Lucy letby

[Sandydragon]

No children died from insulin poisoning

And their is comment on this in the article

It's not a panel of cranks anyway

A ludicrous conviction, but too much sunken money for the cps now........

The insulin issue isn’t that easily explained, sadly because the bodies weren’t subject to a full test to confirm the presence of additional insulin.

I never said this was a party of cranks. They were respected medical people. So too are the prosecution expert witnesses. There’s a lot of split opinions on this one but at least the prosecutions expert witnesses was cross examined in court.

No you didn't say they were cranks, that was me while watching Channel 4 news. There has to be major doubts about her defense at this stage

Apparently it was Letby who refused to allow her defence expert witnesses to testify. I can’t explain why she would do that only that in a recent interview her expert witness wa fully expecting to be at the stand and instead was stood down, apparently on Letbys direction.

[Son of Mathonwy]

These are the findings for each of the 7 deaths:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... panel-find

[Son of Mathonwy]

The insulin issue isn’t that easily explained, sadly because the bodies weren’t subject to a full test to confirm the presence of additional insulin.

I never said this was a party of cranks. They were respected medical people. So too are the prosecution expert witnesses. There’s a lot of split opinions on this one but at least the prosecutions expert witnesses was cross examined in court.

No you didn't say they were cranks, that was me while watching Channel 4 news. There has to be major doubts about her defense at this stage

Apparently it was Letby who refused to allow her defence expert witnesses to testify. I can’t explain why she would do that only that in a recent interview her expert witness wa fully expecting to be at the stand and instead was stood down, apparently on Letbys direction.

Where did you read that?

[Sandydragon]

No you didn't say they were cranks, that was me while watching Channel 4 news. There has to be major doubts about her defense at this stage

Apparently it was Letby who refused to allow her defence expert witnesses to testify. I can’t explain why she would do that only that in a recent interview her expert witness wa fully expecting to be at the stand and instead was stood down, apparently on Letbys direction.

Where did you read that?

I’ll try and dig it out. Possibly the Times.

[Donny osmond]

Apparently it was Letby who refused to allow her defence expert witnesses to testify. I can’t explain why she would do that only that in a recent interview her expert witness wa fully expecting to be at the stand and instead was stood down, apparently on Letbys direction.

Where did you read that?

I’ll try and dig it out. Possibly the Times.

Pretty sure I've read that too. Private Eye maybe?

[Sandydragon]

I’m struggling to find the article at the Times website. Earlier interviews with the defences expert suggest he didn’t know why he wasn’t called. Possibly something was published and then edited when found to be incorrect. I do t think I misread what I saw as it was quite surprising and I double checked the paragraph.

I’ll keep looking in case it was somewhere else.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’m struggling to find the article at the Times website. Earlier interviews with the defences expert suggest he didn’t know why he wasn’t called. Possibly something was published and then edited when found to be incorrect. I do t think I misread what I saw as it was quite surprising and I double checked the paragraph.

I’ll keep looking in case it was somewhere else.

Sure, it would be interesting to see. From what I've seen and read the reason (or origin of the decision) isn't publicly known.

[paddy no 11]

Summary in the guardian on insulin. Panel says there is a very high level of reasonable doubt that the babies were poisoned, and that's without mention of the 3rd child who was/wasn't poisoned when letby wasn't working as per the new yorker article

[Sandydragon]

Taken from today’s Independent. I’ve quoted the article in its entirety for context but the key point I would pull out is that it’s not about one prosecution expert witness, but rather the presence of many expert witnesses plus those medical staff in the hospital who were able to support the prosecutions case to a greater or lesser extent.

The evidence this week is interesting and will certainly prompt the review committee I think to have a good look at the case as soon as possible. But there is a huge difference between a press conference and cross examination in court.

The Lucy Letby circus has one big problem – but nobody wants to admit it

This week’s press conference was a far cry from her prison cell – a slick, highly professionalised event organised to demonstrate Letby’s innocence. David James Smith was there, and while what was said was compelling, there are some key details in this complex case that cannot be ignored


Sunday 09 February 2025 06:00 GMT

At first blush, this week’s presentation of new medical evidence at the press conference called on behalf of Lucy Letby was a turning point in the campaign to prove she has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. “In summary, ladies and gentlemen, we did not find any murders,” announced Dr Shoo Lee, the retired Canadian neonatologist who had assembled the so-called International Expert Panel (“the dream team”, he called it) to review the notes and transcripts of the case.

Indeed, some commentators appeared to think that was it – that Letby should be freed from custody, immediately, pending the apparently now inevitable outcome of her application for a new appeal via the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

That will not be happening. Not yet, anyway.

Letby remains in HMP Bronzefield serving 15 whole life orders after being convicted of killing seven babies, and attempting to murder eight more, at the Countess of Chester Hospital nearly a decade ago.

The press conference was a far cry from her prison cell – a slick, highly professionalised event in an oak-panelled room just around the corner from parliament. Letby is now supported by a PR firm, specialists in reputation management and crisis communications, working pro bono alongside her pro bono barrister Mark McDonald, who has made himself readily available to the media as part of his campaign to demonstrate Letby’s innocence.

The PR agency had helped to organise the event and was present to ensure smooth running. It was well attended. Swarms of photographers, videographers and camera crews surrounded the principal players. Arriving late I took the last seat in the front row and found myself alongside many of Letby’s most determined advocates in the media – such as the former Conservative MP turned columnist Nadine Dorries, her colleague Peter Hitchens, and a chap who writes for Private Eye under the pseudonym MD (although it is no secret his name is Dr Phil Hammond).

The most high-profile advocate of them all, Sir David Davis MP, was chairing the meeting, alongside McDonald, Lee and one additional member of his panel, Dr Neena Modi, herself an eminent neonatologist and believer in the Letby cause.

Lee presented evidence in a sample handful of cases and explained that the panel’s full report would be finalised and sent to McDonald within a month. McDonald in turn will submit it to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, having delivered his preliminary application to the Commission the night before the press conference.

The commission, unusually, issued a press statement of its own, pointing out, quite rightly, that “there has been a great deal of speculation and commentary surrounding Lucy Letby’s case, much of it from parties with only a partial view of the evidence. We ask that everyone remembers the families affected by events at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.”

An unavoidable tension at the heart of Team Letby’s case

It is a novel approach, to conduct such a public campaign in support of an attempt to overturn convictions. The decision will not be made by the public, of course. Nor, in fact, will it be made by the CCRC. They can only assess the material, determine if it is new and might have made a difference to the outcome at the original trials, and if they find there is a “real possibility” of a successful appeal, to refer it back to the Court of Appeal, who must then hear it.

The Court of Appeal has already twice considered and rejected Letby’s case that she was wrongly convicted. It also rejected Lee’s evidence, who I watched give testimony, somewhat uncomfortably, over a video link, at the first appeal hearing. His performance at the press conference was far more assured.

In legal circles, it is frowned upon for practitioners to appear too often in the media and there is an obvious tension in Letby’s case, that the more the appearances feed the public interest, the more distressing it is for the families of the babies who died or were harmed. One parent has already spoken out this week describing the Letby event as a “publicity stunt”.

There may be a strategic reason for taking the case to the people – I have seen it suggested that they are trying to pre-empt Letby being charged with further offences, which I believe remains a possibility. But, equally, media scrutiny will put pressure on my former colleagues at the CCRC, and just at the time they need it least.

Last year saw the publication of a damning review, by Chris Henley KC into the CCRC’s mishandling of the Andrew Malkinson case. He had served 17 years in prison for a violent rape he had not committed, and could have been freed a decade earlier if the CCRC had done its job properly. The commission’s own media strategy in the aftermath of the revelation was little short of disastrous, and resulted in the resignation of its chair, Helen Pitcher, just a few weeks ago.

The commission will be badly shaken by these events, but perhaps the Letby application presents an opportunity to act quickly and decisively. It was notable that the commission had recorded last year how it was already assembling a team to look into the Letby case and prepare to receive the application, many months before it actually arrived. That is forward thinking of a kind the CCRC has not always practiced in the past and was an encouraging sign that it could be more responsive to public concerns.

A tactical move that could backfire

But reviewing Letby’s convictions will be far from straightforward. It is a lot easier to make your case, unchallenged, in a press conference than it is at the commission or the Court of Appeal where important legal principles apply, and any new evidence must be tested, its context understood. Issues such as why evidence wasn’t called at trial, and whether it is significant enough to have enabled the trial juries to reach a different decision will be key to the assessment.

The case is often mischaracterised as being solely dependent on the evidence of the prosecution expert Dr Dewi Evans. The truth is that, over the 10-month initial trial – and the much shorter retrial, in the attempted murder of Baby K – a substantial volume of evidence was accumulated. It is true that there was no “smoking gun”, but the repeated presence of Letby at unexplained deaths and near-deaths was supported by multiple strands of evidence, involving numerous other witnesses and experts, that wove together into 15 guilty verdicts delivered by jurors who had listened to every word.

There is a danger too, that putting yourself into the public domain creates its own difficulties. This was the second press conference called by Mark McDonald on Letby’s behalf. At the first, he called on a neonatologist, Dr Richard Taylor, who had reviewed the early findings of the expert panel (he was not one of them) in the case of Baby O and suggested that a doctor – not Letby – had inadvertently killed the baby by accidentally rupturing the liver during an injection. Taylor’s account at that first press conference seemed powerful and persuasive, and he appeared quite distressed at the thought of that happening. If it had been him, he told the press conference, he couldn’t sleep.

Fast forward to this week, and during the second press conference, and in the report later issued to the media, the cause of death in Baby O’s case is now attributed to a rupture of the liver during a “rapid delivery” which is a “well-recognised cause of birth injury”. The possible needle injury is only a secondary consideration. The report dismisses the trial claims that Letby deliberately inflicted “blunt trauma” on the baby and suggests the allegation she also injected Baby O with air is “conjecture”.

Reading the summing up of evidence for the case of Baby O, it was not merely the evidence of Evans that the jury heard. There were the staff on duty, the pathologist and three additional prosecution experts, three additional prosecution experts, Dr Marnerides, Dr Bohin and Professor Arthurs. Their evidence eliminated all other causes, except deliberate injury and injection of air.

So who is right? The trials were denied such a battle of experts, because the defence never called any. Letby was represented at trial by a senior criminal practitioner, Ben Myers KC, so that decision is unlikely to have been an oversight – it will have been tactical, probably, to avoid risk of doing further damage to her defence.

These are the considerations the CCRC – and perhaps eventually the Court of Appeal – will have to wrestle with. In the world of appeals, the law does not approve of what is sometimes called “expert shopping” or “my expert is bigger and better than your expert”. On the other hand, if they find the new evidence compelling, it cannot be ignored.

We may be many months from learning Letby’s fate, but at least, with the eyes of the country turned its way, the CCRC is unlikely to dilly-dally. Not this time anyway.

Meanwhile, Letby remains in prison. There is no word on what she is thinking about the PR circus that has rolled into town under her name. She is keeping her silence, supported by her parents, who are keeping their own silence. They of course were not at the press conference. Even McDonald avoids being drawn into disclosures about what Letby is thinking. She has hope, is all he will say, and remains sorry for the parents whose children were lost or harmed.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Taken from today’s Independent. I’ve quoted the article in its entirety for context but the key point I would pull out is that it’s not about one prosecution expert witness, but rather the presence of many expert witnesses plus those medical staff in the hospital who were able to support the prosecutions case to a greater or lesser extent.

The evidence this week is interesting and will certainly prompt the review committee I think to have a good look at the case as soon as possible. But there is a huge difference between a press conference and cross examination in court.

The Lucy Letby circus has one big problem – but nobody wants to admit it

What circus? If that was a circus, every press conference in the news is a circus.

What one big problem that no nobody want to admit? That suggests there's some obvious flaw in her defence but the article fails to point it out.

I doubt this will work (unless there's been a total change in the philosophy of the CCRC) but holding this event seems perfectly reasonable to me.

However . . . the thing that really worries me is that I find myself on the same team as Nadine Dorries, Peter Hitchens and David Davies.

[Sandydragon]

Taken from today’s Independent. I’ve quoted the article in its entirety for context but the key point I would pull out is that it’s not about one prosecution expert witness, but rather the presence of many expert witnesses plus those medical staff in the hospital who were able to support the prosecutions case to a greater or lesser extent.

The evidence this week is interesting and will certainly prompt the review committee I think to have a good look at the case as soon as possible. But there is a huge difference between a press conference and cross examination in court.

The Lucy Letby circus has one big problem – but nobody wants to admit it

What circus? If that was a circus, every press conference in the news is a circus.

What one big problem that no nobody want to admit? That suggests there's some obvious flaw in her defence but the article fails to point it out.

I doubt this will work (unless there's been a total change in the philosophy of the CCRC) but holding this event seems perfectly reasonable to me.

However . . . the thing that really worries me is that I find myself on the same team as Nadine Dorries, Peter Hitchens and David Davies.

I think Letbys new solicitor is trying to get this case judged in the court of public opinion.

The big problem is that for all the detail, the evidence provided earlier this week needs to be admissible and demonstrate that the original evidence was flawed. The medical experts didn’t consider any wider evidence and it’s not just about undermining the credibility of one expert witness for the prosecutions case, there were many medical experts testifying.

The evidence review this week was partial, and that’s the big issue that I think this article raises.

[paddy no 11]

Taken from today’s Independent. I’ve quoted the article in its entirety for context but the key point I would pull out is that it’s not about one prosecution expert witness, but rather the presence of many expert witnesses plus those medical staff in the hospital who were able to support the prosecutions case to a greater or lesser extent.

The evidence this week is interesting and will certainly prompt the review committee I think to have a good look at the case as soon as possible. But there is a huge difference between a press conference and cross examination in court.

The Lucy Letby circus has one big problem – but nobody wants to admit it

What circus? If that was a circus, every press conference in the news is a circus.

What one big problem that no nobody want to admit? That suggests there's some obvious flaw in her defence but the article fails to point it out.

I doubt this will work (unless there's been a total change in the philosophy of the CCRC) but holding this event seems perfectly reasonable to me.

However . . . the thing that really worries me is that I find myself on the same team as Nadine Dorries, Peter Hitchens and David Davies.

I heard Merton call davies the thickest man in Britain on hignfy and also wondered if I should be on the same team........the comment related to some other news rather than the letby case

[Sandydragon]

Taken from today’s Independent. I’ve quoted the article in its entirety for context but the key point I would pull out is that it’s not about one prosecution expert witness, but rather the presence of many expert witnesses plus those medical staff in the hospital who were able to support the prosecutions case to a greater or lesser extent.

The evidence this week is interesting and will certainly prompt the review committee I think to have a good look at the case as soon as possible. But there is a huge difference between a press conference and cross examination in court.

What circus? If that was a circus, every press conference in the news is a circus.

What one big problem that no nobody want to admit? That suggests there's some obvious flaw in her defence but the article fails to point it out.

I doubt this will work (unless there's been a total change in the philosophy of the CCRC) but holding this event seems perfectly reasonable to me.

However . . . the thing that really worries me is that I find myself on the same team as Nadine Dorries, Peter Hitchens and David Davies.

I heard Merton call davies the thickest man in Britain on hignfy and also wondered if I should be on the same team........the comment related to some other news rather than the letby case

Being anywhere near close to Nadine Dorries’ viewpoint is an uncomfortable feeling. She used to be my local MP and proof positive that IQ and personality testing is not a prerequisite to become a MP.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Taken from today’s Independent. I’ve quoted the article in its entirety for context but the key point I would pull out is that it’s not about one prosecution expert witness, but rather the presence of many expert witnesses plus those medical staff in the hospital who were able to support the prosecutions case to a greater or lesser extent.

The evidence this week is interesting and will certainly prompt the review committee I think to have a good look at the case as soon as possible. But there is a huge difference between a press conference and cross examination in court.

What circus? If that was a circus, every press conference in the news is a circus.

What one big problem that no nobody want to admit? That suggests there's some obvious flaw in her defence but the article fails to point it out.

I doubt this will work (unless there's been a total change in the philosophy of the CCRC) but holding this event seems perfectly reasonable to me.

However . . . the thing that really worries me is that I find myself on the same team as Nadine Dorries, Peter Hitchens and David Davies.

I think Letbys new solicitor is trying to get this case judged in the court of public opinion.

The big problem is that for all the detail, the evidence provided earlier this week needs to be admissible and demonstrate that the original evidence was flawed. The medical experts didn’t consider any wider evidence and it’s not just about undermining the credibility of one expert witness for the prosecutions case, there were many medical experts testifying.

The evidence review this week was partial, and that’s the big issue that I think this article raises.

Given that Letby's been demonized on multiple front pages, it doesn't seem unreasonable to put this in front of the public.

This is a press conference by the defence. They're not likely to round it all up by saying, there's nothing actually new here (just a totally different expert interpretation) so we don't expect the CCRC to pay any attention.

I don't think this was aimed at one expert witness - it was about undermining the whole case (ie all evidence, including all expert witnesses) against Letby. Not to say that they were talking nonsense but that there were other reasonable causes for the deaths. Obviously having a presentation from the scientist who wrote the paper on which the main expert based his conclusion that air embolism was a cause of several of the deaths does undermine him in particular.

Do you mean partial as in covering only one part or as in not impartial?

The big problem for the defence is that Letby has been found guilty of 7 murders and a bunch of attempted murders and neither the CCRC nor any other part of the justice system is likely to enjoy the idea that it was a mistake. Much easier and less embarrassing to say there's nothing to see here.

One thought came to me: were there any deaths when Letby was on duty that were not thought by the lead medical expert to be murders? You'd think, statistically, there would have been some natural deaths. And when he came back and changed his opinion on one of the deaths after the trial, he found another method of murder rather than a natural cause. Almost like he was only looking for unnatural causes.

[Donny osmond]

The problem for the defence is that she was found guilty based on evidence from a wide range of expert witnesses. Trying to get her off by publicly undermining individual witnesses while simultaneously dragging the whole system into the gutter is not a tactic we should endorse.... although it's obviously working in terms of public perception.