UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, murder of babies, 7 Guilty of murder verdicts; 8 Guilty of attempted murder; 2 Not Guilty of attempted; 5 hung re attempted #36

[mrC]

actully its not 14 eperts its 50 More than 50 experts ready to defend Letby, says her lawyer

thats one medical expert with a ery dubious history

 

[mrC]

Access Restricted

 

[May72031]

Access Restricted

She was on duty when Baby C died.

 

[SusanDonim]

She was on duty when Baby C died.

Are you able to summarise the claim in the article please?

Telegraph are getting very naughty with outrageous clickbait headlines that have the 'detail' behind a paywall. They know exactly what they are doing

 

[Moll]

Are you able to summarise the claim in the article please?

Telegraph are getting very naughty with outrageous clickbait headlines that have the 'detail' behind a paywall. They know exactly what they are doing

That article is dated 1 October 2024 and much of its content is taken from a BBC report of the same date:

Lucy Letby: Experts raise doubts about medical evidence presented in court

Doctors and scientists' concerns contribute to speculation about the safety of the nurse's convictions.

www.bbc.co.uk

I expect it was discussed here at the time. I think it would be helpful if links were not just plonked on this thread without context or comment, unless they are new and self-evident.

 

[JosieJo]

That article is dated 1 October 2024 and much of its content is taken from a BBC report of the same date:

Lucy Letby: Experts raise doubts about medical evidence presented in court

Doctors and scientists' concerns contribute to speculation about the safety of the nurse's convictions.

www.bbc.co.uk

I expect it was discussed here at the time. I think it would be helpful if links were not just plonked on this thread without context or comment, unless they are new and self-evident.

It revolves around air being on an x ray taken prior to letby being on duty. It was discussed at trial her defence brought it up to the jury at the time

 

[joltz]

actully its not 14 eperts its 50 More than 50 experts ready to defend Letby, says her lawyer

thats one medical expert with a ery dubious history

14, 50, 1000. Its just bluster.

 

[May72031]

It revolves around air being on an x ray taken prior to letby being on duty. It was discussed at trial her defence brought it up to the jury at the time

And Dewi Evans has responded to it already.

<modsnip - personalizing>

 

[mrC]

from the economist The Lucy Letby case shows systemic failure and a national malaise

 

[May72031]

from the economist The Lucy Letby case shows systemic failure and a national malaise

Paywalled.

Is there something in particular in this article you wanted to alert us to?

Perhaps that evidence of "sepsis" you mentioned a bit ago?

 

[joltz]

<modsnip - quoted post was removed>

from the economist The Lucy Letby case shows systemic failure and a national malaise

News articles don't prove anything. Letbys defence have a PR team working for them. It doesn't change anything. <modnsip - personalizing>

 

[Moll]

This article is a non-partisan (I think) summing up of the legal situation as it stands by an academic criminologist.

Will Lucy Letby get a retrial? Here’s what happens next with her case

The panel’s findings put the case in uncharted territory given Letby’s very recent convictions and the continuing public inquiry into the case.

theconversation.com

Edited to add: 'non-partisan' in that the author has no view on the case against Letby itself, but it does suggest that the press conference succeeded in making a lot of the public believe in her innocence, and that the pressure of public opinion could influence the CCRC in trying to speed their proceedings up.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

A further complicating factor is Lee’s assertion that the Countess of Chester hospital provided such bad care that it would have been “shut down” in his home country of Canada. This will no doubt lead to legal claims against the NHS trust, particularly if Letby is exonerated and culpability for avoidable deaths is sought elsewhere.

Some, including Lee, have gone so far as to suggest the new evidence is so compelling that Letby should be released on house arrest pending the CCRC review. This would be highly unusual, and for the time being, Letby remains imprisoned as one of the worst child serial killers in modern British history.

Will Lucy Letby get a retrial? Here’s what happens next with her case

The panel’s findings put the case in uncharted territory given Letby’s very recent convictions and the continuing public inquiry into the case.

theconversation.com

McDonald said, “In the UK the threshold for expert evidence being admissible before the jury is actually quite low. I mean, almost anyone can call themselves an expert at something. What the Lucy Letby case has done is expose how easy it is to get advice from experts who, according to the experts that I’ve instructed, simply did not know what they were talking about.”

Meanwhile, Evans has said he believes that the English criminal justice system has “not kept up to date with modern practice in relation to dealing with cases of this nature” and “needs a major overhaul, in my opinion.”

Evans said he would like to see the criminal justice system implement the practice used in the civil justice system of bringing all medical experts involved in a case together to review their arguments and determine the areas on which they do and do not agree. Although a version of this was carried out in Letby’s case, at the judge’s request, Evans said there was no independent mediator or transcriber present, and they were given just one day to go through all 17 cases.

Nevertheless, Evans said that although there continue to be legitimate concerns over the criminal justice system, he believes that “Letby was found guilty despite the system, not because of it.” He said, “Letby was found guilty because Cheshire police were incredibly methodical and their attention to detail was excellent. The prosecution team was very good. I think that the six of us who acted as independent witnesses were very consistent in what we said.”

Lucy Letby: What next for the case after an expert panel found no evidence of murder?

The Letby case has made new headlines after an international medical panel said its review found “no evidence to support malfeasance.” Elisabeth Mahase looks at what could happen next and the case’s wider implications Lucy Letby is serving 15 whole life terms in prison for murdering seven...

www.bmj.com

 

[katydid23]

you dont have to suspect foul play in order to find it

Sometimes you do.

 

[katydid23]

but the the doctors must of said why they suspected her you cant just say i suspect without giving a reason

Here are a couple of examples----on two occasions, nurses went on their dinner breaks after asking Nurse Letby to keep an eye on their sleeping patients. In both cases, the babies were peacefully resting, and had no known medical issues at that time.

In both cases, shortly after the nurses came back from dinner break, their patients had unexplained, sudden collapses. When trying to revive them, they needed several shots of adrenaline, which is highly unusual.

 

[katydid23]

Here's what a media report says about the incident:

'
Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, told the jury she “interrupted Lucy Letby who was attacking [Baby E]”.

He added: “She did not realise it at the time but I’m going to suggest why you can be confident that is what happened. When [she] arrived, [Baby E] was acutely distressed and he was bleeding from his mouth.”

Johnson said Letby allegedly tried to reassure the boy’s mother, telling her the blood was due to a nasogastric tube irritating his throat, adding: “Trust me, I’m a nurse’ – that’s what she [Letby] told the mother.”

The infant, who weighed 1.3kg (just under 3lbs) at birth, rapidly deteriorated and was pronounced dead less than five hours after Letby was seen attacking him, the jury was told.

A doctor present said he “had never seen a baby bleed like this” and that the child lost more than a quarter of his total blood volume, the court heard.

Baby E’s death was initially put down to a gastrointestinal disorder that can occur in premature babies and no postmortem was undertaken. This, Johnson said, was “a big mistake”.

Experts later concluded that Baby E died as a result of gas intentionally injected into his bloodstream and “bleeding indicative of trauma”, the jury was told.

Letby took an “unusual interest” in the twins’ family, searching for them on social media two days after Baby E’s death and several times over the following months – even on Christmas Day 2015, the court heard.

The nurse allegedly “wiped out” the mother’s visit from the medical records then falsely claimed to be in another room when Baby E collapsed. This, the prosecution alleged, was Letby trying to establish an “alibi in someone else’s medical records”.

Jurors were told that Letby then took a “sinister” interested in Baby E’s twin brother, six-day old Baby F.

The nurse allegedly administered a feeding bag laced with insulin to Baby F less than 24 hours after his sibling had died.'

But these experts, one of whom has been studying insulin in neonates his entire life, have said that the experts who later concluded that Baby F had been administered with a feeding bag laced with insulin are wrong and that their levels of peptides or whatever are within the perfectly normal range and so it's very likely a false positive insulin reading. What these experts also say is that consultants clearly didn't know what they were doing and in one case made a common error that students are warned about avoiding in medical school. So if these experts are in fact more knowledgeable and reliable than those who testified at the trial, as by all accounts they seem to be, that means that Letby wasn't attacking the baby. And the back and forth about who can remember what, who said and done what when in an emergency situation or a gravely serious and high pressure situation, it definitely seems a lot less sinister and more innocuous and explainable in that objective light.

Your reply above says nothing to refute the LIES that Letby was caught telling in court.

There has been no evidence to refute the solid evidence that she WAS CAUGHT IN THE ACT of attacking that baby.

The mother of the twin boys came to the nursery at 9 pm, for a SCHEDULED feeding. And she came upon her screaming baby, bleeding from the mouth.

Letby LIED when she said that was from the tubes rubbing his throat. Those tubes are very soft and do not make a baby bleed from their mouth. He was lying on his back. How is blood coming up from his throat because a soft tube is rubbing it?
Then Letby LIED in court and accused the parents of being wrong about seeing blood and about the timing of their visit. But they had solid evidence because the feeding schedule was set for 9 pm, and mom had been in the 'milk express' station at 8:30. And mom called dad at 9:15 to cry about seeing the baby bleeding in pain. And phone records corroborate that.

Letby wrote in her observation logs that the 9 pm feeding had been cancelled by the doctor. But that doctor testified that he had no record of any such thing. His records showed Letby calling him at 9:45 about a child with 'traces' of blood on his chin. But there were no previous communications from Letby and the Dr had no previous contact with the patient which would have prompted him to cancel the scheduled 9 pm feed.

And yet Letby told the frantic mother that she needed to leave the nursery because the doctor was already on his way, and that was at 9 pm.

NOTHING in your above reply explains Letby's lies in this family's case. I watched it unfold in the trial and I do believe that Letby lost the jury when her attorney tried to call those 2 grieving parents ' wrong or dishonest.' The parents presented evidence corroborating their timeline of events.

When Letby tried to present her evidence, it was refuted by the attending doctor.

 

[saoirselouise]

oh sorry ill hae to redue that are here we are LOL: February 11, 2025

reading this and i’m not seeing an exoneration of her at all. it’s stating that air was injected into the babies’ arteries, not their veins, which is still homicide. this seems to be a comprehension issue on your part?

 

[katydid23]

Because the whole case rests on probabilities in the absence of direct evidence and human beings are terrible at evaluating probabilities.

There are countless books on who we are fooled all the time by randomness. You learn a new abstruse word you’ve never heard of in your life and the following day you encounter it a second time, what are the odds?

The nurse allegedly “wiped out” the mother’s visit from the medical records then falsely claimed to be in another room when Baby E collapsed. This, the prosecution alleged, was Letby trying to establish an “alibi in someone else’s medical records”.

There are no witnesses to testify that Letby was caught in the act attacking the babies

"There are no witnesses to testify that Letby was caught in the act attacking the babies."

That's not true.^^^

The mother of twins, Baby E and F, walked in on an attack upon her baby.

During the trial, Letby got caught LYING about that incident. She challenged the testimony of the parents and accused them of being either confused or deceitful. But it was shown convincingly that the parents had evidence to corroborate their testimony. They had the phone records proving their timeline was correct and the 'records' that Letby tried to use were shown as falsified by her own hand.

Letby told the following lies in just Baby E's case alone:
She lied and told the mom that the blood was from the breathing tubes rubbing on baby's throat.
She lied and told the mom that a Doctor was on the way to look at the baby. And Letby demanded that the mom leave the nursery.

[Mom immediately went and called her husband and cried about seeing their baby screaming and bleeding from the mouth.]

In court, Letby claimed that the mother did not come to nursery at 9 pm, and the mom never saw any blood. She said the Mom came after 10 pm and that was when the doctor had arrived and was doing an exAmination.

Letby also had written in her medical log that the feeding scheduled for 9 pm was cancelled by the attending doctor so the mom did not arrive for that.

Except both parents testified that mom did arrive at 9. She had expressed her milk at 8 pm and the arrived for scheduled feeding. AND THEY HAD THE PHONE RECORDS which showed they were correct about their 9 pm timeline/

Mother walked in on nurse Lucy Letby trying to kill baby, court told​

This article is more than 2 years old
Defendant accused of murdering seven babies allegedly said ‘trust me, I’m a nurse’ when interrupted

Mother walked in on nurse Lucy Letby trying to kill baby, court told

Defendant accused of murdering seven babies allegedly said ‘trust me, I’m a nurse’ when interrupted

www.theguardian.com

Lucy Letby, 32, was trying to kill the five-day-old boy when his mother arrived on the neonatal ward with his milk, jurors were told.


The infant was “acutely distressed” and bleeding from the mouth, the court heard.

When [she] arrived, [Baby E] was acutely distressed and he was bleeding from his mouth.”

Johnson said Letby allegedly tried to reassure the boy’s mother, telling her the blood was due to a nasogastric tube irritating his throat, adding: “Trust me, I’m a nurse’ – that’s what she [Letby] told the mother.”

The infant, who weighed 1.3kg (just under 3lbs) at birth, rapidly deteriorated and was pronounced dead less than five hours after Letby was seen attacking him, the jury was told.

A doctor present said he “had never seen a baby bleed like this” and that the child lost more than a quarter of his total blood volume, the court heard.

The nurse allegedly “wiped out” the mother’s visit from the medical records then falsely claimed to be in another room when Baby E collapsed. This, the prosecution alleged, was Letby trying to establish an “alibi in someone else’s medical records”.

There was medical evidence based on inferences which has now been cast in serious doubt. So, yes, the statistical evidence is a huge part of the case without which none of the other circumstantial evidence seems very compelling. The idea that Letby’s presence at these unexplained and unusual collapses is the statistical evidence which has now been exposed as nothing more than a familiar statistical fallacy. On the face of it, her presence at so many collapses seems damning.

But imagine you took one of the other medical staff who Dr Lee says made mistakes in giving care (either waiting 4 hours before infusing the baby’s line or giving boluses of glucose which he says is incorrect in those particular circumstances). Imagine a staff member had noticed this and people started attributing these seemingly unexpected and unusual collapses to this staff member of staff. It turns out there were six other deaths during the period that Letby was not present at which the jury were not told about. It would not take a massive coincidence or even much to draw a similarly compelling chart to the chart shown to the jury. Only this time, one that included a different subset of the data and that showed that this other worker - who has actually been accused of making an error (so there’s some potential ‘concrete’ evidence of harm being done to a baby albeit inadvertently) - was present at ‘all’ the collapses.

But Letby wasn’t present at all the collapse because the jury were not given all the data. To find out what went wrong you have to analyse all the data and not just a subset of it.

And you need to compare how likely the different causes of deaths are to one another. How likely is it that these other explanation - now put forward - explain it versus how likely it is that Letby killed the babies.

It appears to us at first glance that because the probability of this spike in deaths at a neonatal unit in such a short period of time seems so low, then the alternative explanation of murder seems more likely. But it’s an error to take this at face value.

We need to assess the probability of alternative explanations and causes and compare these to the probability that Letby is guilty and judge which is most likely. The prosecution’s argument that she murdered them might turn out to be even more unlikely than appears as an unusual pattern but is in fact just randomness.

The jury was led to believe that the odds of these babies dying of natural causes were extremely rare. Therefore a jury untrained in statistical errors were implicitly invited to make the corresponding inference that the probability that she murdered the babies was high or perhaps extremely high.

But multiple infant murders while not unicorns are themselves extremely uncommon. It’s difficult to weigh the relative likelihood of different events and easy to get it badly wrong but that’s what really matters when it comes to finding out what really happened.

So how likely is it that Letby looks up the parents of some of these babies and writes these notes out of curiosity and such and puts them in a box entitled keep and gets details wrong at trial that could be construed at trial? Without clear and compelling and untainted medical evidence, I don’t believe, once you honestly correct for the notion that her presence is necessarily this massively meaningful coincidence and that random coincidences like this surround us all the time, that all the circumstantial evidence looks nefarious enough in that light to say that it’s enough to convict her of these murders. Not when alternative explanations have now been advanced, which to me just seem more believable than the likelihood of a serial killer of infants. Remember you need to factor in other probabilities into this calculation and many things we’re possibly neglecting to think about. What’s the probability of an infant serial killer that decides to use these multiple different MOs one of which - air embolism - is vanishingly rare (there have been like 80 odd cases in medical history). You could say it’s opportunistic but it doesn’t sound more plausible than not to me. What’s the likelihood that she never looked any of these techniques up online? Absolutely no evidence like this on her searches. So much doesn’t stack up for me.

Sorry to be so long and rambling, just trying to think this through and see what you guys think.

 

[mrC]

so if a doctor was in the room with her how could she have done anything and why didn't he stop her this is comlete crock doctors aperantly while nurses harm babys do they why dident he call the police

 

[JosieJo]

so if a doctor was in the room with her how could she have done anything and why didn't he stop her this is comlete crock doctors aperantly while nurses harm babys do they why dident he call the police

The Dr wasn't present she delayed calling him