What would have happened if she’d been found not guilty? Would she have got compensation?
The Trial of Lucy Letby
- Thread starter Magnus McGinty
- Start date
People like you would be doing “ I told you so “ on the internet
From their arsehole
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
That one had passed me by. Jesus Inquiry completed into claim that police used West house as brothel
Edit: Apparently nothing to the story: Police cleared in Fred West row
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No different to people like you doing ‘I told you so’ then.
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Really depends on how her legal team thought it would play. Any witness can be cross examined and jurors can take things any number of ways. It is pretty unusual to have mates called to give evidence on the fact someone is a nice person. Can be used in mitigation at sentencing for lesser crimes but in this case it will not make a blind bit of difference.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I doubt it, no. I did try to find out a bit about how it works, but didn't come up with anything after a few quick searches.
Defendants are refused bail for a number of reasons (reoffending, flight risk, etc). The time served on remand is deducted from the length of the sentence - although that's likely to be moot in this case - but you don't get anything back unless the arrest and remand is deemed to have been unlawful.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
The defence may have had reasons to be concerned about their performance in the witness box. And, more simply, they may have had no relevant evidence to offer beyond their conviction that the accused was innocent.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
That's not really evidence though, is it?
The fact that I think my neighbour is a nice bloke has no bearing on whether he goes up Bewdley bypass at 90 - so the fact that some people outside of work don't think she did it has no bearing on what she did or didn't do at work.
The prosecution barrister is going to rip into a witness who says that she can't be a killer because the nice lady buys a copy of big issue from her every week - and 'expert witness, my mum', tends to draw a titter from the gallery....
Also worth remembering the media hyperbole - 'best friend from childhood' in the daily mail might well mean someone you haven't spoken to in 20 years and wouldn't recognise if you walked past them in the street.
savoloysam
Pigman's pigman's ha ha charade you are..
After the guilty verdicts starting to come in she refused to come back to the dock and her lawyer has said that she won't be present for sentencing. That just proves that she has zero remorse. Life without parole must surely be the minimum sentence she can receive.
tonysingh
Random Clever and Witty Strapline
Yes, I can't see her getting anything other than Whole Life.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I think the question of remorse is probably somewhat academic. Whatever is going on in the head of someone who commits offences like these isn't suddenly going to evaporate in a flash of realisation the moment she is convicted. She's probably, in her own mind, positioned herself as chief victim in the whole business, and probably perceives herself to be a persecuted innocent.
It may change over time - there's plenty of precedent for hardened criminals coming to realise during their sentence the severity of what they have done, although I suspect that tends to be people who were deliberately committing crimes in cold blood (eg economic crimes, gang violence), rather than pathological cases as I think this one almost certainly is.
As for the sentence - I agree. Regardless of the risk she might (or might not) represent 10, 20, 30 years down the line, the appallingness of what she has done would mean that anything less than the maximum possible sentence would result in a public outcry.
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
Interesting to see how the jury were unanimous in some instances and not in others. You can get a sense of how this took so much time.
Agent Sparrow
the age of slippers and migraines
Whilst I completely agree that a little bit of knowledge can be used poorly and with too much certainty, people having a basic understanding of how people and group dynamics work is no bad thing. Ideally with exposure to all the critique too.
It’s also slightly ironic thing to say given your post right above it!
So even the jury, with all the information in front of them, weren’t 100% convinced she was guilty.
Agent Sparrow
the age of slippers and migraines
How did you jump to that bit exactly? Could just as easily be the opposite and/or whatever denial mechanisms she’s had in place are failing and it’s unbearable. Point is we don’t know.
I suspect sentencing and where she’s held will depend on her mental state though I don’t think she’s considered to be mad (rather than bad) yet.
Combustible
Well-Known Member
They were convinced she was guilty of some of the charges, not others. Them not being convinced she is guilty of charge A says nothing about how convinced they are that she is guilty of charge B.
eatmorecheese
He's fallen out of the car again
Well, they were on some of the counts listed.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Totally non-specific on what lessons, and who's going to be doing the learning. Utterly vacuous, to the point of insulting.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
To convict in a criminal court, the jury has to be convinced "beyond reasonable doubt" that the offence was committed by the defendant.
It is perfectly possible for a defendant to be fairly and obviously the culprit, but for the jury to feel that the evidence supporting the charge is insufficient to leave them beyond reasonable doubt that they committed the offence.
But, taking a step back, and despite the jury being unable to reach a guilty verdict on some of the charges, the idea that Letby was not responsible for those offences does require something of a stretch of the imagination. Though I note that all the "not guilty" verdicts relate to attempted murders.
That’s a perfect explanation. Thanks. Will they retrial on the ones with hung jury verdicts?
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Exceptionally unlikely. Not in the public interest to clog up the Courts and subject a jury to another 10 month trial when she will be facing a whole life tariff in any case.
LeytonCatLady
Well-Known Member
That's my thought too. She's murdered and harmed children, and brought the NHS into disrepute. She's to the health service what Couzens was to the Met.
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Purely evidence free factual assertions on my part. No qualifications needed.Whilst I completely agree that a little bit of knowledge can be used poorly and with too much certainty, people having a basic understanding of how people and group dynamics work is no bad thing. Ideally with exposure to all the critique too.
It’s also slightly ironic thing to say given your post right above it!
dessiato
🇪🇸 my spirit is crying for leaving
And trotted out constantly
It’s difficult to know where to begin with this subject. There is so much I want to say, but nobody wants to read an essay.
Let me start by saying that the most fascinating* part to me of this whole story is in seeing the social reaction to the crime, rather than the crime itself. Humans, to me, are defined by two key attributes — we are irreducably social, and we are innately meaning-making. These attributes come together at a time like this, with a groundswell of social discourse that aims to make sense of what seems senseless. I see in this thread (and elsewhere) all the usual questions being discussed and argued about. Why did she do it? What were her reasons? What made her like this? What can we do about it? How do we feel about it? Could I have ended up like her?
People engage sociocultural tools to answer these questions. These include stories and mythology; the assumptions embedded in social norms, practices and rituals; commonalities in upbringing; and the subjectivity that derives from being subjected to particular developmental institutions. These create social representations of “rational” that suggest particular types of cause and effect. They suggest that somebody does something because they are trying to achieve something, and that something comes from a set of things that we understand. They suggest that people don’t act outside of the norms and assumptions that comprise what we view as “reality”
This is all very understandable. However, if you want to understand a situation like this, you have to engage in a process of stripping away such assumptions. Very, very few people go around killing babies. So if you want to understand somebody that kills babies, you can’t use the tools that work for 99.99% of the population. The edge case defies usual rationality. This makes something like A-level psychology particularly dangerous as the way to understand someone like Letby. When I did A-level physics, that gave me the tools to understand the physical world I can see around me. However, it would be dangerous to apply those to relativistic or quantum mechanics.
One of the assumptions you have to let go of is the idea that “reality” exists in the way that most of us experience it. Even at the most banal, we are used to the idea that there is an inside of our head where thoughts happen and an outside where actions occur, and the boundary between these is “me”. We don’t really reflect on the idea that thoughts are internalised models formed from all our past relationships and experiences (and even that is just my clumsy metaphor for what is really happening), meaning that the divide between self and other is fuzzy at best. We can see the effect on the schizophrenic when this divide is confused, however. The human being is a surfer attempting to balance a small rational surfboard on a boiling ocean of madness. And then we’re surprised when we see somebody whose surfboard has capsized.
And that’s before we start considering the delicate instrument that is the brain and the myriad ways that it can be physically damaged, with psychological consequences.
All this is to say that the more I study psychology, the less capable I feel to form quick conclusions about who, why and how Letby is what she is. I think you would need to spend a significant amount of time gaining her trust (and not in a manipulative way either — to gain trust, you have to be trustworthy). You would need to talk to her extensively about how she understands the world. You would have to understand the systems within which she has operated — her family system, her school system, her friendship systems, her workplace systems and so on. You would have to do a lot of work, and even then you might well not understand it because what counts as “rational” to her might not actually be explicable without being her.
Not that we should stop trying. But in the final analysis, I agree with those saying that the most useful thing we can do is address the risk systems that healthcare workers operate in, to try to make sure that edge cases like this can‘t do so much damage. We may not ever understand Letby, but we can think about our systems of controls, whistleblowing, monitoring and escalation. I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to stop the speculation — that’s what makes a society — but I also wouldn’t want us to take our eye off the ball of what is really important for our future safety.
*academically fascinating. I recognise that there is an unbearable tragedy at the heart of this, which is not fascinating at all. It’s just really sad.
Let me start by saying that the most fascinating* part to me of this whole story is in seeing the social reaction to the crime, rather than the crime itself. Humans, to me, are defined by two key attributes — we are irreducably social, and we are innately meaning-making. These attributes come together at a time like this, with a groundswell of social discourse that aims to make sense of what seems senseless. I see in this thread (and elsewhere) all the usual questions being discussed and argued about. Why did she do it? What were her reasons? What made her like this? What can we do about it? How do we feel about it? Could I have ended up like her?
People engage sociocultural tools to answer these questions. These include stories and mythology; the assumptions embedded in social norms, practices and rituals; commonalities in upbringing; and the subjectivity that derives from being subjected to particular developmental institutions. These create social representations of “rational” that suggest particular types of cause and effect. They suggest that somebody does something because they are trying to achieve something, and that something comes from a set of things that we understand. They suggest that people don’t act outside of the norms and assumptions that comprise what we view as “reality”
This is all very understandable. However, if you want to understand a situation like this, you have to engage in a process of stripping away such assumptions. Very, very few people go around killing babies. So if you want to understand somebody that kills babies, you can’t use the tools that work for 99.99% of the population. The edge case defies usual rationality. This makes something like A-level psychology particularly dangerous as the way to understand someone like Letby. When I did A-level physics, that gave me the tools to understand the physical world I can see around me. However, it would be dangerous to apply those to relativistic or quantum mechanics.
One of the assumptions you have to let go of is the idea that “reality” exists in the way that most of us experience it. Even at the most banal, we are used to the idea that there is an inside of our head where thoughts happen and an outside where actions occur, and the boundary between these is “me”. We don’t really reflect on the idea that thoughts are internalised models formed from all our past relationships and experiences (and even that is just my clumsy metaphor for what is really happening), meaning that the divide between self and other is fuzzy at best. We can see the effect on the schizophrenic when this divide is confused, however. The human being is a surfer attempting to balance a small rational surfboard on a boiling ocean of madness. And then we’re surprised when we see somebody whose surfboard has capsized.
And that’s before we start considering the delicate instrument that is the brain and the myriad ways that it can be physically damaged, with psychological consequences.
All this is to say that the more I study psychology, the less capable I feel to form quick conclusions about who, why and how Letby is what she is. I think you would need to spend a significant amount of time gaining her trust (and not in a manipulative way either — to gain trust, you have to be trustworthy). You would need to talk to her extensively about how she understands the world. You would have to understand the systems within which she has operated — her family system, her school system, her friendship systems, her workplace systems and so on. You would have to do a lot of work, and even then you might well not understand it because what counts as “rational” to her might not actually be explicable without being her.
Not that we should stop trying. But in the final analysis, I agree with those saying that the most useful thing we can do is address the risk systems that healthcare workers operate in, to try to make sure that edge cases like this can‘t do so much damage. We may not ever understand Letby, but we can think about our systems of controls, whistleblowing, monitoring and escalation. I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to stop the speculation — that’s what makes a society — but I also wouldn’t want us to take our eye off the ball of what is really important for our future safety.
*academically fascinating. I recognise that there is an unbearable tragedy at the heart of this, which is not fascinating at all. It’s just really sad.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
They could, but I doubt it. Given that they got convictions on every murder charge, going for further convictions on the attempted murder charges where the jury was hung isn't going to make much difference to the sentencing. The only argument in favour would be so that the parents of the children for the offences against whom the jury was hung might get some kind of closure from it...but it could just as likely be the case that a subsequent jury acquitted, or came back with a hung verdict again. Ultimately, the (or a) judge would have to consider that it "was in the interests of justice for a retrial to take place". That rests on the seriousness of the offence, the likelihood that the accused would be likely to serve significantly longer in jail, and the wishes of the victim (in this case the parents).
Remember, too, that a civil trial is likely to result in regard to compensation. There, the criterion for a judgement to be upheld is the much less onerous "on the balance of probabilities", so even though Letby was not convicted of some of those attempted murders, compensation could still end up being paid on the basis that, on the balance of probabilites, she did attempt to murder those children.
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