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 #38

[joltz]

The jury had to ask for notebooks after 40 days. The court could not supply them. They sent someone to WH Smith.

And? So the jury can't be trusted to remember anything from the first 40 days? Or they didn't write anything down for the first 40 days
Or maybe they ran out of paper, or needed better organisation, who knows?


<modsnip>

JMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

i cant believe we are going over the guilty/innocent notes again, that all became irrelevant to me during the trial along with the work shift chart / (too often quoted as statistics) staff presence chart.

 

[joltz]

i cant believe we are going over the guilty/innocent notes again, that all became irrelevant to me during the trial along with the work shift chart / (too often quoted as statistics) staff presence chart.

I think we just have to keep repeating everything again for the sake of 2/3 users who really don't want to believe anything bad about Letby.

JMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

steady steady, lets not anger the mods again. they have a tough time enough as it is. i get it though.

 

[WaneLyrical]

Opening statements are not evidence.

Well I’m hoping they weren’t telling lies.

 

[Sweeper2000]

Well I’m hoping they weren’t telling lies.

who letby? or the defence or the prosecution?

 

[Tortoise]

I also often reflect on how difficult it must have been on the jury to stay focused over such a long period of time. They didn’t have access when deliberating to recordings or transcripts from the trial, they were reliant on their notes and memories, from many ,many days before- but they were permitted to review the historic press coverage to refresh their memories.

RSBM & BBM

Are you able to share where this has come from?

 

[WaneLyrical]

And? So the jury can't be trusted to remember anything from the first 40 days? Or they didn't write anything down for the first 40 days
Or maybe they ran out of paper, or needed better organisation, who knows?


<modsnip>

JMO

This trial was chock full of data. Numbers, times, dates, temperatures. They were given iPads to take notes. This does not come close to replacing pen and paper. Although my opinion on this depends on whether they were given pencils and the ability to mark up all the evidence. I assume there were no pencils, because I think the media would have mentioned it).

They went to WH Smith during Child H. We also know at least one mistakenly thought they could ask for transcripts of witness evidence at the end, so that might have influenced the detail of the notes taken.

I just don’t think we can assume how much information the jury could realistically have retained. They weren’t allowed to speak to each other about it for the entire time. Meanwhile everyone else was dissecting the day’s evidence piece by piece.

<modsnip - quoted post was snipped>

 

[WaneLyrical]

who letby? or the defence or the prosecution?

None of them

 

[Marantz4250b]

They did, it took a couple of weeks- but let’s not forget they didn’t find her guilty for child K and this was subsequently overturned. So if you can do that with one charge, why do you believe they can’t with others?

That was a retrial, though, not an appeal.

You need new evidence in order for it to get in front of the appeal courts. Not just "new" evidence, either, compelling new evidence - or whatever the particular wording is.

The panel of "experts" assembled by MM has produced precisely zero new evidence of any sort, let alone anything which may reasonably result in an acquittal. Indeed, everything they seem to have produced is stuff which was already looked at at trial and disposed of.

 

[Marantz4250b]

RSBM & BBM

Are you able to share where this has come from?

Yes, I'd like to know that as well!

Juries are told very specifically to avoid press coverage and specifically NOT to seek it out or research the case they are in judgement of.

 

[WaneLyrical]

Yes, I'd like to know that as well!

Juries are told very specifically to avoid press coverage and specifically NOT to seek it out or research the case they are in judgement of.

They were definitely told not to do any additional research. They were however not prohibited from reading media reports of the trial or social media coverage, but were told to ignore social media comments and to keep in mind media reporting is selective.

 

[WaneLyrical]

That was a retrial, though, not an appeal.

You need new evidence in order for it to get in front of the appeal courts. Not just "new" evidence, either, compelling new evidence - or whatever the particular wording is.

The panel of "experts" assembled by MM has produced precisely zero new evidence of any sort, let alone anything which may reasonably result in an acquittal. Indeed, everything they seem to have produced is stuff which was already looked at at trial and disposed of.

They produced new evidence in respect of the insulin cases though. There was no discussion in the original trial I’m aware of that centred around the issue of antibodies being picked us as insulin on the assay. The trial focused more on the potential impact of the delay in getting the blood sample to the lab, and the jury was essentially told they could rely on the test demonstrating a high concentration of exogenous insulin.

 

[joltz]

Once again, more nothingness.

This trial was chock full of data. Numbers, times, dates, temperatures. They were given iPads to take notes. This does not come close to replacing pen and paper. Although my opinion on this depends on whether they were given pencils and the ability to mark up all the evidence. I assume there were no pencils, because I think the media would have mentioned it).

They went to WH Smith during Child H. We also know at least one mistakenly thought they could ask for transcripts of witness evidence at the end, so that might have influenced the detail of the notes taken.

I just don’t think we can assume how much information the jury could realistically have retained. They weren’t allowed to speak to each other about it for the entire time. Meanwhile everyone else was dissecting the day’s evidence piece by piece.

<modsnip - quoted post was snipped>

They were given iPads yes. So they could take any notes that they pleased using iPads. It's not difficult. Its like saying an e-reader can't replace a book. It can do the same task. I don't even know what you are suggesting. <modsnip>. That the jury couldn't remember key facts and therefore returned the wrong verdicts?
Have you got any evidence for this?

Or is it just someone going to WH Smith's to get some notebooks? Maybe some of them decided they would prefer pen and paper? I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that.

The jury did their jobs but because the verdicts aren't what you believed, then it seems, you need to go over and over things to try and draw some sort of conclusion that the jury were not equipped to deal with the task.

JMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

dont think the jury sould be needed to remember every detail, the point is more to come to conclusions and move on to the next stage in the sequencce of events. as a really brief example if we recognise door wipe data as any given person coming into a room for a shift at 9pm then we dont actually need to know anything else to know they were present at 9.05 pm. dont need every detail just key facts.

 

[Furore]

WRT the insulin, whilst there is an error rate with many tests (including the insulin assay) many experts say it was not wrong in the cases of two of the babies and moreover a third potential poisoning elsewhere - the chances of all three being false results within the same months when it is a widely used test that is usually accurate, are unlikely. They are even more unlikely in the context of the babies having low blood sugar — that would seem to confirm a high level of insulin as reported, not that the assay was spurious.

This article discusses it in more detail, in addition to other investigations into Letby, including significant sudden unexplained medical incidents on a third of letby’s shifts in another hospital, water in the endotracheal tube of a neonate she was caring for (very unusual), causing an unexplained collapse, and endotracheal dislodgement occurring in 40% of her shifts at the Liverpool hospital (typical rate being 1%)

Lucy Letby may have harmed more babies in her care, new evidence suggests - BBC News

BBC Panorama sees documents which show a baby's blood sugar dropped soon after Letby came on duty.

www.bbc.co.uk

The totality of the evidence across time and location is very convincing, IMO.

Since the insulin cases are the most overt (and forensically provable) murders/assaults, any competent legal team (and her first was), would look to find someone to talk about the sensitivity and specificity of the tests and any inaccuracies - she also had her pick of experts to suggest alternative causes of death - she has not called any of those experts to her court trials, just a newspaper/press meeting - where their opinions appear novel and have not been cross examined.

It really seems obvious to me personally - JMO - that she considers a trial by jury and expert testimony unwinnable and is now seeking to directly manipulate the public’s view, in order were there ever a retrial prospect the jury would remember the notice surrounding the illustrious professor press conference - that was all about creating a circus of headlines around the world and it worked.

 

[Baileyboo]

They produced new evidence in respect of the insulin cases though. There was no discussion in the original trial I’m aware of that centred around the issue of antibodies being picked us as insulin on the assay. The trial focused more on the potential impact of the delay in getting the blood sample to the lab, and the jury was essentially told they could rely on the test demonstrating a high concentration of exogenous insulin.

I don't think the insulin antibodies is new evidence, it would have been known by the defence but they chose not to go there as the theory is implausible. Anti insulin antibodies are very very rare, cases in babies are virtually unheard of, the anti insulin antibodies would need to come and go with the feed bag changes and there were three cases in a year!

 

[Ruthbullock]

Inth

The jury were able to ask questions and take notes for the full ten month trial. They had access to iPads also from memory. What are you even suggesting? That the jury couldn't
be trusted to remember details because people are getting them wrong nearly 2 years later on websleuths? This was a full-time job for them, for the duration of the trial. They weren't just dropping in now and again to see what was happening.

We know the jury did their homework because they didn't simply come back with guilty verdicts for all changes, even when they all agreed that she was a liar and a baby murderer.

JMO

I’m not suggesting anything, was merely sharing my opinion that the sheer length of the trial and the amount of information and the concentration involved must have been immense.

 

[Ruthbullock]

Those quotes are all from the green post it note.

There were maybe 6 or so notes released to the press, plus the diary pages. Including the “draft sympathy note” as the press coined it, and one that contained something to the effect of “maybe I did do it”. Some were clearly written during phone calls or other conversations.

There were ‘hundreds’ of handwritten notes recovered from her house and work locker. It was agreed they contained many protestations of innocence.

Thanks

 

[katydid23]

I’m aware of the outcome of the jury deliberations. The point I was making was the inconsistencies in the expert testimony during the trial. That an xray purported to be evidence of air embolism was disregarded when it was discovered Letby wasn’t there. So was that an air embolism or was it not? Because if it was, then we have a case of an embolism with no established cause, and presumably not deliberately administered. Or if it wasn’t an air embolism, but looked like one, then what does that mean for other evidence that “looks like” air embolism.

Or the idea that projectile vomiting is so uncommon it’s more likely to have been caused deliberately. Where Evans testified there were no other instances of projectile vomiting, yet Myers confirmed there was another instance, but Letby was not on duty for that, therefore it defaults back to not being suspicious.

I find these sorts of inconsistencies to be fairly shocking, they are littered throughout the testimony, and they contribute to the circular reasoning. That Letby’s presence itself makes something suspicious which would otherwise not be suspicious.

I understand there are many established crackpots slithering out their holes to defend Letby. That shouldn’t be used to deafen the legitimate questions that still linger around this case.

For the first time in a long time, I feel encouraged with what the new head of the CCRC is saying, that reports will need to be commissioned. Because whatever anyone thinks of the prosecution experts, or McDonald’s experts, one thing is for certain: there needs to be consensus here on what actually occurred, medically, in these cases. Because right now, we have a bunch of experts saying these events were unexplained and unexpected, and we have another bunch saying they can be explained and they should have been expected. And these reports need to come from people who are genuinely independent (and I’m not persuaded that anyone speaking out right now, including Evans and Lee, are truly impartial).

It’s made further complicated by the fact that the proposed mechanism of death is invisible. Literally every death in the world COULD be air embolism, it’s simply not possible to rule something like that out. Like SIDS, it’s only ruled out when a cause of death is found, otherwise it defaults back to a sudden death with no cause. We have so many babies with a cause of death listed as “prematurity”, would it even be possible to rule out air embolism as a potential cause of death. I’m not so sure it could be.

I do not think one needs to be a doctor to question these things. The jury were not doctors. The judge is not a doctor. The silks were not doctors. The evidence should be clear for a layman to understand. Being told to disregard glaring errors or inconsistencies simply because they came out the mouth of an “expert” is nothing more than an appeal to authority.

Babies can projectile vomit without it being an intentional malicious act by another. I saw my own kids projectile vomit when they had a stomach flu. It happens.

But I think in the Lucy Letby incident it was more about the large amount of milk that came up that was surprising. And there was internal damage done. Which is unusual for a natural occurrence of projectile vomiting in an unwell infant. IIRC