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

  • #1,501
Why was it appalling that he would show how one could add things to an IV bag?

It has been done before, in real life. So why is it appalling?
Very easy for someone to see how easy it is to tamper with an IV and get away with it, and the doll in the demonstration gave me shivers, if I was DPP I would keep Dr Evans well away from the media, he does more damage to his reputation every time he talks, "metropolitan elite" are now to blame for people thinking LL is innocent
 
  • #1,502
Very easy for someone to see how easy it is to tamper with an IV and get away with it, and the doll in the demonstration gave me shivers, if I was DPP I would keep Dr Evans well away from the media, he does more damage to his reputation every time he talks, "metropolitan elite" are now to blame for people thinking LL is innocent
I'll give you that about the met elite his mention of the Welsh being told for however long they aren't good enough was a bit silly as well.

However he does back his opinions with reason and information though.
 
  • #1,503
  • #1,504
This is why they have medical experts to look at everything then explain it to the jury .. personal I think the jury understood very well ...after all they arrived at various verdicts..not all guilty

Then it brings us back to professional trial witnesses institution… Dr. Evans is under fire, it seems, and for a good reason if we take in his statements after the trial. But definitely, something needs to be changed.

What the story brings to mind is a test given by a certain school to US medical students. They are not told the name of the person (usually someone famous) but are provided with full medical history. The task is to determine the cause of death. Some cases are straightforward, some, very tricky. And of course, they are not 100% reliable, but one thing is pertinent, by not providing the name of the person or the story around him, a certain measure of objectivity is reached.

The case of Lucy Letby is shockingly subjective. The objective evidence does not match the accusation, IMO. But the subjective traits of the personalities involved, OMG! And it remains subjective and honestly, I see less and less of the science nor even art of medicine here and more and more of undue individualism.

Me having been raised in the medical world, doctors (and less so, nurses) are the most common group known to me, the second one being actors. Doctors possess all ranges of human qualities and I don’t expect them to stand out in any exclusive way as humans, ever. Except for: most won’t leave their patients in dire straights, such as at the operating table during artillery fire at war, for example, or during a natural disaster. The connection between them and their patients exists…so I am absolutely sure that the case started not as “bad statistics” but as “kids dying”, and I think there was honest grief on the unit.

(And, they can make mistakes. The best ones do, so I am not holding individual cases like hitting the liver in a preemie against them. The more they work, the more mistakes. Statistics, nothing else).

As to the rest, don’t expect them to be any better or different from all of us. Uneducated to jump to a tall conclusion that a tiny sheet of paper with shifts points at someone being a murderer? (Odd and unduly suspicious), but can happen. Being instigated by colleagues and believing in gossips? Sure. Playing the Superman on the unit and in court? We saw it. I remember a lot of stories that lasted from nothing but lasted for years.

What I want to say? Subjectively where a lot of people are working in a small unit exists. It is not IT where you can find a bug. It is incessant human interaction. But between that and the final ruling there have been some objective measures to test …urban legends, for the lack of a better word? Nothing like this happened, and it is sad that a lot of time and money was spent…to no avail, MOO.
 
Last edited:
  • #1,505
  • #1,506
I did find the "treasure box" thing interesting-first we've heard of that I think? I wonder why that never came up at the trial as it sounds like another potential pattern for her?
Joanne Williams talked about the treasure boxes at the Baby K retrial, they were given to the parents of all NNU admissions, and it was standard practice. She said it was possible her 3:30am visit to the labour ward to see Baby K’s parents could have included taking the treasure box.

The transcripts are on Reddit, so can’t link to them.

Edit: apologies; I just checked, she testified to it in the first trial too. In the first trial she was more certain that she would have taken the treasure box.
 
Last edited:
  • #1,507
Very easy for someone to see how easy it is to tamper with an IV and get away with it, and the doll in the demonstration gave me shivers, if I was DPP I would keep Dr Evans well away from the media, he does more damage to his reputation every time he talks, "metropolitan elite" are now to blame for people thinking LL is innocent
I don't understand the issue. It just seems like you're angry he showed how easy it would be for Lucy to do it and you disagree with it purely for that reason. Unless you think he misrepresented how easy it is? As for the doll, well I'm not sure what you'd rather he do a demonstration on?

I think he's just trying to come up with reasons people are so convinced of her innocence despite the overwhelming evidence because it is a bit of a headscratcher...

JMO
 
  • #1,508
Exactly - it just showed how easy it was.
Hiding in plain sight.
 
  • #1,509
Fortunately the general public don't have unrestricted access to IVs to tamper with them, so demonstrating how easy it is is unlikely to spawn a wave of copycats. A medical professional with malicious intent would already be aware of ways to do it.
 
  • #1,510
My biggest problem with this case is that it requires a lot of special knowledge. After all, being present at the trial if one is not a neonatologist (I am not) might not be that enriching. Trying to guess “guilty or not?” looking at Lucy’s face might be the wrong approach.

This case is highly specialized. Moreover, neonatologists are a rather new specialty.

How can the case be decided by the jury consisting of people who are far remote from medicine?

The jury listens to the neonatal experts in order to make their decisions. They do not need to be experts themselves to do so.
After all, if planes crash, investigation goes to FAA, not to random passerbys.

And when people have lawsuits involving plane crashes, the juries rely upon various flight experts in order to make their decisions.
Isn’t a human body an even more complex organism than a plane?

The jury is not expected to know statistics. The jurors have no idea.
Statistics had nothing to do with this decision.
They have to trust the trial consultants, but I guess Dewi Evans’s reputation was not that high to start with (another judge warned Judge Goss that Dewi was useless).

Two unit doctors put their name behind the case, which is a lot. One, as we saw, totally misrepresented evidence and that was a major blow to the case. We don’t have any witnesses to Lucy’s malfeasance.
YES, we do have witnesses to her malfeasance. They testified to such at the trial.
I think this question will be inevitably raised. This is not a domestic violence case. This situation occurred in the hospital that had an exclusive thing, Level II NICU.

I think that sooner or later, it will be obvious that laymen jurors system is ill fit for this case.
Have you seen a transcript of the trial? It was not above a layman's cognitive abilities to deliberate upon the matters set forth in that trial.
 
  • #1,511
One click is one too many IMO.
IDK. I think it is interesting that the concern over one negligible click, which would be intrinsically meaningless, would outweigh one's responsibility to back up their claims. :)
 
  • #1,512
Very easy for someone to see how easy it is to tamper with an IV and get away with it, and the doll in the demonstration gave me shivers,
Dr. Evan's point was just that---to show how easy it is to tamper with an IV without being seen. That is not a secret. He did not reveal some high tech top secret mystery.

Perhaps it gave you shivers because it showed how easily LL could have done what she was ultimately convicted of?

if I was DPP I would keep Dr Evans well away from the media, he does more damage to his reputation every time he talks, "metropolitan elite" are now to blame for people thinking LL is innocent

I did not see him doing anything or saying anything that would be damaging to his reputation.
 

Staff online

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
145
Guests online
3,309
Total visitors
3,454

Forum statistics

Threads
632,630
Messages
18,629,400
Members
243,228
Latest member
sandy83
Back
Top