The Trial of Lucy Letby

[Chz]

From very early days Prof John Ashton who is former Director of Public Health for the north west was banging in about this being a miscarriage of justice. He was one of the first people to sound the alarm on COVID, I've worked with him in the past, and while he definitely likes the sound of his own voice he really knows his stuff and dealt with clusters of neonatal deaths during his career. It's not all usual suspects, conspiracists or people who question stuff as a career who are concerned about this.

I didn't mean to suggest that, though it probably looks that way. I just wanted to insist that while I adore the Eye personally, they don't bring any gravitas to the issue in and of themselves. I don't trust it more or less just because they take up the torch. I personally don't know enough about any of it to even form an opinion.

 

[VivaE]

Yep, I read a lot of daily coverage while the trial was ongoing - while I'm not going to wade through hundreds of pages of trial coverage to argue the point, I definitely got the impression that the New Yorker story was cherry-picking some of the weakest points in the case and ignoring a lot of other evidence

It did that and more. The fundamental problem for me remains the failure by these experts who're now being given a platform to nit pick and poke holes in clinical elements and findings relating to the babies are doing so in a vacuum because they're completely ignoring and failing to engage with the evidence heard at trial over the 10 months that found Letby guilty of both the murder and the attempted murder charges. For that reason, I see no merit whatsoever in their speculations.

I'm leaving it there. It's done, over.

 

[lazythursday]

It did that and more. The fundamental problem for me remains the failure by these experts who're now being given a platform to nit pick and poke holes in clinical elements relating to the babies are doing so in a vacuum because they're completely ignoring and failing to engage with the evidence heard at trial over the 10 months that found Letby guilty of both the murder and the attempted murder charges. For that reason, I see no merit whatsoever in their speculations.

An awful lot of the evidence has been questioned. What remains? I'm happy to be convinced there's other strong evidence that hasn't been addressed in these various critiques, but what is it?

 

[kabbes]

An awful lot of the evidence has been questioned. What remains? I'm happy to be convinced there's other strong evidence that hasn't been addressed in these various critiques, but what is it?

Quite.

And it goes further. The clinical experts are questioning the evidence that there were any murders at all. They’re saying there is nothing actually to indicate this was anything more than the kind of unfortunate deaths that happen all the time in neonatal units.

If there are no murders then any evidence presented becomes irrelevant because there is no crime in the first place.

 

[barlimo]

There's a program on Channel 5 tonight about the case.

 

[Thaw]

Some nurses seem to think she's a scapegoat for NHS failures and don't want to end up in the same boat

Neonatal nurses ‘resigning amid Lucy Letby fallout’

Staff fear being accused of harming babies, senior consultants says

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[ElizabethofYork]

There's a program on Channel 5 tonight about the case.

I watched it. There are definitely questions over her guilt. I hope she's able to appeal soon, and isn't forced to spend many years in prison, while the wheels of justice grind
s-l-o-w-l-y.

 

[Thaw]

Not directly related to Lucy Letby but New Yorker now looking at Jeremy Bamber. Maybe they're covering potential miscarriages of justice for 'monsters'. There are a couple of parallels that stood out to me:

• 'Agatha Christie Syndrome' : "The agents of the justice system—police, prosecutors, and juries—tend to fixate on “the evil perpetrator of the perfect murder,” even when the truth is more mundane. “If a tragedy occurred because somebody with a mental illness had a hallucination, you can’t blame anybody,” he told me. “But, if you can create this figure of evil, that’s a better story.”"
• in both cases the initial simple explanation was dismissed after other people (i.e. relatives of Bamber, some doctors) started thinking someone was acting unusually or was weird, then came up with a story that fit
• the difficulty of getting cases reviewed and appeals heard because of systematic reasons and culture - no-one wants to admit they messed up so badly

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/05/did-the-uks-most-infamous-family-massacre-end-in-a-wrongful-conviction

 

[ElizabethofYork]

More uncertainty about the safety of her conviction.

Evidence in first Lucy Letby trial was incorrect, CPS admits

Door swipe data showing which staff entered and exited baby unit was ‘mislabelled’ until retrial, CPS says

www.theguardian.com

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

More uncertainty about the safety of her conviction.

Evidence in first Lucy Letby trial was incorrect, CPS admits

Door swipe data showing which staff entered and exited baby unit was ‘mislabelled’ until retrial, CPS says

www.theguardian.com

It's quite vague but seems to suggest that some data which showed she was on her own with some babies as they became fatally ill was wrong and others were present.

 

[two sheds]

but:

A spokesperson for the Mersey-Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service said: “The CPS can confirm that accurate door-swipe data was presented in the retrial.

... A spokesperson for the Mersey-Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service said: “The CPS can confirm that accurate door-swipe data was presented in the retrial.”

David Davis, the Conservative MP, has written to Sarah Hammond, chief crown prosecutor of Mersey-Cheshire CPS, asking her to “urgently make clear” what timing errors were made during the first trial and how they related to the prosecution’s case.

Davis, who is planning to bring a parliamentary debate after the summer recess, said: “The door-swipe data is clearly vital to knowing which nurse was where at one point in time, and this in turn was vital to the prosecution’s case in the first trial.

“It is therefore essential that the CPS makes it plain whether those errors occurred throughout any of the evidence of the first trial.”

So the prosecution have not said whether any other of the cases was affected?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Yeah, vague and when folk are vague they are usually vague in order to obfuscate. Have zero skin in this game and close to zero knowledge of the case, but it’s getting whiffier with every revelation.

 

[bluescreen]

David Allen Green cautions against against being dismissive of those querying the verdict when the alternative is too awful to comprehend. Includes a sideswipe at Rozenberg and shocking quote from Lord Denning. The comments below are good, too.

Lucy Letby and miscarriages of justice: some words of caution on why we should always be alert to the possibilities of miscarriages of justice

19th August 2024 Over at his Substack, the leading legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg states: “There’s something about the Lucy Letby case that attracts conspiracy theorists. Maybe the truth — that…

davidallengreen.com

 

[Saul Goodman]

David Allen Green cautions against against being dismissive of those querying the verdict when the alternative is too awful to comprehend. Includes a sideswipe at Rozenberg and shocking quote from Lord Denning. The comments below are good, too.

Lucy Letby and miscarriages of justice: some words of caution on why we should always be alert to the possibilities of miscarriages of justice

19th August 2024 Over at his Substack, the leading legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg states: “There’s something about the Lucy Letby case that attracts conspiracy theorists. Maybe the truth — that…

davidallengreen.com

That Lord Denning was some cunt.

He said this of the Birmingham 6 appeal.

“If the six men win, it will mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they were guilty of violence and threats, that the confessions were involuntary and were improperly admitted in evidence: and that the convictions were erroneous.

“That would mean that the Home Secretary would have either to recommend they be pardoned or he would have to remit the case to the Court of Appeal under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 .

“This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: It cannot be right that these actions should go any further.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

That Lord Denning was some cunt.

He said this of the Birmingham 6 appeal.

“If the six men win, it will mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they were guilty of violence and threats, that the confessions were involuntary and were improperly admitted in evidence: and that the convictions were erroneous.

“That would mean that the Home Secretary would have either to recommend they be pardoned or he would have to remit the case to the Court of Appeal under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 .

“This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: It cannot be right that these actions should go any further.

Yes, he'd rather that innocent people stay in jail, than the justice system be seen to have got it wrong. Absolutely shocking.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Yes, he'd rather that innocent people stay in jail, than the justice system be seen to have got it wrong. Absolutely shocking.

And he was an appeal judge!
I wonder how many innocent people spent years inside because of that prick.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

He was Master of the Rolls for 20 years - that's one of the most senior judges in the country.

 

[Saul Goodman]

He was Master of the Rolls for 20 years - that's one of the most senior judges in the country.

Justice for all... so long as it doesn't make us look bad.

 

[bluescreen]

Tbh I think for Denning it was indeed simply inconceivable that the alternative could be true. We're looking at it all with the benefit of hindsight: at the time it was very much a minority view that all those systems could be faulty. There are even still people around who have such unshakeable faith in the police and our justice system, but they are slowly dying out, or coming to their senses.

 

[tim]

He was Master of the Rolls for 20 years - that's one of the most senior judges in the country.

Embittered by the fact that everyone thought he worked in a sandwich bar. He had a lively West Country burr, so didn't sound posh and horrible

 

[Saul Goodman]

Tbh I think for Denning it was indeed simply inconceivable that the alternative could be true. We're looking at it all with the benefit of hindsight: at the time it was very much a minority view that all those systems could be faulty. There are even still people around who have such unshakeable faith in the police and our justice system, but they are slowly dying out, or coming to their senses.

He was a judge for a long time. He couldn't but know the system was corrupt and full of 'bent coppers'

Margaret Thatcher said that Denning was "probably the greatest English judge of modern times. That should be enough evidence that he was a proper cunt.

In 1982, he published What Next in the Law; in it, he suggested that "British citizens were no longer all qualified to serve on juries", that some members of the black community were unsuitable to serve on juries and that immigrant groups may have had different moral standards to native Englishmen.

The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own

He was also a supporter of corporal and capital punishment

The only thing inconceivable is that anyone would see him for anything other than what he was... A horrible racist cunt.

 

[tim]

Denning was mired himself because of his running of the inquiry into the Profumo affair and his compliance with the need to protect the political establishment, and (according to my mum) Prince Philip.

Profumo scandal evidence still secret in 'cover-up'

Secrecy still surrounds the files of the Denning inquiry into the Profumo scandal, more than 50 years later

www.google.com

Not Prince Philip, but Bounder di tutti Boundi Ernie Marples.


"The judge omitted from his published report testimony from a prostitute who said transport minister Ernest Marples - who died in 1978 - had paid her to beat him while he wore women's clothes"

 

[Saul Goodman]

Denning was mired himself because of his running of the inquiry into the Profumo affair and his compliance with the need to protect the political establishment, and (according to my mum) Prince Philip.

Profumo scandal evidence still secret in 'cover-up'

Secrecy still surrounds the files of the Denning inquiry into the Profumo scandal, more than 50 years later

www.google.com

Not Prince Philip, but Bounder di tutti Boundi Ernie Marples.


"The judge omitted from his published report testimony from a prostitute who said transport minister Ernest Marples - who died in 1978 - had paid her to beat him while he wore women's clothes"

He was likely one of her clients. Those judge types love to be whipped after a hard day at the office.

 

[Hollis]

Big article in The Telegraph about it today.. based on a letter from 19 nurses about their concern at working for the NHS.

Lucy Letby’s conviction leaves nurses ‘terrified’ to continue working for NHS

Assume it is paywalled for most..

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Here's the letter Healthcare Open Letter | Science on Trial

 

[Indeliblelink]

There was this long read article in The Times a few weeks ago.

https://archive.is/2024.08.11-231747/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/lucy-letby-innocent-guilty-evidence-nurse-g9w68wdgd

 

[edcraw]

More in this week’s Private Eye:



Interesting that there we’re recommendations on how to improve they use of expert witnesses in 2011 that weren’t implemented.

 

[rasputin]

This case, and to some extent this thread, reminds me a little of the Louise Woodward case in the late 1990s.

Both cases involved the death of babies; or one baby in Woodward's case. Both involved loud cries of wrongful conviction. And in both cases a photogenic young blonde woman was the person convicted.

I get that the deaths of babies will, quite rightly, attract interest. But would the same amount of attention have been generated if the accused had been an unphotogenic older adult?

 

[ElizabethofYork]

This case, and to some extent this thread, reminds me a little of the Louise Woodward case in the late 1990s.

Both cases involved the death of babies; or one baby in Woodward's case. Both involved loud cries of wrongful conviction. And in both cases a photogenic young blonde woman was the person convicted.

I get that the deaths of babies will, quite rightly, attract interest. But would the same amount of attention have been generated if the accused had been an unphotogenic older adult?

I don't think this is anything like Louise Woodward's case. And the fact that LL is blonde has fuck all to do with it. The hospital had massive issues and it was very convenient to blame the high number of infant deaths on an errant nurse, rather than on the hospital's failings.

 

[Dystopiary]

I don't think this is anything like Louise Woodward's case. And the fact that LL is blonde has fuck all to do with it. The hospital had massive issues and it was very convenient to blame the high number of infant deaths on an errant nurse, rather than on the hospital's failings.

Yeah, I think from the start, her being younger, female and pleasant looking (and probably her being white too, sadly) led to some people being incredulous about the possibility of her guilt.

BUT I reckon that's completely separate to this questions being asked now - by experts - about the safety of her conviction and the concern around (mis)use of statistics.