I think it's disingenuous, it was led with biased intention (despite claims to the contrary) and through personal indignation at Lee's evidence being rejected at the court of appeal, and it is ignorant of the totality of evidence presented in her trials, ignorant of the experience of the many senior consultants and doctors involved with the actual care and resuscitations of the babies, and of the esteemed experts who testified, it is sometimes wildly speculative, contains erroneous information amongst the seven conclusions so far published (for instance, they say no evidence of overfeeding (baby G), no evidence of a dislodged tube (baby K), and more), and it is not new evidence.
Also going via the press is ridiculous and unprofessional and I believe her barrister cares nothing for professional ethics. I am ambivalent about whether it results in a referral back to the court of appeal by the CCRC because on the one hand I think it would shut them up, but on the other hand it doesn't contain anything worthy of referral. It's a circus, deeply distressing for her victims' families, and disrespectful of our judicial system, IMO.
They seem not to realise that not only was Letby present for all of these unexpected deaths and collapses, which is in itself inexplicable by random chance, but that they all happened within minutes of either the babies designated nurses leaving the cotside or going on their breaks, or the parents leaving their babies after being with them, or when she was alone with the babies, or no one was watching her. That is just one aspect, other aspects are her falsified medical notes, stashing medical records under her bed, the stark similarities between these never before experienced medical events, babies on the indictment screaming and commonly having bleeding throats, stalking the victims' families on social media, her excited behaviour around deaths, her indifference to serious drug dosage errors she made, her annoyance at not being allocated the babies in the intensive care nursery and attitudes towards the shift-leaders, lying about her interactions with the parents, and that only touches on half of it. It all stopped when she was taken off the unit and when she was on holiday, and the events followed her from nightshift to dayshift.
The medical evidence was only half of the evidence. The lead expert witness did not know she was on duty when he singled out the suspicious events. Even the police investigators handled their cases independently of each other to maintain a sterile corridor of investigation.
MOO
With respect, the litany of supposed evidence you
yeh i was listening to dr lee again and would love to hear any pro's opinions on his claims that "if this was in canada, the hospital would be shut down" claim? im trying to gauge if he bolstered the defences claim of massive hospital failings and to me as a layman its unclear but I still have lots of reasons to assume the prosecution has the better hand. even with what dr lee says I can't place the hospital at fault or doubt that the system failed to address any failings.
I really don't like the conference approach at all, one might think out of respect for the families it was done quietly.
It was 14 independent and experts, the best of the best in the relevant fields/subjects. They had access to all the case notes and so forth, they’re literal scientists: does anyone seriously believe scientists of all people approach their work without adequate rigour. It seems to me painfully obvious that these people have dotted every i and crossed every t and left absolutely no stone unturned in their analysis of what happened here. This is how science works. These were fourteen experts who had pledged to publicise their findings whether or not they supported or challenged the case for Letby’s guilt, some of whom have first-hand knowledge of the NHS and some of whom are completely independent unlike some of the prosecution witnesses involved with the substandard care some of these babies received.
Dr Phil Hammond has promised to give his weekly column over to publishing the thoughts of any medical expert which challenge the findings of Dr Shoo Lee’s panel. No takers so far. How long must we wait before those who view Letby as guilty begin to have serious doubts?
The statistical and medical issues with the prosecution case are devastating. Many people cannot get their head’s around the statistical problems, but the evidence is now all available for anyone with an open mind.
Prior to Dr Shoo Lee’s panel’s press conference, I looked up what people had been saying about the probability of her guilt given everything that had been known at the time. There were a range of estimates from various experts in the subject, people prattling on about base rates and such who know how to go about calculating these things.
At that time there seemed to be a suggestion that the extent of Letby’s bad luck to be implicated in and fitted to such a pattern of circumstantial evidence might be somewhere around the 50/1 to 300/1 range. This was *before* fourteen medical experts weighed in with their deeply informed opinion that it was much more likely that all of these children, who were much sicker than had been attested at trial, died from substandard medical care or natural causes.
As I say, I’m still waiting to here from a credible and qualified expert to explain how her presence at however many deaths, given everything we know now, should be regarded as especially suspect.
So so many parts of the case don’t sit right. As someone else pointed out, if she is a serial child killer, she is also a genius because her elaborately varied scheme for murdering the babies has remained completely undetectable to pathologists and now a team of highly esteemed experts who have pored over these cases for hundreds of hours. In stark contrast to Dr Evans who apparently identified malfeasance within 10 minutes of looking at the evidence. The same main prosecution expert who had previously submitted a report deemed as ‘worthless’.
The crime Youtuber guy who goes over the transcripts has not only been caught leaving parts out that seem to help Letby’s defence in his sensationalist presentation of the evidence, he’s recently taken to discredit himself further as a balanced and unbiased source by wading into a subject he obviously knows nothing about and attempting to pull apart Dr Lee’s evidence with bro science. That’s just such an obvious red flag.
The idea that there is no evidence that wasn’t tested at trial is just so blatantly false I don’t know how to refute it.
In fact, what hasn’t been explained at trial is by what standard or criteria did Dr Evans determine which cases were suspect and which were not. Because it looks for all the world, based on the available transcripts and evidence and the staff rota described as a statistical fake, like Letby’s presence on shift was the common factor in whether deaths were eventually regarded as suspicious. Considering Dr Lee and co have already cast doubts on Dr Evans’ understanding of some of the evidence, and considering the nature of the burden of proof, that’s more than enough to throw the prosecution case into complete disarray.
If Dr Evans or other statistical or medical experts can come up with persuasive reasons to address these doubts about the safety of her conviction, I remain open-minded.
But it seems to me a clear question of when not if she gets another chance to challenge her verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Right now, doubt is eminently reasonable.
