Lucy Letby infant murders trial - Guilty verdict (P 13)

[Stephen230]

I'd love to see all the evidence.

It's the medical evidence and timings that will have sealed it, and the new yorker folk won't have heard that as I think that's the evidence that can't be reported. If I remember correct they know the babies were injected with Insulin on purpose and one of them at least only Letby was in the room. Which is the smoking gun?

I may be incorrect here and remembering it wrong.

From the limited amount I’ve read, the whole case seemed to almost entirely depended on if you drew a Venn diagram with people who had access to all the deceased, her name is on its own right in the middle.

It’s certainly a highly unusual case if nothing else.

 

[HelloCity]

It’s a highly unusual, possibly unique case.

I didn’t follow the trials closely but I understand from what I have read that there were:

*No witnesses to any actual wrong doing.
* No physical evidence.
* No murder weapon.
* No real motive.
* No confession.

Under those circumstances it would normally be virtually impossible to get a conviction. In fact, to even get it to trial.

I’m not saying for one moment that I think she’s innocent.

But with those factors, they’ll always be people prepared to believe the conviction was unsafe. As shallow as it is, the fact she’s a reasonably attractive young female, will make that view even more popular.

For those reasons, I don’t think this case will quietly slip out of the news for long as the years tick away.

I defo don't see that...

 

[Crooked_rain]

If you genuinely thought someone was killing babies would you just leave it if you were fobbed off? It's puzzling me how she managed to pull this off.

But did they report her with the mindset of she was killing babies? Or were they just reporting her that they saw her doing incompetent things? There's a big difference I suppose.

Like the one who said they saw her do nothing with the oxygen equipment, if that was me and i saw my colleague doing that, I'm not sure my brain would automatically shoot straight to the thought that they're a serial killer of babies, I'd probably just think they were shite at their job or maybe they froze in the moment. I think most people would think the same.

If people reporting someome for incompetence with no real thoughts of them being a serial killer, then it's much more likely they're not going to keep on with their complaints after being fobbed off than if they had any idea this person was a serial killer.

 

[M18CTID]

From the limited amount I’ve read, the whole case seemed to almost entirely depended on if you drew a Venn diagram with people who had access to all the deceased, her name is on its own right in the middle.

It’s certainly a highly unusual case if nothing else.

Isn't this similar to the Beverley Allitt case then? Allitt was found to be the only one in the hospital she worked at to be on shift at the time of all the deaths in question. I don't ever recall any doubts about her conviction.

 

[HelloCity]

Lucy Letby: killer or coincidence? Why some experts question the evidence

Exclusive: Doubts raised over safety of convictions of nurse found guilty of murdering babies

www.theguardian.com

The jury was shown a chart listing 25 deaths and collapses Letby was charged with and the names of the nurses who had worked on the unit through the period of the cluster of deaths. The column for Letby was marked with a cross for every incident, whereas other nurses had only been on shift for a few of them.

However, the jury was not told about six other deaths in the period with which Letby was not charged. They were omitted from the table.

 

[M18CTID]

Lucy Letby: killer or coincidence? Why some experts question the evidence

Exclusive: Doubts raised over safety of convictions of nurse found guilty of murdering babies

www.theguardian.com

The jury was shown a chart listing 25 deaths and collapses Letby was charged with and the names of the nurses who had worked on the unit through the period of the cluster of deaths. The column for Letby was marked with a cross for every incident, whereas other nurses had only been on shift for a few of them.

However, the jury was not told about six other deaths in the period with which Letby was not charged. They were omitted from the table.

That last bit is interesting but I don't see any indication in the article that Letby wasn't present at all or any of those 6 other deaths. Or why those deaths weren't considered.

What I will say is that having seen the chart in the Guardian article regarding the 25 deaths and collapses in question, there were 38 nurses on the chart. Letby was on shift for all 25 of them. None of the other 37 nurses were on shift for more than 7 of them. That screams far more than coincidence to me.

 

[threespires]

Haven't been following this closely enough to comment on the specifics but we have in the past had an issue with juries and the judiciary struggling with statistics as part of an evidence base.
The spurious evidence of Roy Meadows most obviously springs to mind.

I don't know if things have changed as a result of the cases he was involved in but where there is such emphasis placed on that type of data there really has to be close attention paid to whether the jury really understands it's nature. That in turn implies the Judge also being able to understand and explain it. My limited experience of judges is they are generally not great at being told that they don't understand something.

 

[CTID1988]

Wouldnt shock me if she was guilty, also wouldnt shock me if in a few years shes found innocent. Im still not 100% sure on what evidence she has been found guilty, there has been no forensic evidence and no witnesses of her doing anything wrong. The chart which shows she was there for each death on the ward is also dodgy because 6 deaths where she wasnt there were omitted from it...

 

[denislawsbackheel]

The six deaths that were not mentioned.
Are you sure she wasn’t there.

 

[mrbelfry]

I also wasn't at the hospital on the day those 6 babies died that she wasn't charged with. Doesn't mean she didn't do the others.

From a quick layman's understanding of the case there was a spike in infant deaths. Working theory is that most of them were caused by air bubbles which you can't spot post mortem I think. Some evidence based around the colour that the babies turned which suggested an air bubbles is in dispute. A couple were to do with insulin.

So the fact that there was a spike of unexplained deaths indicated the babies were murdered. Only Letby was on duty for all those and she was seen doing something weird in at least one of the cases.

The stats guys say in small sample sizes you can get large spikes that are just random so the spike may not be unusual (I think it was three times more than normal but because the numbers are small the percentage difference is high). The stats guys also say that the shift patterns just indicate that she was on shift.

So the people who feel the conviction is unsafe do so because
A) the spike in deaths do not necessarily indicate the babies were murdered - the hospital was understaffed so the spike may be coincidental
B) cause of death is hard to establish in some of the cases and the medical evidence may be misunderstood (the babies were the wrong shade)
C) the shift patterns just say she was on shift not what she did whilst she was on shift
D) the defence didn't call some of the experts who could have disputed some of the interpretations above

I would note that the people who are disputing some of the interpretations are only speaking in their expert subject and won't have seen all the evidence