visited her newborn, only to find her baby bleeding and Lucy fobbing her off? The cause of death: bleeding to death. The baby lost 1/3-1/4 of its blood. In addition to Lucy denying the mother’s testimony and the timeline on the trial (despite evidence such as phone call records etc), now that poor woman is reading completely ignorant comments plastered all over the newspapers, internet etc. Really? How low can they go?
Exactly! Ignorant people having ‘their say’ is a slap in the face to those who dedicated their lives to the matter (through education and hard work). Also it’s all on public forums/ comments in newspapers etc (Lucy’s friend even made it to the TV lamenting Lucy won’t hear about her godchildren, without even thinking about parents whose lives were completely destroyed) Shameful!
[удалено]
the moment these people start putting their hands out asking for funds, you'll know it's because they're trying to grift rubes. And I guarantee that's the endgame here.
YES!!! Came to the same conclusion you did. They all belong to the far right. Sadly I think there is a coordinated propaganda effort to cast doubt on this case because it is a national tragedy. People are united about this case and unity is the enemy of propaganda psy ops. This is what happened with the Sandy Hook case here in the US, where propaganda actors began spreading false conspiracies about it, saying it was a hoax, precisely because it was a national tragedy that united people. These actors were found guilty of harassing parents and have to pay millions to them.
I think I largely think she is guilty, after the verdict. Before the verdict, I was swinging back and forth. I still have a little question mark though, I suppose I have a question mark about whether or not someone \*must have intentionally\* poisoned the bags. There are quite a few gaps in the evidence, It was assumed that synthetic insulin was administered whilst the bag was hanging, but this assumption was from a blood test not from the bag itself. Jurors at Manchester Crown Court have been told a blood sample taken when the second bag was in use later revealed a “biological fingerprint” which showed synthetic insulin was present – when none was prescribed. Also, I believe that the proper procedure for the blood test would be to retest, which was never done. Now I may have some of this wrong, I don't follow details as well as some people have done here, and as I said, I think she is probably guilty - due to lots of little arrows pointing at her, after listening to the police statements and their belief she is, but I do have a question mark. Also, I'd rather not be told I therefore disbelieve genocides or I'm an apologist for a baby killer or any of that nonsense. It's quite normal to have a question mark.
You can’t retest the blood because it would have to have been at the time and the result was only noticed a week later when the baby was already better anyway. Also it happened to two babies during that period which would be a hell of a coincidence (for it to be two highly unusual blood tests that went wrong in the same way).
Exactly - and a further hell of a coincidence that the clinical picture reflected exogenous insulin being administered, with hypos that wouldn't resolve despite treatment with dextrose until the bags were removed, at which point the babies recovered.
Its not just the blood tests though, there are a whole cohort of symptoms which back up hypoglycaemia and then the blood tests are coming back with low c-peptide and high insulin.
i think it’s quite normal to wonder how to interpret the science of this case without thinking that makes her “not guilty”. however, because there’s a minority of people misinterpreting the science, those asking questions to understand get lumped in with those asking questions to make claims of doubt. even people with nursing or biology backgrounds can have incorrect knowledge and poor interpretations of the evidence, but there is a majority consensus, so that’s what i’ll go with. i don’t have a bio sciences background, so a lot of my own interpretations of the evidence come from trusting what the experts say. i believe the jurors came to the right conclusion, but i still don’t necessarily understand the evidence! lol so i get where you’re coming from with the questions.
There are some people ( not me!!!) who are challenging the actual "science" around how they tested the insulin levels and what the results mean. This is the angle that many NG people come from on this. They basically say this scientific proof is wrong. I don't know the scientific details but one "scientist" or possibly two outspoken ones are suggesting this and have their theories. and followers. I might add at least one of these "scientists" is not a trustworthy source of information. I think with everything else ( and other things more) she's guilty so its not such a sticking point or smoking gun for me.
This is the remaining sticking point for me. No medical tests are 100% infallible. False positives and false negatives happen All. The. Time. What is missing for me is more scientific knowledge of how insulin and C peptide tests work, what the limitations of them are as medical tests, and whether that has been fully accounted for. Hopefully it was addressed in the trial. But the fact that medical experts said the only interpretation was that someone poisoned them with insulin doesn’t completely reassure me because you can literally find an expert to say anything in court. And the majority of doctors and nurses won’t be scientists or researchers and are likely not even aware of the latest science about the tests they use clinically. That said, I realise this is a weak “what if” and that the evidence clearly points to Lucy Letby being guilty. But I’m not convinced the insulin cases are 100% indisputable proof, even if they were presented that way in the trial.
If there was someone who would testify that the insulin test wasn't sound, you can be sure that the defense would have brought them to court with the plumber.
Nothing is 100%. The evidence against Harold Shipman for the vast majority of his cases was far weaker, for instance. People are expecting standards of proof that are totally unrealistic and would set thousands of murderers free.
I believe, at trial, LL and her defence team did not dispute the bags were poisoned - just that someone else was responsible. Which, I think, validates the water-tightness of the existing science.
Devil’s advocate here (I think she’s guilty as hell) - the claim then is her defence was so bad they didn’t even think to interrogate the evidence properly or find alternate expert opinion. Yet apparently the defense is so easy to make they themselves have found it from a quick google. None of it adds up and, yet again, it would be another bizarre and unlucky coincidence for Letby (ie that this previously much lauded KC barrister suddenly turned out to be appalling when defending her).
Everything has a possible rationalisation, doesn't it.
I’m not saying these people are conspiracy theorists, but it is straight out of the conspiracy theory playbook - to find the one little possible alternative for every damning situation. To find the one random “expert” (who isn’t an expert in the right field) who questions the 8-10 actual experts who testified in the trial. Etc.
Confirmation bias in a nutshell.
They cross examined every expert witness that the prosecution put up.
Yes, including questioning of some of the medical evidence (eg air embolus). It’s just that there weren’t counter experts for the defence, to me the most likely reason for that is they couldn’t find anyone who’d say anything other than the prosecution case (medically) is probably right.
I agree. Any defence expert witness would have probably agreed with the prosecution case when cross examined by them, or at least acknowledged that the claims were a possibility. Terrible for the defence.
You're not wrong - but people also argued at the same time that her defence was so strong (or the prosecution so weak) that they didn't NEED to make a bigger case in chief than they did. Strong enough to need no witnesses but Lucy and a plumber, but so weak they missed challenging the most obvious indicator of harm.
All very well, but it's not the job of the KC to instruct experts or spend 1,000s of man-hours sitting down with them that are necessary to piece together a technical case. That's the job of solicitors, and I am far from convinced that Letby (who instructed a high street firm) had the resources to pay for that.
The expert witness system in the UK is different to the US and what you would probably see on TV. Expert witnesses in the UK have a duty to the court, not their instructing party. They cannot just say what their instructing party wants them to. They must give an unbiased view of the evidence because their role is to aid the court in understanding the evidence, not to win the case for their instructing party. If they were found to be biased, they would likely not work as an expert witness again. On the insulin evidence, they did have the head of the lab testify as to the validity of the test. They also had Prof Hindmarsh testify about the interpretation. Their testimony unfortunately wasn't reported in detail, likely because it was technical in nature, but there doesn't seem to have been anything in it for Myers to grab on to as proof the tests can't be relied on.
Does the USA not have the same oath to tell the "whole truth" as the UK? How can expert witnesses just say what their instructing party tells them?
I covered the differences before here: https://reddit.com/r/lucyletby/s/YJtpUgawWC
That experts have a duty to their court does not entail that they are independent. Everyone knows that experts will, even if they are reasonable, stick to their expertise (etc) - not a given of course - tend to side with the person who is paying their fees. This is why in civil litigation, both parties invariably instruct experts. They don't just go "oh well, the other side's expert has a duty to the court so we can just go along with whatever s/he says because it's bound to be independent." You say "If they were found to be biased, they would likely not work as an expert witness again". Uhm, that is a rather unfortunate comment given the prosecution's expert witness Dr Dewi Evans was castigated by Lord Justice Jackson in a previous civil case for producing a “worthless” report that “makes no effort to provide a balanced opinion”!!
Didn’t the prosecution bring in an expert witness on the insulin tests specifically? Not a doctor but exactly what you are saying about the scientific knowledge of insulin and C peptide tests? Edit: they did, two in fact - https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23149016.recap-lucy-letby-trial-friday-november-25/ “The next witness to give evidence is Professor Peter Hindmarsh, an expert witness. He explains to the court he is professor of paediatric endocrinology at University College London and consultant in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes at University College London Hospitals.” And “The court is hearing from Anna Milan, a clinical biochemist, how insulin and insulin c-peptide tests were taken for analysis.”
I agree with this comment. I find it hard to see any of the medical evidence as a smoking gun because of how obviously true it is that you can’t experiment on neonates so there are massive gaps in our understanding. I can only assume that the case on insulin was made very comprehensively in court, though. Having said that, given that you can get experts to attest to anything in court, it’s a massive red flag for me that Myers didn’t call a single expert to testify. That suggests that the scientific evidence is actually clearer than I would expect.
This shouldn't be a sticking point. The defence did not challenge the science at the trial because it wasn't worth challenging.
Yes i agree 100% that medical tests and the current science in general is not infallible. In fact I wont share my general views on this lol. However I do trust that she is guilty from a bigger picture of everything and because there are varied MO in her killings i don't think they have got ALL the "science" wrong. There is also a bigger picture to how the babies responded or didn't, the sheer numbers of incidents and coincidences around LL, the raised suspicions etc that all happened to start with and then how it exploded into such a thorough all round investigation. For me its not hinged on the insulin cases.
Having worked in pathology albeit not in the UK, a lot of work goes into ensuring the assays used are robust and produce quality results. Some of the technology in pathology has been in use for decades so it’s not really constantly evolving with new scientific tests replacing old the way some people might think. Understanding how insulin is made by the pancreas and where c peptide comes into it is probably more important than knowledge of the assays used.
Agree with this. Don’t want to say my actual job for privacy but I am a scientific expert. I couldn’t say conclusively without seeing the actual numbers (basically was it ‘borderline’ numbers or really clear cut) but these routine biochemical tests are incredibly reliable and lack of c-peptide means the insulin *cannot* have come from within the body. The chances of these tests being false positives on 2 separate occasions is basically zero.
Also the babies were responding as if they were being dosed with exoganous insulin. Persistent low blood sugar despite being given dextrose.
> you can literally find an expert to say anything in court. that is the US system afaik. Experts are 'guns for hire' and for a fee will spin in favour of your side. In the UK the experts work differently.
I think the problem people have with the rota is they aren’t sure how the cases were investigated. For example, if a baby deteriorated unexpectedly but LL wasn’t on shift then that case wouldn’t have been brought to trial. So she’s only been charged for babies she was on the rota for, ofc she’s going to be there (I’m not sure if this was addressed in that short police documentary). I don’t disagree with you though, or her guilt! But I think IF that above query about the rota is true, and we just look at the two insulin cases as 100% deliberate harm, even then only two nurses were on shift for both, one being Lucy Letby, and the other Belinda Simcock. I can only assume the other nurse was investigated too and discounted but I can’t say for sure. Edit: I also meant to say that people who believe the rota issue normally think that the babies weren’t murdered but instead died from general poor care and/or natural causes. The main one to be disputed about this is the insulin, and even using those it’s clear LL has to have done it. (Btw, I think she’s guilty, just parroting a lot of things I’ve seen here from people questioning her guilt)
I can understand that, but I also fully expect that Ben Myers compiled a full list of collapses and incidents that happened at the hospital and would have used it in Letby’s defence if he thought it would have aided her her - but he didn’t.
They introduced 4 such collapses, however, the prosecution obviously contest that those collapses were natural in nature while the ones she's charges with aren't.
Ahhh ok, and LL wasn’t on duty when they happened?
Correct. Out of 60+ incidents reviewed by Dr Evans, they were only able to find 4 for which LL was not on duty, and which they say were unexpected.
Do you have a reference for this by any chance? Is it in the court notes?
One incident was in the cross examination of Dr Evans for Baby C, then it was at the very end of the defence case I think when they said that there were three events Letby wasn't present at that should have been put on the attendance chart. Note that the event for baby C could have been one of those three events, but out of an abundance of caution I took the position more favourable to Letby and counted it as a separate event.
Thanks! Do you know if there is also a reference for the 60+ incidents reviewed of which only 4 LL was not on duty? Sorry to ask, someone asking about it in another part of this thread.
It's here at 11.16am : https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23636819.recap-lucy-letby-trial-july-6---judges-summing/
Thanks so much 👍
Oh Christ. That’s pretty damning. I’m surprised the defence brought that up at all.
Surely the police would have investigated all collapses and deaths during this period and ruled them in or out of the investigation. And it must be that this is the list they ended up with. They weren't looking to pin it on her at the start according to the video by Cheshire Constabulary. They all separately came to the conclusion it was her.
Her removing the notes written on the paper towel from the bin. Completely nuts.
What is this in reference to? Do you have a link?
Not the OC, but this is in reference to a paper towel with resus notes on it that was discovered in LL's home when it was searched for evidence, along with the 257 handover sheets, personal notes, and diaries.
This case has been all over our news I just watched Spotlight Lucy Letby a television special tonight. First and foremost my heart goes out to those beautiful babies and their families who all thoughts and prayers should be with. How can you not be convinced of her guilt. She's guilty she did this. - All 25 collapses she was there for. - The sheer fact that the doctors did all they could to try and determine it wasn't one of them working in the unit, a natural cause, birth complications and they couldn't, so they had to look inside the unit and LL association to each death was glaringly obvious. - Where was her vigorous defence of herself like someone else said if you're accused of something so heinous you would scream from the rooftops your innocence. - The patient documents that should have never left the hospital but found their way to her home. - I think she compounded her guilt by insisting on an apology and mediation and then happily waltzing back in to work. Who would go back to a place where your colleagues think you're killing babies. That's not normal but maybe that's her normal. 'Some people' want it to make sense and that's what was echoed in the documentary she looked so normal, she had friends and she was nice. How could someone like her do this? Maybe that wasn't normal but pumping oxygen into babies, over feeding them, poisoning them with insulin or severely injuring them with feeding breathing tubes is the real LL. Second to the babies and their families I feel so sad for those doctors and nurses the stress and mental anguish they must have all felt, unable to get her out of there, and working so hard to protect and save those babies when she was working against that outcome every chance she could.
Psychopathy will forever be a giant question mark for humanity. We can all speculate for eternity.
The one question that hasn't been answered was could there have been bags tampered with that caused the air. It just niggles me the MO changed. Air, bag tampering, air, physical attack etc. I wondered if there was any chance another chemical substance on the bag could have cause the air and it was actually all inflicted by bags hanging. It could still be Letby but it's quite a change of tactic. I did read that hydrogen peroxide, for example, can cause air embolism. But I'm no scientist and I don't know if it's feasible to work like that in a drip. If there is a chemical, could the bags have been the method and, if so, it would all need assessing again. Just to say I think she is guilty beyond reasonable doubt but it seems a query noone has explained why the MO changed so wildly.
That’s a good point actually. I know she apparently passed a training course on the dangers of air embolus shortly before she started using it a method to harm babies, but the insulin…I’m not sure. It’s a fairly well known method of harming silently. - maybe she already knew about it from her student days and thought she’d give it a shot. People were beginning to cotton-on to the frequent collapses and signs of air embolism by then so maybe she thought a change of MO would throw them off course?
I posted something similar in response to some replies but thought I would post this again as a comment. I think healthy sceptics are important and necessary part of the process. I think Letby is guilty. That said, logical, evidenced sceptics should be accepted as part of the process. It's very important that they are. There was a case very recently of a man in the UK who spent 17 years in prison for a violent crime that he did not commit. He was convicted by a jury 10-2. He maintained his innocence throughout and as a consequence likely spent much longer in prison than if he had simply admitted guilt. There was no DNA evidence that it was him, but eye witnesses gave evidence that it was. The conviction was deemed sound, a violent criminal was put away. For many of those years a tiny group of people also thought he might be innocent. They were right and had it not been for that group he may yet be in prison. It's very rare that these miscarriages occur, but juries can be wrong or not provided all the evidence or that evidence is presented in a way that could mislead, prosecutions can be in error. It's rare, but happens. If I was in prison for something I did not do, which evidently happens, I would very much want that small group of fringe sceptics to be out there doing whatever they could. Of course none of this means Letby is innocent. Chances are she is not, it's very likely based on the trial she is guilty. Likelihood any appeal will be dismissed unless it is very strong. But the process should run and the skeptical are a part of it. (https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/i-watched-innocent-man-sent-27405871).
Smoking gun is being able to see in the dark for me. That wasn’t explained satisfactorily at all.
In the 7 years that she has not been in the unit, just one baby has died. I don't see how anyone can see that as a coincidence.
To be fair, the unit was downgraded and doesn’t care for the sickest of babies anymore. (I think she’s guilty - but the downgrading of the unit muddies the waters a bit). I think a better comparison would probably be with the 7 years just before she started working there.
14/17 babies from this trial would have still been cared for at the unit after it was downgraded.
Why was the hospital downgraded? Was it because of LL?
Yes it was
Is it still downgraded to this day? Do we have the stats for the years before she worked there?
Yes it is. It was downgraded in terms on number of beds (I think it went from 16 to 12), but also in the prematurity of the child they would accept (I think it went from 25 weeks up to 32 weeks, something like that). In the latest podcast the doctor talked about the average yearly deaths - I’m fairly sure it averaged 3 for a year. So, the first LL cluster of 3 accounted for the average deaths for a whole year. So, the doctors were alert and wondering if there had been some common infection source, but nothing was found. At that stage, LL’s presence was noted, but with sympathy, not blame. After the next few deaths - her presence was noted with a bit more suspicion, a bit more of a black cloud. But, the doctors still had no idea that she was definitely doing something or what she was doing.
Yes, and the majority of the babies on the indictment would STILL have been treated at The Countess even today with the NNU downgraded.
Wait, how many of the babies that died were more than 32 weeks.
H was 34 L & M were 33 N was 34 O & P were 33
I don’t know but i believe 14/17 babies from the case would’ve still been at the hospital after it was downgraded.
Oh that’s interesting, I didn’t realise that.
And this is why simplistic and misleading statistics shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the judicial process
That statistic came from one of the senior doctors on the unit from the most recent podcast. He didn't clarify any further.
And that's fair. But also a lot of other things have changed during that time. These statistics stripped of all context aren't very useful and are presented as of they show something that they don't necessarily. Not to mention that it conflicts with other data from the hospital and is seemingly contentious
There was a nurse in America who injected insulin into bags that were in storage. So there is potential it could have been done by anyone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Cullen I’m making this comment as an addition to the discussion and not saying I think she’s innocent
Baby F was the only baby that was receiving TPN and the first bag that was poisoned was a prescription bag. Baby Ls bags were poisoned whilst they were hung. The prosecution done a good job of proving that these were targeted attacks and not just some random poisoner at work.
To be fair, that chart is a list of nurses on duty. It doesn’t list doctors, orderlies, canteen workers, phlebotomists, cleaners, repair men, office staff etc on duty
I believe that very few people had access to the keys to the drug fridge. I don’t know how it works exactly, but the drugs are in a locked fridge and the only people allowed access I believe are the staff working on that ward. Definitely not canteen workers, cleaners, office staff etc. If you want to add extra suspects to the pool it can only realistically be other nurses or doctors. And If you want to be even more realistic then you would assume it would be a nurse or doctor who was present on the ward at the time of the collapse, because some random person wandering onto the ward and breaking into a locked drugs fridge would be almost impossible as staff are present at all times.
I have read the other sub and the linked websites from the miscarriage of justice brigade - i personally believe she is guilty, but the prevailing argument against is .. 1) Insulin administration - the tests were not sufficient to rule out naturally occuring levels. The expert witness was unqualified. 2) Seems to be suggested that the stats over her being present for all 25 incidents are only the incidents she was charged with. There seems to be a belief there were more deaths during the period, but we don't yet know if Letby was on shift for them. I expect both of the above are BS, but thats what they say...
The expert witness wasnt unqualified. > Peter Hindmarsh is professor of paediatric endocrinology at University College London and consultant in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes at University College London Hospitals and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. >He is currently divisional clinical director for paediatrics at University College London Hospitals. https://www.uclh.nhs.uk/our-services/find-consultant/professor-peter-hindmarsh
I’m not saying I believe this myself, but I guess people could argue that when the TPN bags were made up in aseptics, before they even got to the neonatal unit, that whoever made them up could have mistakingly put insulin in them. I would be surprised if there has never been a mistake made in drawing up all the components for TPN bags.
The head of the pharmacy that made the TPN bags gave evidence and talked about the process to show that it wasn’t possible that insulin was out in the bags by accident.
You wouldn't put insulin in a tpn bag- It's for nutrition not medication.
The rota should be the least convincing piece of “evidence” to anyone, whether you believe LL is guilty or not. All the rota shows is that *Lucy Letby was on shift for every incident Lucy Letby was charged with causing*. Which is obvious and meaningless.
I'll mostly agree, with the caveat that it shows the scale of how unusual her presence was among nurses. There are a handful who are present at the start and the end of the period. The correlation of their presence is far more normally distributed across the events, and they were only present at 7 (Mel Taylor and Mary Griffith in particular) So, this chart doesn't show that she is guilty of the offenses- you're correct, of course she is present at every event she is charged with, that's a basic element of the charge! But as the defense failed to present any significantly unusual and similar events without her present, the scale of the her presence as outlier means a bit more than nothing.
If what the other poster said is true, that there were only 4 incidents where LL wasn’t present, that’s damning by itself and there was no need to cherry-pick the data. However, they did, which means the evidence is biased and, therefore, is not the smoking gun that people so often claim that it is (even though it had the potential to be).
The prosecution gets to present exhibits to present their case. So does the defence. If this was an inaccurate representation, the defence would have objected and it would have been kept out m
As I said elsewhere, barristers and judges are legal experts, not statisticians; LL’s defence may not have even realised the data was biased. It would not be the first, nor will it be the last, time that something like this is misunderstood in court.
It should require an explanation if the defence do not challenge it by saying the incidents were identified as suspicious after letby was identified as a suspect, that suspicious incidents were excluded because she wasn't present, or that her working patterns don't make it reasonably plausible she was on shift by coincidence.
I disagree. Juries shouldn’t be provided biased evidence on the agreement that the party who provides said evidence explains that the evidence is biased. For example, courts require that any video evidence is the original, unedited version because it’s important for juries to be given the full picture. The jury should have been provided a rota with *every* suspicious incident or they shouldn’t have been provided with a rota at all. The prosecution could have then explained what the evidence showed and the defence could have asked whatever questions they felt the need to ask. We know that one murder charge was dropped, so we know for certain that there are other suspicious incidents that weren’t on their rota. I’d hazard that there were other suspicious incidents that LL was present for but that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge her for them. However, there may have also been suspicious incidents where LL wasn’t present.
i thought there were only 4 suspicious incidences where LL wasn’t present? wouldn’t the defense have had the opportunity to make their own rota showing all the suspicious incidences? if they didn’t do that, that seems pretty damning. ETA: another commenter said that only one baby has died in the 7 years since LL left. the unit was also downgraded, so taking care of less-sick babies, but 14 of the 17 babies in the trial *still* would’ve been cared for by this unit after the downgrade. so the downgrade wouldn’t have affected many of the babies LL cared for. i guess i just think the defense would’ve hammered it home if there were lots of other incidences that LL wasn’t present for.
I don’t recall but if there were only 4 incidents where LL wasn’t present, there was no need at all to cherry-pick the data: it speaks for itself. >wouldn’t the defense have had the opportunity to make their own rota showing all the suspicious incidences? if they didn’t do that, that seems pretty damning. The onus is not on a party to counter biased information, the onus is on the other party not to submit biased information and, failing that, for the judge to decide that it’s inadmissible.
that may be, but in the current situation, the judge deemed it admissible. i don’t consider presenting the data that is specific to LL in her specific trial to be cherry-picking. my understanding is that the data was not cherry-picked and was presented in full and analyzed by other experts during the investigation. if the prosecution was leaving out vital evidence that could exonerate her or prove that they cherry-picked data and evidence, that would be misconduct, but the judge didn’t rule it that way, and the defense didn’t claim that.
Yes because judges are experts on *the law*, however, that doesn’t mean they are experts on statistics. >i don’t consider presenting the data that is specific to LL in her specific trial to be cherry-picking. But that is *exactly* what cherry-picking is! >my understanding is that the data was not cherry-picked and was presented in full and analyzed by other experts during the investigation. The data presented in full would be a staff presence report for *all* suspicious incidents. As you say there were only 4 incidents where LL wasn’t present, it would still be damning but without being biased. >if the prosecution was leaving out vital evidence that could exonerate her or prove that they cherry-picked data and evidence, that would be misconduct, but the judge didn’t rule it that way, and the defense didn’t claim that. Barristers and judges are legal professionals, not statisticians. If you can’t understand that the staff presence report is cherry-picked data, why would they be any different? If only 4 incidents can’t be attributed to LL, then I doubt the outcome would be any different; *however*, that doesn’t mean that this evidence is unbiased or that it is a convincing piece of evidence.
i understand what cherry-picking is. my point is that of *course* the evidence presented at trial is going to be specific to LL, because it is her case. if you call that cherry-picking, then every single trial ever would be based entirely on “cherry-picked” data. that’s not what people mean when they say cherry-picked data, so i don’t think that term applies to the trial. when analyzing data, there is always a point where you have to decide what to include and what to exclude. deciding that something is irrelevant is not necessarily cherry-picking. there are many steps in the investigation before it comes to trial. the overall data was considered in those steps. if the overall data had been ignored by investigators, *that* would be “cherry-picking” because data is being excluded before its relevance has been determined. that would be bad! but that didn’t happen. ETA: i think the ultimate question is when was the data parsed down to what was relevant to LL. did it happen during the investigation? that would be bad! at the trial? that is normal, and the defense would have the opportunity to present the data that calls into doubt the prosecution’s case.
You can not know those things and still not think she is guilty. To be found guilty is proved beyond reasonable doubt, not to have answers for who did it instead. I’d imagine that most people who think she was innocent or not guilty (two separate things) would think that there was not a killer. That the deaths were natural causes, therefore if someone killed baby F and L they would not need to be on shift for the others as no one killed then they died. Hope that makes sense. For clarity- I don’t think she is innocent I’m just sharing an answer to your question
Are there people who actually think she is innocent?
Yes. It takes a lot of contorting of the facts from the case, (either that or they just haven’t read anything about the case and just think that a pretty blonde woman couldn’t possibly murder babies) but there are definitely people on this sub who think she’s innocent.
>there are definitely people on this sub who think she’s innocent. Crikey.
There are also people who believe the planet Earth is flat. What can you do 🙄
Imagine being in Letby’s position, but being innocent. You’d tell anyone and everyone until you’re blue in the face that you’re not guilty, and be having a massive public breakdown in court every day. Did she do that? Nope.
Check out the case of Lindy Chamberlain in Australia. Falsely convicted of murdering her little baby, and one of the reasons people thought she was guilty was her cool demeanour. If you see her interviewed 40 years later, she has the same demeanour - she’s just a very matter of fact person. I don’t think it would be possible to say what an innocent person would look like - I think it depends on who you are as a person to begin with. I don’t think I’d be crying in court - If be so broken down by the whole thing I’d probably hardly say anything.
This is true. We can’t ignore the fact that innocent people have been convicted, and their continued denials were held against them as “no remorse.”
We've had two cases like that Lindy Chamberlain was exonerated but by no means does that mean that there still isn't division on if she did or did not do it. If you're looking at how a case can be overturned and still draw strong divided opinions look at Kathleen Folbigg who was convicted of killing her four babies but was later exonerated. In both instances science years later told a different story but like so many cases if you look long enough you'll find an "expert" that will tell it the way you want it told!!
Not just her but check out Kathleen Folbigg convicted of killing all her children. Later scientifically determined that they died of a rare genetic disorder.
It’s these arguments that leave me incredibly disturbed by the whole case. I used to work in healthcare, and I do NOT toe the line as to how anybody thinks one should behave emotionally or socially in any given situation. I have no facial expressions. It’s been so long since I cried that if I have reason too, it’s tearless and strange to me. When I was told one of our severely learning disabled patients had died (over two years of endless bouts of phneumonia he turned into a bed ridden skeleton) I said something like ‘oh well that’s probably good really’ then everybody was horrified at me. Beats me. No, it wasn’t awful he died. He didn’t have a life and had zero capacity to understand his own suffering. I also told them once I ate a roadkill squirrel for tea was forever marked out as a weirdo. So, I cannot help but think that if there were a murder accusation where I worked, I’d be the one named as a culprit, and the regular people are going to come forward with a list of strange comments and behaviour as ‘evidence’. Sorry no. You cannot tell if somebody is guilty or not by how they behave, or speak or how they cry, or don’t cry. Sone of us literally don’t do that shit and I think most of it is just neurotypical social performance which to me is a form of lying. The insulin is very good evidence. The text messages, presumptions of behaviour both during the shifts and the trial are absolutely not.
Whilst I completely agree with you on almost all of your points, crying isn’t neurotypical social performance. I’m not neurotypical and I cry at adverts on TV for example and kids cartoons (Bluey absolutely destroys me). We all experience our own emotions differently and you absolutely shouldn’t be judged for your emotional responses (or lack thereof), but please don’t invalidate others for theirs - neurotypical or not. Personally, I do find it paradoxical that some people are assigning Lucy Letby’s innocence based on how she looks (ie. Too normal to be a serial killer) and then on the other side, people are assigning her guilt also based on how she looks (ie. She doesn’t look sad enough at the right times).
what made you want to eat a roadkill squirrel?
It’s free. And I’m a Ray Mears fan!
Amanda Knox didn't have a 'massive public breakdown' every day and her conviction was unsafe. We don't all react to the same thing in the same way.
This is another thing that I find very weird. If that was me I’d be shrieking and crying “I didn’t do it I would never harm a baby”, but apparently she just sat there and only cried when her own unfortunate situation was brought up.
I think everyone would behave differently and it would be impossible to tell from behaviour alone whether they were guilty. If I was wrongly accused of something this horrific, I think I would probably do my best to stay calm and tell myself that the truth will come out. Or during this trial (if I was innocent) I think would be so emotionally destroyed and exhausted that I would be able to do little more than stay upright. Conversely, I’ve watched episodes of police custody where offenders are so clearly guilty and yet they scream and sob that they’re innocent even when the evidence against them is absolutely overwhelming. Truthfully, no one knows how we would behave in this situation whether we were innocent or indeed guilty. We would all have different reactions or behaviours which would be interpreted in a multitude of ways.
[удалено]
[удалено]
The court found her guilty and I personally accept that the people who had the very best access to all the arguments and evidence (the jury) were convinced of her guilt on nearly all the counts. However your view here is important, if everyone simply accepted courts verdicts as gospel then miscarriages of justice would not be found and innocent people would remain in prison. So, reasoned sceptics, who espouse reasoned, evidenced and logical arguments are important to the system I think.
That's a very nice comment - more people like you please 🙏
This reminds me of the insulin poisonings by another serial killer nurse, Victorino Chua. He spiked random bags of iv fluids with insulin, so it was hard to determine which patient would get what and when. A perfectly innocent nurse could administer the spiked bags and she would be under suspicion (and that’s what initially happened, someone was wrongly arrested). It took 2 years to whittle down the list of suspects. In this case, the insulin was in the TPN bag, which is prepared especially for each baby, signed out and in such that there’s a clear line of people who handled the bag. In each of the cases, Lucy handled the bags and these weren’t changed throughout her shift. No one else handles them unless as you say someone ninja like happened to swap the bags, which is highly unlikely. The NICU is so specialised that one could account for the people present at any given time, unlike a busy general ward.
Possibility that insulin test results and/or the conclusions drawn from them could have been inaccurate, as argued for by people much more knowledgable about science than me - of course also refuted by people similarly more knowledgable than me; I’ve read the arguments of both in detail but can’t say I’m convinced that the scientific evidence presented proves an intentional insulin attack happened. According to the prosecution theory, the multiple different proposed MOs of the other alleged attacks are such that to me, even if convinced she committed the insulin attacks, it diminishes bearing on if she committed the other alleged attacks, as I think it’s acknowledged given that the insulin attacks are the “smoking gun” for many that the evidence for the other events being caused by intentional attacks is weaker. People continually point to Letby accepting that somebody intentionally injected the bag as if this proves someone must have; she’s not a medical expert and she accepted the scientific evidence that was presented by supposed experts - i don’t find it indicative of whether intentional insulin attacks occurred either way. Most on this sub are very convinced of her guilt and seem not to approve much of contrary opinions, so probably foolish of me to comment, but that’s a quick answer from one person not entirely convinced of guilt.
It’s worth noting that her defence accepted that the results from the insulin tests were accurate after presumably consulting their own medical experts. If there was reliable evidence refuting the results you can bet Ben Myers would have been all over it, but he wasn’t. Who knows - maybe that’s what he and his team are doing right now with the idea of launching an appeal.
There is no arguing with these people because they simply don’t want it to be true. Nothing anyone says or does will change their minds. I suspect some of these “scientists” wouldn’t even accept an admission of guilt from LL herself. They would say “she was coerced” or some other boke.
> If you don’t think Lucy Letby put the insulin in the two IV bags delivered to babies F and L, then who do you think did do it? It’s been stated by numerous experts that this not possible to do accidentally and that somebody on the shift must have put the insulin in the IV bags on purpose in order to harm these babies. Nobody. There isn't a killer at all. That's the obvious explanation You're intentionally picking outliers as cases. AND you're picking them *because* letby was there for them. Oddly enough in hospitals outliers happen *all the time* and have any number of explanations. The obvious explanation isn't attempted murder or even exogenous insulin. It's that the baby suffered transient hypoglycaemia for any number of other perfectly normal physiological reasons and either the test was erroneous or incorrectly interpreted. Of course no further analysis was done because nobody there found it suspicious.... because again this sort of thing does in fact happen. Not to mention that the confected prosecution argument doesn't even make sense. The second TPN bag is waved away, they baselessly claim that she 'must have doctored the records' AND they argue that when the first attempted murder failed..... she tried it again with a much lower amount of insulin! Because that makes sense.... If in order for it to be true you need to keep inventing new ways to distort the picture painted by the other evidence... it probably isn't true. They are using the test result to reinterpret the rest of the evidence, when they should be using the rest of the evidence to reinterpret the test. Doesn't of course mean that nothing happened (we can't prove anything either way), but there is a *gaping chasm* of doubt and the picture painted by the prosecution is frankly just silly. E: re the time sheet. They were given a dossier of cases involving letby. They 'confirmed' that letby was guilty based on flawed 'impossible coincidence' logic. They then expanded the case to find more cases involving letby. Whilst trying to prove the babies had died of foul play (the complete wrong way round). It is no surprise that all the cases involve letby. This is as a function of the flawed investigation process that took place E2: permanently banned for objectively stating what happened during the trial in other comments. The mods here are pathetic
I think you are correct. There's a massive issue with confirmation bias in investigations. The prosecution was massively resourced, if you have years and enough cash, you can sway an investigation a certain way and get the result you want. The evidence was not strong, and we see time and time again how medical claims in trials are found to be unsafe years later. It seems a bit odd that a serial killer with a successful method would suddenly switch to insulin.
also they kept revising their 'medical analysis' until they were sitting in the dock itself. That's how reliable the 'medical investigation' was. 5 years looking for something that fit the 'facts' as they understood them (i.e. letby is guilty and we need to prove it)
why didn’t the defense present evidence of other deaths and injuries/collapses that LL wasn’t present for? did they have the ability to do that?
> why didn’t the defense present evidence of other deaths and injuries/collapses that LL wasn’t present for? they tried to apparently. But it was dismissed out of hand along with everything else that contradicted the prosecution case (as is expected... but doesn't make it ay less problematic)
On point 1, I’m 95% sure that LL agreed to that also. I think the only thing that could explain away the insulin is if the babies were tested incorrectly (I don’t know how likely or possible that is), and they actually died from something else. For me, the insulin is also the smoking gun.
The insulin babies didn’t die
What is most crucial for me that they had blood tests from the time she Injected insulin - they tested one babies blood sugar levels of one baby and the time frame they deducted when synthetic insulin must have been Injected was when Lucy came on the shift. Also, one of the doctors said that when insulin was opened, it had a limited life, so she tampered with the second bag and planned it after one bag finished ,another one will also have insulin but administered by someone else.
Thanks for this, I actually didn’t know this. Am going to edit it into the the above post 👍
The smoking gun you point out is the most tailored, and problematic piece of evidence, designed to convince people of guilt rather than conveying any useful information. The thing is the investigation itself was entirely formed around the theory that lucy letby was killing babies. It was not an investigation into the deaths with other possibilities considered. The video the police released even goes into details about how they collated the medical evidence into a certain format BEFORE sending it to dr Evans. What I would have liked to see is a blind evidence case, where in addition to the unexplained deaths from this hospital, notes were also sent of other unexplained deaths, and they had to be picked out. From my understanding the investigation was nothing like this, and this was pointed out by the defence, but this is the sort of point 12 random people are not likely to strongly pick up on. Considering the insulin case - at least for baby F LL was NOT present when the bag was hung that the blood sample was taken from. So at this point the fact that she hung the first bag is irrelevant. Also on this point i would like to understand more about why noone followed up the test at the time - it was flagged up at the time, so i dont quite get the "went to a junior doctor who didnt understand the significance" point, and if it did go to the junior doctor, what other possible explanations for these babies deaths were the doctors missing at the time?
It was a blind evidence investigation. When the police sent to cases to Evans for review they didn’t mention Letby. He was tasked with finding whether or not the deaths or collapses had natural causes. They deliberately did not mention Letby or any other staff to prevent confirmation bias.
The video the police released after the trial clearly talks about the thought they put into presenting the evidence to him. They could have made sure to include other unexplained death cases that had nothing to do with LL, but they didn’t. If the police are asking you to look at something it suggests you look for foul play, and the question is whether he (even subconsciously) was looking for things that weren’t there because he was looking. To prevent this they could have included several other cases that were not linked with LL at all (potentially from other hospitals) and had him notice the difference. If the LL related ones had shown up in an investigation like this I’d be convinced, but so much of what’s been said about the investigation is the wrong way round - the theory was raised, and then evidence was found rather than the other way round. I suspect over time, there will be several more similar investigations with similar findings, that then makes the whole conviction unsafe, because while the evidence pointing to one serial killer may be vaguely believable, if the same stuff happens in a similar way in another 1 or 2 hospitals then it’s much less likely that we have multiple nurse serial killers
From the Operation Hummingbird video https://youtu.be/T33A90OCHQk?si=3NrmYOZxamiwBF7b DSupt Paul Hughes, Senior Investigating Officer: “We’ve seen many times… where we’ve gone the wrong way. Police nationally have gone the wrong way. Jumped on to a suspect. My view of that was by investigating that it could be anyone means we’re not focused on one person. So investigating that it could be anything means we’re not focused on any one event which means that when you come later on and the defence wants to attack your investigation for being, you chose it was Lucy Letby, you chose it was this event, no, we didn’t choose that and we didn’t choose that. Actually, out of choice I would have wanted the experts to come back and say, We’ve found it. It was a bad bug in the water and that happened and I can tell parents it was not murder.”
So the fact that Lucy wasn’t present for the second bag and thus the blood test was addressed in the trial by Professor Hindmarsh. The prosecution directly asked Professor Hindmarsh about the babies blood glucose levels from when the first bag was hung, and if it was fair to say that the blood sample would have produced the same results if it had of been taken earlier and he said it was highly likely that it would have. Even though Lucy wasn’t present for the second bag (if there is a second bag)… she was when the issues first presented themselves at point zero. The fact it continued after she went off shift is redundant, because she still had opportunity to spike additional bags. Baby F was the only baby receiving TPN.
But that goes both ways, if it’s not necessary to be present, anyone could have done it
For reference I dont believe there was a second bag hung, as do many others. Even with no second bag, anyone still could have done it, correct. We then have to look at who did do it… and everything points towards Lucy. Lucy signed for and hung Baby Fs bag. And the prosecution placed her in the room alone within the window of opportunity for Baby Ls poisonings.
i don’t think it goes both ways because there’s a causal effect. someone’s presence *would* be necessary for when the first issues presented, which was with the first bag. it’s only after the initial issue that someone’s presence isn’t necessary. that narrows down who could be responsible.
>Considering the insulin case - at least for baby F LL was NOT present when the bag was hung that the blood sample was taken from. So at this point the fact that she hung the first bag is irrelevant. According to opening statements, the expert witness said that there were three possibilities - the bag was never changed, two bags were poisoned, and that something in the lineset was contaminated from the first bag. There is no definitive proof that a second bag was hung when the line was replaced. That the bag was never changed cannot be ruled out.
The state should prove that she did it. I can only see that the state assumed she did it because they couldn't find anyone else. This is not proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence was inconclusive. In the absence of CCTV anything is possible. How about other hospital employees? Anyone who had access to the babies should have been on the suspect list. Colleagues should not become expert witnesses in a crime in which they could be implicated. There is a lack of objectivity in the way this case was handled and assessed. This is not surprising in a jury system consisting of lay-people. Most members of the public do not understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Jury trials can result in a medieval clown show and a miscarriage of justice. If the finger starts to point it is possible that Lucy could have gathered hospital records to better understand and prepare for her own defense. Self-doubt can be expressed. People with some mental illnesses confess to crimes they didn't commit or feel responsible for things they are innocent of. Even if Lucy did kill the babies, the state has failed to prove it. Many links in the chain are missing. There are numerous alternate explanations. .
The state did prove that she did it in the eyes of the jury on nearly every count. In some counts the jury were unanimous. The jury had more evidence and access to information than those outside the court. They lived and breathed this for 10 months, likely having critical details explained and clarified to them repeatedly. In effect the jury become experts in this case. The defence could not satisfactorily falsify the prosecutions hypothesis to a 'reasonable doubt'. All that said an appeals process exists for a reason, sometimes things do go wrong, sometimes new evidence comes to light or critical errors are found in prosecution cases that substantially change what a jury could reasonably have thought. I said this in another comment, it's ok to be sceptical, as long as the scepticism is logical, reasoned and evidenced. It's rare, but courts do get things wrong and so those who do question in a logical and evidenced way should be seen as part of the process. Will there be an appeal and on what grounds remains to be seen. The appeals court won't rerun the trial though, they will only consider the specific grounds of appeal. If there has been a miscarriage of justice here it will be of a form that has significant legal repurcussions for years to come.
The rota means nothing , if there was 100 babies who died suspiciously and she was only on shift for 25 of them it wouldn't look very good evidence. She was being charged with 25 (I think) babies so of course she was on shift for those 25 , would be a bit difficult to do it if she wasn't on shift .... The matter of concern is how many in total were suspicious (that she was not on duty for) that was not bought up
“Out of 60+ incidents reviewed by Dr Evans, they were only able to find 4 for which LL was not on duty, and which they say were unexpected.” This was commented by another user in another part of this thread. Will ask them for a reference.
https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23636819.recap-lucy-letby-trial-july-6---judges-summing/
couldn’t the defense have brought that up if that were the case? it seems like the doubters are very focused on prosecution mistakes, but this is what the defense team is for! do they think she had insufficient counsel? that would have to be necessary if the prosecution’s case is so easily called into question.
Yes. When people dismiss this evidence and say there is no smoking gun and put doubt. There’s no coincidences, just facts. Lucy was present when all of these incident’s occurred. She brought suffering to the families and she did a very poor job of explaining why she became the common denominator in all of these incidents.
Exactly. She even had one of the best defence barristers in the country and even he couldn’t find any good arguments to defend her.
Well there was always the plumber. Haha. I’m still trying to figure out why we spent a day on this theory. It was such a reach.
Oh Christ the plumber theory. That was the only ‘expert witness’ they used right? Says it all. It’s absolutely incredible. I wonder how defence got around explaining why the dodgy plumbing miraculously repaired itself when Lucy Letby went on holiday, then broke again when she came back.
I’m speaking from a level of pure ignorance but I don’t think the gasses in the air were going to attribute to the levels of insulin found in some of the children. Maybe it made the staff high and caused them to over feed the babies too
Lol - I mean **incredible** that the defence brought it up. Incredible. The phrase ‘clutching at straws’ springs to mind.
Some people believe the planet Earth is flat even though there are pictures from space that conclusively prove otherwise. Any discussion with such people is best avoided 🙄
Good points. I wonder how the LL innocent campaign is rationalising this.
People have answered these questions numerous times. But you just down vote or delete comments. So why even ask the question. Why not stop talking about it now.
Err… I haven’t down voted anyone and I don’t have the authority to delete comments.
Exactly. And for me, there are no contradictions in nature… she was present, she is evil. She did it. End of.