Lucy Letby

[P.K.]

On 7/20/2024 at 10:36 PM, woolley said:

There is a tendency for people who are "found" guilty to automatically "be" guilty in the eyes of the public. It is uncomfortable to contemplate flaws in the system. Read the links. You may find them troubling. Potential expert witnesses for the defence never called. Circumstantial evidence based on her shift patterns that was incomplete. Causes of death from the prosecution that paediatricians regard as ludicrous and highly improbable. Neonatal deaths when Letby was not present omitted from the evidence given to the jury, etc. Added to which, the hospital was in crisis, short of staff, particularly qualified staff, and everyone was running around firefighting and working under massive stress.

@woolley

So you think David Cameron and Gideon Osborne are ultimately to blame for deliberately underfunding the NHS leading to a serious degradation of the service. As it happens I agree with you.

The thing is that ALL the staff were obviously under extreme stress as you would expect with a tory government. However that didn't prevent those working with Letby becoming suspicious of her being the common denominator in a lot of the deaths.

The timeline in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2023/aug/18/lucy-letby-timeline-attacks-babies-when-alarm-raised

ETA : You are right about "guilty on arrest" though.

You may recall a time when the newsreader would explain the details of a serious crime that had been comitted and end that particular report with the famous line "A man is helping the police with their enquiries"

Of course, on hearing that the audience would all sit back thinking "Ah, they've got him then..."

But it was a much simpler time...

Edited July 25 by P.K.

[thommo2010]

A jury Sat through 10 months of evidence, finding her not guilty on some charges so I for 1 am more than satisfied that they considered everything and came to the correct decisions 

[woolley]

11 hours ago, P.K. said:

@woolley

So you think David Cameron and Gideon Osborne are ultimately to blame for deliberately underfunding the NHS leading to a serious degradation of the service. As it happens I agree with you.

The thing is that ALL the staff were obviously under extreme stress as you would expect with a tory government. However that didn't prevent those working with Letby becoming suspicious of her being the common denominator in a lot of the deaths.

The timeline in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2023/aug/18/lucy-letby-timeline-attacks-babies-when-alarm-raised

ETA : You are right about "guilty on arrest" though.

You may recall a time when the newsreader would explain the details of a serious crime that had been comitted and end that particular report with the famous line "A man is helping the police with their enquiries"

Of course, on hearing that the audience would all sit back thinking "Ah, they've got him then..."

But it was a much simpler time...

Not really, although the politics of the NHS is a whole different story. The model is apparently broken and needs major change for the monumental amount of money that is bulldozed into it. Successive governments have failed to grasp this nettle because it is politically toxic to confront the sacred cow. They content themselves with tinkering around the edges.

The Guardian piece you have linked predates the recent article I linked in which much of the evidence listed, such as introducing gas into the infants' stomachs, is rubbished by experts. The New Yorker article linked by wrighty is even more troubling.

I have read of the anguish and aggressive reactions of the infants' families at the notion of the questioning by health professionals of Ms Letby's guilt. I feel for them, of course, but I don't get the logic. Does it comfort them more to know that an innocent young woman at her wit's end might be rotting in prison serving a life sentence?

[Max Power]

On 7/20/2024 at 8:32 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

It's a horrible feeling, that many a marshal even doing everything right at a fatal, goes through.

Lasts a lifetime unfortunately.

Absolutely right, I replay several instances in my mind quite regularly, some quite high profile for which I was never asked to attend an inquest. Perhaps if I had, I could have put things to rest. 

On balance, I can satisfy myself that I did everything I could, correctly on each occasion, but as @wrighty says, it never leaves you.

[P.K.]

3 hours ago, woolley said:

Not really, although the politics of the NHS is a whole different story. The model is apparently broken and needs major change for the monumental amount of money that is bulldozed into it. Successive governments have failed to grasp this nettle because it is politically toxic to confront the sacred cow. They content themselves with tinkering around the edges.

The Guardian piece you have linked predates the recent article I linked in which much of the evidence listed, such as introducing gas into the infants' stomachs, is rubbished by experts. The New Yorker article linked by wrighty is even more troubling.

I have read of the anguish and aggressive reactions of the infants' families at the notion of the questioning by health professionals of Ms Letby's guilt. I feel for them, of course, but I don't get the logic. Does it comfort them more to know that an innocent young woman at her wit's end might be rotting in prison serving a life sentence?

That's simply not true. Blair and Brown managed to reduce the waiting lists and achieved the highest satisfaction levels in the service ever. The longest wait time to see a GP was the next day. Contrast that with todays two weeks and it demonstrates just how degraded the service has become under the worst government in living memory.

It's true that in Letby's case most of the evidence is circumstantial because she was never actually caught in the act so to speak. Which means trusting the "experts" who tend to disagree with one another as a matter of course. But there's no getting away from the fact that those working on the unit fingered Letby and nobody else...

[woolley]

2 hours ago, P.K. said:

It's true that in Letby's case most of the evidence is circumstantial because she was never actually caught in the act so to speak. Which means trusting the "experts" who tend to disagree with one another as a matter of course. But there's no getting away from the fact that those working on the unit fingered Letby and nobody else...

This is true, but it's hardly a sound basis upon which to condemn someone to die in jail. As it is, she is in an intolerable position. If her convictions were quashed and she was retried and found not guilty, there would still be those who insist she did it. She will always be a marked woman. There is no good ending.

[P.K.]

7 hours ago, woolley said:

This is true, but it's hardly a sound basis upon which to condemn someone to die in jail. As it is, she is in an intolerable position. If her convictions were quashed and she was retried and found not guilty, there would still be those who insist she did it. She will always be a marked woman. There is no good ending.

I suppose the issue boils down to the fact that "beyond reasonable doubt" can be subjective. But those working on the unit didn't seem to have doubts and surely they would know better than anyone else...

[woolley]

5 hours ago, P.K. said:

I suppose the issue boils down to the fact that "beyond reasonable doubt" can be subjective. But those working on the unit didn't seem to have doubts and surely they would know better than anyone else...

Didn't they have doubts? They had no evidence, other than circumstantial. Nothing medical, nothing scientific. They seem to have moulded their memories around Evans' report which in itself is full of holes and has been rubbished by clinicians. Also, she did have supporters on the unit, but they were told they shouldn't support her under the heavy suggestion of their own careers being in danger. It is these deep concerns from within the healthcare professions that are now percolating to more widespread notice. Parts of the court proceedings, and the interrogation of Letby permitted by the judge are scarcely believable. She was invited to prove her innocence rather than the prosecution proving her guilt. "If you didn't murder them, how do you explain it?" How the bloody hell should she know?

It is highly unsatisfactory. 

In the five years leading up to the trial, some of the experts’ opinions seemed to have collectively evolved. For one of the babies, Evans had originally written that the child had been “at great risk of unexpected collapse,” owing to his fragility, and Evans couldn’t “exclude the role of infection.” The prosecution’s pathologist, Andreas Marnerides, who worked at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, wrote that the child had died of natural causes, most likely of pneumonia. “I have not identified any suspicious findings,” he concluded. But, three years later, Marnerides testified that, after reading more reports from the courts’ experts, he thought that the baby had died “with pneumonia,” not “from pneumonia.” The likely cause of death, he said, was administration of air into his stomach through a nasogastric tube. When Evans testified, he said the same thing.

“What’s the evidence?” Myers asked him.

“Baby collapsed, died,” Evans responded.

“A baby may collapse for any number of reasons,” Myers said. “What’s the evidence that supports your assertion made today that it’s because of air going down the NGT?”

“The baby collapsed and died.”

“Do you rely upon one image of that?” Myers asked, referring to X-rays.

“This baby collapsed and died.”

“What evidence is there that you can point to?”

Evans replied that he’d ruled out all natural causes, so the only other viable explanation would be another method of murder, like air injected into one of the baby’s veins. “A baby collapsing and where resuscitation was unsuccessful—you know, that’s consistent with my interpretation of what happened,” he said.

[woolley]

The C5 programme about the case:

https://www.channel5.com/show/lucy-letby-did-she-really-do-it

[Mr. Sausages]

You fancy her.

[woolley]

Thank you for that searing insight/shaft of wit, Sausages.

[P.K.]

2 hours ago, woolley said:

Thank you for that searing insight/shaft of wit, Sausages.

So it's true then...

[woolley]

20 minutes ago, P.K. said:

So it's true then...

Of course. In my omnipotence I've arranged for professional nurses, doctors and statisticians to campaign for her, and my latest initiative in persuading mainstream media around the world to raise doubts about her guilt is all for my secret ulterior motive of getting my end away with her.

[P.K.]

1 minute ago, woolley said:

Of course. In my omnipotence I've arranged for professional nurses, doctors and statisticians to campaign for her, and my latest initiative in persuading mainstream media around the world to raise doubts about her guilt is all for my secret ulterior motive of getting my end away with her.

You didn't deny it.

Simple as...

[woolley]

Just now, P.K. said:

You didn't deny it.

Simple as...

Make no difference if I had, so..........