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“It was like staring at a Magic Eye picture,” Ravi Jayaram, one of the medics who first raised concerns about Lucy Letby, told the New Yorker. “At first, it’s just a load of dots… But you stare at them, and all of a sudden the picture appears.” For Jayaram, what was once seen was never unseen: the killer nurse, the “angel of death”. In 2023, Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies on the neonatal unit where she worked and attempting to murder six more; at a retrial this month, she was convicted on a seventh count of attempted murder.
For others — including me — the picture can flicker in and out. The Letby case is compelling because it invites interpretation. In a media where true crime reigns, the detailed session-by-session examination of evidence allowed anyone following to play not just jury but detective, weighing the subtleties of an autopsy or the reliability of a witness. This should, in theory, generate trust in the process; instead, it generates as many different processes as there are followers of the case, a million courtrooms in a million different heads all weighting the evidence in their way — and feeling convinced of their own conclusions.
From a certain distance, her guilt looks certain: the chart presented by the prosecution showing she was on the ward for all the suspicious deaths, the scrawled notes-to-self included the phrase “I AM EVIL I DID THIS”, the handover sheets she hoarded at home, the seemingly compulsive googling of the bereaved families months or years after their babies’ deaths.
Take a step back, and it threatens to collapse into dots. It’s this that feeds the population of Letby “truthers” who are gradually gathering strength. What if the chart is a case of “Texas sharpshooter fallacy”, when you draw a target to match a random selection of data? After all, babies on neonatal wards are by-definition fragile: sometimes they die, and they will die on someone’s shift, and chance might happen to put one person on all those shifts. Initially, the deaths Letby was convicted of were seen as unexplained, rather than violent. Then, once her colleagues had become suspicious, deaths when Letby was present became suspicious by definition.
The notes might not be evidence of a guilty conscience, but of a young woman under terrible pressure from false accusations sliding into a breakdown. The googling, a sign of her grief for the babies she couldn’t save. Of the hoarded documents, the defence pointed out that fewer than 10% of the papers found at her home referred to babies on the indictment, making them unlikely to be “trophies” — however strange it was that she had kept them at all.
The case against Letby was circumstantial and rested on four things: statistics, eyewitness testimony, forensics and the confession in her notes. These also happen to be among the forms of evidence most implicated in miscarriages of justice. Statistics can easily be misrepresented, as in the case of Sally Clark, wrongly convicted of killing her two babies after the paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadows gave expert evidence that failed to account for the possibility of a common congenital defect.
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SubscribeI always thought the standard of proof in criminal cases was that things needed to be beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn’t seem to be the case with Letby, which should be a red flag. It’s a dangerous slope to be going down to throw out legal principles because you yourself feel personally sure ‘she done it’
Even the statistical claim that she was present when all the babies died is apparently factually incorrect. Only the babies that died when she was there were counted as suspicious deaths. So she wasn’t there for a bunch of other deaths, but since she wasn’t there, they weren’t suspicious. How convincing is that evidence, which is supposed to be one of the most compelling parts of the case against her?
What do you mean? A jury found her guilty on precisely those grounds. That is literally the definition of feeling personally sure of her guilt (if you are a jury member): to be ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
Frankly, if her colleagues – who worked closely with her and had to deal with the consequences – were sure of her guilt, I trust their observations more than the international speculation that’s followed.
On a side note, I am sick to death of hearing about state-forced apologies (struggle sessions).
On that point I would certainly agree.
Are you a doctor of medicine, statistics, something else, or not at all?
I ask, as it would help in understanding your posts. I’m not clicking an update or down arrow until I have gathered sufficient information.
I’m wary of someone ‘feeling personally sure’ of someone’s guilt.
Many of her colleagues were not sure of her guilt. Confirmation bias and bogus statistics will have influence others once the idea that babies had been killed and Letby was always there was generated.
This is not to be sure there was no killing and Letby was not responsible but significant elements of the evidence against her was flawed and inadequately challenged.
Ah, the jury. Trial by your fellowmen. The common sense and logic of your peers….except in this case, both the judge and the jury were n incompetent. The judge misdirected the jury by using a completely nonsensical analogy – defying logic and legal principle – that it doesn’t matter which blow killed the victim, as long as there is a blow! Also the completely false stats about Letby’s presence / her shift when babies died… ignoring all the other shifts that she was on duty when no baby died? Did the prosecution charge the other nurses who were on duty when the other babies died? No. Of course not. The jury is at fault because they had already made up their mind before the trail because of the wide negative publicity against the accused. The medical people around are completely at fault too because perhaps they were negligent but didn’t want any blame? It was telling that her superiors didn’t say anything after a few deaths and initially defended Letby? When the net closed in they suddenly turned against the only vulnerable person in the hospital? This is the worst example of trial by stats and speculation. The judge should be ashamed for misdirecting the jury and ignoring crucial evidence.
So thank god you never serve as a juror. You can convict someone by observation?
It sounds as though you would have been burning witches back in the day.
The only part of the evidence where I have a lifetime of expertise is the statistical element, so I shall comment only on that.
It is rubbish and should have been thrown out.
My understanding is that there is no evidence that any of the babies were murdered let alone that she murdered them. Just a lot of oddities, coincidences etc. If so there can be no grounds for a conviction.
Oh dear, that’s not correct at all. Even her defence and herself while on the stand agreed that someone was attacking these babies. Then there’s also the basic fact that whenever these babies were either moved to another hospital or Letby went away, there was often a sudden and remarkable improvement in their health.
The unit itself had a very poor reputation…
Yeah, because it transpired there was a serial killer nurse murdering babies on it. Prior to that, there were only 1-2 deaths a year on the ward.
1-2 deaths a year? Are you ok?
What on earth is your point? JD’s simply quoting a medical statistic. If that’s too much for you too bear, it’s not good for your own wellbeing to become involved in these types of discussions.
Weren’t many of the deaths found to be of natural causes by coroners?
Exactly!!! The sick system wanted an answer and a culprit and they found one.
On a pro rata basis almost as many babies died on the shifts Letby was working as shifts she wasn’t. The difference is not statistically significant. The prosecution, agreed by the judge, prevented the defence presenting this stat to the jury. Further, when Letby stopped working there the unit was downgraded and no longer handled high risk births / babies so automatically the death rate would fall. The extensive failings of the unit which caused it to be downgraded were withheld from the case. The defence had one hand tied behind their back throughput.
I believe the contention is that this is an example of how her defence failed her. Miss Letby and her defence counsel cannot have know ‘someone was attacking these babies’ any more than the prosecution did even if they did agree to it.
Letby only agreed because Hindmarsh categorically stated that the results of the insulin assay and C-Peptide tests are absolute proof of exogenous insulin administration. They are not!
Even the defence didn’t dispute the fact the babies were murdered. If there was any doubt of that fact don’t you think an expensively assembled legal team might have tried that line of defence in a murder trial?
This sounds uncannily like the Lucia de Berk case; a controversial miscarriage of justice in the lawsuit against pediatric nurse Lucia de Berk, who was accused of killing babies in her care. De Berk was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court in The Hague in March 2003, a sentence that was confirmed on appeal and in cassation.
Six years later the case was reopened and in 2010, the Supreme court determined that the conviction had been a miscarriage of justice. Lucia de Berk was acquitted.
The De Berk case is a textbook example of the dangers of using statistical probability in criminal procedure.
I’d say that the judge was WRONG in dismissing the stats and misdirecting the jury with a flawed logic.
The judges in the Lucia de Berk case had a very poor grasp of statistics, especially the very flawed statistics that were presented in the original trial. It took a real expert on statistics to point this out at the Supreme Court’s hearing.
Going by the views of fellow commenters who seem to think she is innocent, I can’t help but think their own distrust of the judicial system (deservedly earned in fairness) is clouding their judgement. Without obsessing over every detail, let’s consider a few basic facts around this case.
The Police investigation for this lasted years, each case taken to court had a separate investigator and it was only later that Letby was the common theme for all of them. The CPS obviously felt this was sufficient to take to court and that they had a serial killer on their hands. The trial overall lasted 10 months, including some 5 weeks of deliberations by the jury. This doesn’t exactly reek of an establishment cover up where they’re trying to frame someone. Given there were several cases where the jury was either hung or gave clear not guilty verdicts, this tells me that actually, these cases were heavily scrutinised and while some did have doubts on some cases, they were able to agree on 13 others that Letby either murdered or attempted to murder these premature babies. I also like to think the jury knew that the nation was watching them and that they were presiding over perhaps the most infamous court case in this country’s history. They, like everyone else, would want to be certain that Letby was committing murder and to do that, they would have had to have removed any grain of doubt.
Frankly, it’s high time we let Letby rot in prison where she belongs and allow the families of her victims to move on as best they can.
“Frankly, it’s high time we let Letby rot in prison where she belongs”
Glad to see you take an unbiased approach…
If the contention is that the evidence presented against Miss Letby was partial and inadequate then it is scarcley relevant how long the Court sat or the Jury deliberated. Length of trial is not automatically an indicator of rigour and precision. Especially these days.
If the trial were 10 weeks long, you may have had a point. However, the fact it went on for so long, especially the deliberations should show they went over everything in painstaking detail.
Clearly they didn’t go over everything in painstaking detail given that subsequent examinations have pointed out grave statistical errors and other issues that were not properly explored. It is understandable that the Appeal Court was reluctant to have such a long and complex trial rerun but it is quite clear that she did not receive a fair trial uninfluenced by bogus statistical evidence and various other exculpatory issues that did not receive a proper airing. That is not to assert positively that Letby is innocent merely to say that your confidence in her guilt is entirely unwarranted.
We are both working from assumptions about the court system. Perhaps yours is better informed than mine but, in my experience of HM court system, delay, muddle and mismanagement is invariably the cause of extended trials, rather than dilligence.
The Royal Society of Statistics has pointed out the error in the maths presented in the case. 20 lawyers, a nurse, a judge and some non-maths experts won’t better understand Bayesian maths in 20 weeks any more than they would in 10 weeks.
Except much of the detail was wholly irrelevant to the question of what was the evidence proving that Lucy Letby carried out the murders and attacks. Hence we get into the debate on where the jury overwhelmed with the amount of evidence!
‘The Police investigation for this lasted years, each case taken to court had a separate investigator and it was only later that Letby was the common theme for all of them’
This is absolute rubbish. Find a better argument.
Police investigations, eh? Girls were raped for decades in Rotherham. Police knew all along and did nothing about it – either of their own volition or because they were told to give it a good leaving alone. The post office case is yet another example of gross miscarriage of justice.
In the United States, an assassination attempt was made on a former president and current candidate. The information coming out about the “failures” by law enforcement is plausible deniability for those who were hoping for a fatal outcome.
Government is in a perpetual state of f*cking up followed by large-scale, media-abetted CYA. Whatever the truth behind the Letby case, it doesn’t change that fact.
I would be interested in what Sir Alan Bates makes of this case, having successfully fought for over two decades for justice for many hundreds of sub-postmasters and post office staff wrongly convicted on the basis of faulty data. In that case, the picture of innocence was an established British institution with an inflated self-image of goodness and a reputation to protect. The villains were the little, ordinary people, many of whom were bullied into “confessing” their alleged wrongdoings. Only because Bates, and those around him, had the moral courage and sheer tenacity to fight, fight, and fight again against a stonewalling, systematically lying, reality-denying institution and justice system were those convictions overturned.
I’d not be the least interested in Mr Bates opinion. Despite his incredible work to bring the truth to bear on the Post Office (for which he richly deserved his knighthood), his opinion in a medical case is neither more or less valid than yours or mine.
Having read the long and detailed New Yorker article on this case, I have come to have serious doubts about it. A key issue is that the prosecution got a medical expert to trawl through patients’ records to find suspicious ones. Apart from those that became part of the case, there were twenty five that did not. Why not? Was that because it was found that Lucy Letby was not on the relevant work shifts? Were these other cases mentioned at all during the trial? The omission of these twenty five cases raises the question whether the cases that went into the trial were selected because they were the ones where she was on the relevant shifts. If so, that is outrageous. This is an extremely serious issue.
That would indeed be outrageous, but you seem to have skipped over the possibility that the 25 non-suspicious deaths were not suspicious because they could be attributed to natural causes.
There are good reasons to question the case. So much of the evidence appears either coincidental, statistical, or highly technical (the latter, never challenged).
the Defence did not call their Expert Medical Witness, who could have questioned the Prosecution’s reliance on statistics, which are now the subject of compelling analysis by expert statisticians. Or the absence of Consultants (in a nearby room, but not present) when tiny babies needed complex procedures such as inserting a tube. Instead a Registrar inserting the tubes, repeatedly positioned some too close to internal organs, etc.,
the evidence on the accusation that Lucy Letby injected insulin into some of the babies, simply does not stand up (for instance, for those babies of diabetic mothers, insulin passed through the placenta) . In cramped conditions, she was surrounded by nursing colleagues, was never seen *causing* any harm. Neonatal babies, (who may weigh less than a bag of sugar), were being nursed in a failing hospital.
Lucy Letby’s nursing colleagues refuse to accept she was guilty – they saw her constantly, not one of them raised any concerns.
can justice be seen to be done? The Appeal was heard, and denied, before the second Trial, and therefore much evidence that might have been gathered was not available due to restrictions under ‘contempt of court’. In the light of so many concerns, there is only the Home Secretary who can take this further.
The application for an Appeal was denied. The Appeal did not get to be heard. All the CofA ruling concerned was whether decisions made by Judge Goss during the trial were legally correct.
I know that well before the renewed media interest many in the medical profession believed her to be innocent but it’s hard to judge without sitting through all of the evidence.
What a strange article.
The evidentiary standard in criminal trials in the UK is – was the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt or not? Would we hang someone on the evidence on which Miss Letby has been convicted?
‘Narratives’ and ‘arcs’ and ‘anchors’ are by the by. That is not what the Jury is called to decide or the Judge to sentence on. It is only perhaps for the swinish multitude to argue over. The point of law is – did Miss Letby’s conviction meet the evidentiary standard.
Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit.
The Judges instructions to the Jury suggested they needn’t know how or when Miss Letby harmed the children, or even if she harmed all of them. They merely needed to be persuaded that she intended to harm them in some abstract sense.
This, combined with the statements of various potential expert witnesses who have expressed disquiet over the case seems sensible grounds for a retrial.
“The association between her presence and unexpected harm coming to babies seems too strong to be discounted, and alternative explanations such as ward-wide infections unproven.”
The association between her presence and unexpected harm is confected by suspicion and bogus statistical evidence. It doesn’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny but inevitably will have seriously affected the jury as the statistics were not properly challenged as lawyers tend to be statistically naive.
It is not up to the defence to prove alternative explanations such as ward-wide infections all they have to do is to suggest alternative explanations so that a jury can’t be sure that there were murders committed and that Lucy Letby was responsible for them.
The bogus nature of the statistical evidence on its own should have been sufficient to have the verdict overturned despite the difficulty of rerunning the trial on a fairer basis.
It is possible Letby is a murderer but she clearly did not receive a fair trial in the sense that the evidence against her was exaggerated by bogus statistics and other factors which were inadequately challenged.
The New Yorker piece is unavailable in the UK because of reporting restrictions. Think about that Britons, if you’re allowed to.
In the UK unlike the US a high priority is placed on juries not being exposed to arguments and evidence in the press rather than the evidence presented to them at the trial. However, given that the jury trials are over for the time being and similar articles have been published here highlighting defects in the trial it certainly seems unnecessary for the New Yorker piece to still be subjected to restrictions.
I believe the system in the USA stems from the more frequent and rigorous sequestration of jurors. With the Jury sequestered in high profile trials, the Press can be more free, perhaps.
Much in the British court system (as in public life at large) still relies on the honesty and intergrity of the elected or appointed official to abide by the conditions of their sacred oath. The oath is no superannuated ceremonial but a cornerstone of public order. If jurors could be relied on to avoid researching things for themselves then the press would be free to print what it liked.
Or we could return to the Early Modern practice of locking Jurors up in Westminster Hall without food or water for the duration of their deliberations.
Not much to think about.
Yes. There are problems with free speech in the UK. But reporting restrictions on active court cases is not one of them. I’m very glad we have that as part of our system and I would certainly not wish to replace it with the utter farce I see in US cases.
It seems to me that there’s not even proof that any of the babies were murdered. In this respect it reminds me of the Postmasters who were found guilty of stealing money that never existed.
Innocent babies are dead. I don’t care about these shenanigans about “maybe a random solar eclipse happened”.
With modern healthcare technology, dead babies should not have happened. And someone has to pay for that horror. If we can’t identify a single criminal, 10% of the ward should be shot, roman style.
Still, evidence points towards Letby being guilty, as judged by a citizen jury.
“Babies are killed but move along, nothing to see here” was never an acceptable answer. And bored housewives should stick to romance novels rather than lobby to get despicable criminals get away with baby blood on their hands, just for the thrill of playing tabloid detective.
The Judge Jeffries school of Jurisprudence.
Perhaps that’s where we are again as a society
These aren’t bored housewives. The Royal Statistical Society has sounded the alarm on the improper use of bad statistics in this case.
Then there is the ward itself. It had serious reported failings before Letby arrived and after Letby was dismissed it was downgraded to deal only with simple births. Letby clearly wasn’t the harm to babies.
By seeking the simple answer of “Letby did it” you ignore, indeed excuse, all the other serious issues with the management of this ward reported before and after Letby, issues that mean NHS infant mortality rates are increasingly poor by international comparison. Honestly, your views are part of the problem of why we have too many dead babies.
Sick and premmie babies die… Fact! Even with modern technology. In 99% of cases, it doesnt mean someone killed them. Even in tbe 1% where someone doing or not doing something ends in death, it doesnt mean it is murder. It just means their bodies can’t cope with life. Very rarely, someone does kill patients, even babies, but it is very rare. In this case, the comments are about the trial and it doesnt seem like it was fair even if she is guilty without a shodow of a doubt… ..
Medical misfortunes happen.
But this level of mortality is statistically not possible with mediocre care standards and no malevolence. So criminal action, criminal fraud (such as counterfeit medication) or criminal incompetence.
Not misfortune.
The jury and the investigation team ruled criminal action.
“But this level of mortality is statistically not possible with mediocre care standards and no malevolence.”
Basis for this unevidenced assertion?
Roy Meadow joins the comments!
Her defense was poor. Defense barrister was offered expert help on stats and on biochemistry but refused it. Only one expert called. There are facts agreed by both sides prior to trial, and her barrister agreed to things as being facts when he had no justification, and this became critical:
https://www.scienceontrial.com/post/criminal-justice-in-england-disagreeable-facts
Can both the NHS be an appallingly bad religion that covers up things on a regular basis and Lucy Letby be guilty? These things aren’t mutually exclusive, the NHS has form going back decades in covering up institutional incompetence or worse, usually with no one taking accountability. That doesn’t mean that Letby is innocent
The judge and the jury sat through a trial lasting 10 months, they listened to all the evidence for the prosecution and the defence, the witnesses and Lucy Letby herself, and at the end of all that they decided she was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
None of us were there, the doubters were not there, the newspaper journalists were’nt there, the excitable self-appointed detectives on social media were not there.
I seriously doubt whether the judge and jury got it wrong.
Most on this board these days are simply contrarians. If a majority of the public thinks one way then they automatically choose to go against the grain.
I also hate this latest fad of picking apart criminal trials. They’ll happily ignore the pieces of evidence that are quite damning and instead solely focus on a single piece that on its own wouldn’t be enough to secure a conviction, then claim that the prosecution was unsafe because of it
Expert medical witness was not called to give his evidence, the technical medical details were not made clear to the jury (how could they be when the Defence did not call their witness) and where there was subsequent evidence offered to the Appeal Court, it was rejected as ‘not new’, although it added vital medical detail to what had been mentioned but not fleshed out.
All you say is true, but nevertheless miscarriages of justice do still happen. Whether Lucy Letby’s conviction is one I have no idea.
Greetings, my fellow commenters!
If you weren’t in court for the whole trial, and/or you don’t have relevant expertise which you have used in studying specific aspects of the case, your opinions about Letby’s guilt or innocence are completely worthless.
I’m not clear quite what you are saying. Do you think miscarriages of justice never occur or do you think that journalism and, ultimately, public outcry should play no part in the correction of those miscarriages?
I’m assuming that it’s the latter.
If so, can you explain your position in relation to, say, the Post Office scandal, or the Guildford Four?
The latter, with the insertion of the adjective “informed” before “public outcry.”
Both the Private Eye and New Yorker pieces seemed to me to be deeply informed and careful.
But the latter remains officially embargoed (albeit accessible) and, as Private Eye’s campaigning in respect of the Post Office scandal, PFI, military procurement, MPs expenses and dozens of other matters have shown, it can often take a decade or more of deep reporting on p.94 of the Eye to bring them to the forefront of the public mind. (That’s the whole joke about p.94)
The role of outcry is not to be as informed as M.D or Chris Mullins or Paul Foot or whoever, it is simply to make it harder for those with the power to re-open matters long-considered settled, to resist doing so and then to force them to make their new assessment in the glare of scrutiny.
The outcry isn’t always right – not all of the people Tom Watson used Parliamentary privilege to accuse – were, in fact, abusers. But we don’t judge the merits of an outcry by its frothiest and least informed proponents, we judge it by reference to the best case it presents.
The full appeal hearing ruling is available and it does not take long to work out the forensic analysis of the air embolism cause of deaths and collapses consisted of
1) the deaths and collapses were sudden, unexpected, unexplained,
2) undocumented, highly unusual, unphotographed, never seen before or since descriptions of skin discolourations recalled several years later.
3) Air was present in X-Rays, which can be caused by CPR, incorrectly sited lines and ventilation.
ie There was no forensic analysis and air embolism is unproven!!! Yet to see a single expert outside of the trial experts confirming the deliberate air injection theory!
I presume from your reply that you have what I referred to in my initial comment as “relevant expertise,” in this instance in medicine.
I have no idea if she is guilty or not. However I do know that the maternity and other services in the Countess have left a lot to be desired since 1978 when my daughter was born.
She was premature and spent time in the scbu there. It left a lot to be desired and the nursing was sub standard even then. Fortunately she survived the experience. I believe in a lot of areas through hearing from friend’s experiences where it has continued to get worse.
This hospital could do with a really good investigation into what goes on there.
However it doesn’t answer the question about Ms. Letby. How could I know as I don’t have all the information.
“We don’t know why she did it”
We don’t know that she did it, Sarah.
We do know her defence was conducted lamentably and the self appointed white knight/witchfinder general went unchallenged on too many points.
Forensic definition “relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime.”
Can the writer explain what scientific methods and techniques were used to confirm deaths and collapses had been caused by air or liquid injections into the babies veins and stomachs. Or were the diagnoses based upon the deaths and collapses being sudden, unexpected and unexplained firmed up by descriptions of skin discolouration undocumented at the time along with some of the babies vomiting? Not forgetting Lucy Letby was there or was she?
I’ve been following the work of Dr Scott McClaughlan on this for months – anyone who thinks she is guilty and received a decent hearing should check out his many articles on the case. Sepsis was linked to pretty much every death she was charged with – and the chances of most of the surviving anyway were often not good. This is a terrible miscarriage of justice – it is as simple as that. This is his latest:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146233034
Has no one considered the possibility that the babies killed themselves, perhaps because they were distressed over the poor treatment they were receiving from the NHS? FREE LUCY!
And Shipman while you’re at it!
I retired 13 years ago after a 49 year career in nursing. I worked on Critical care here and in the USA. It is not always apparent that a colleague is cutting corners, then you are taking handover of their patients, items are “oops, forgot to enter that”,etc. In a closed community when patient allocation is usually one on one, you become a bit watchful lest you should land up with someone else’s mistake. I also worked for a Trade Union as a Regional Officer, representing nursing staff at disciplinary hearings, there were occasions when mangement would present a case by ‘trawling/touting’ for additional information, usually when mangement were challenged to produce the informant as a witness to be questioned the information would be set aside. Her managers obviously dismissed ‘information’ offered by medical staff since many Doctor’s are happy to dob someone in as long as they stay’out of the picture’ knowing that at some time they will have to be working with that nurse. In this case ther was a huge amount of evidence, unless you happen to be a lawyer defending or prosecuting the interpretation will be their’s and the judge and jury. We live in an identitarian age when feelings are more important than facts. There are trillions of ‘truths’ in the social media circus. Each one subjective. We ‘reimagine’ things, i.e if you don’t like history, just rewrite it. Good luck to the ‘truthers and their world view, the sun has just risen, and tonight the moon will rise. The rest is what you wish it to be, even it it isn’t real.
WTAF is this nonsense?
“Letby truthers”, presumably hopped up on true crime podcasts are in search of a narrative arc?
Now, I’m not taking a position on the truth of this either way – the New Yorker article and MD’s pieces seem pretty compelling to me but who am I to assess them?
What I am saying is that it’s just bizarre to attribute public interest in a (potentially) vast miscarriage of justice to some weird, “crass” and prurient addiction to “content”.
Just a regular reminder that one of the reasons the Post Office scandal took so long to erupt was the total failure of the media (with the honourable and inevitable exception of Private Eye) to conceive that the public might take an interest in it.
Too dull, too worthy, too complex. And so it went on, and on. For 20 years.
Agree with this. This article acknowledges the disparate backgrounds of those with misgivings about this case, then throws a big lasso around all of them and attaches spurious motives to their varying interests in the case.
What is clear is that there is an increasing number of people – including many experts – who are uncomfortable with this conviction. Some of this is partly down to the Letby team’s still-unexplained decision not to present what appears to be robust counter-arguments to the prosecution’s case.
What this is crying out for (not least for the bereaved families) is a comprehensive airing of all the issues in court, one not restricted in the way her appeal was.
I had issues with this from the outset, mainly because my close association with the NHS and it’s bureaucracy makes it far more easy to believe that it was down to systemic failure (something examined in the New Yorker piece, which is easy to find) rather than one solitary “angel of death”.
Given the widespread issues we’ve seen in the governance of the NHS and other institutions such as the Post Office, and the willingness of the manderin classes to allow people to go to jail if it means covering their incompetence and keeping their careers on track, it certainly needs closer inquiry.
“Having absorbed as much of the evidence as I can bear to, I’m not one of them. The association between her presence and unexpected harm coming to babies seems too strong to be discounted, and alternative explanations such as ward-wide infections unproven.”
The author reveals here the thinking of the jury and simultaneously the reason why the conviction is entirely unsafe. The “association between her presence and unexpected harm coming to babies” appears to be entirely the result of bogus statistical methods as highlighted by statistical experts subsequently but unchallenged during the trial apparently because the defence team had insufficient understanding of statistical methods.
It is entirely understandable that a member of the jury wading through complex medical issues relating to the deaths of vulnerable infants will have been mesmerised by the thought that Lucy Letby was always there when something went wrong particularly in the light of her self torturing ramblings in her diary. However, it is far less excusable that the author should come to the same conclusion when the bogus nature of the statistical connection between Letby’s presence and the death of babies has subsequently been clearly explained.
It is not up to the defence to prove anything. It is merely for them to provide alternative explanations that are sufficiently plausible to throw into doubt the conviction that Letby is guilty of the charges brought against her.
There is no doubt in my mind that Lucy Letby did not receive a fair trial because the evidence against her was not sufficiently tested, particularly the damming bogus statistical evidence. The verdict seems not to be safe and satisfactory.
Needless to say this is not an assertion that I am sure Lucy Letby is innocent of any wrongdoing merely that evidence presented at the trial is unsatisfactory and never properly tested although, of course, neither have the critical observations subsequently published.
I am a qualified actuary. As such, I have a reasonable understanding of statistics, though I would not claim to be an expert. I have absolutely no idea whether Letby is innocent or guilty. But I do have concerns about some of the evidence that was used to convict her.
Some of that evidence was medical. I am not in a position to judge how relevant that was to the conviction, but some of my conclusions may apply.
Some of that evidence was statistical. That can be very dangerous in the hands of those who do not understand it. I think back to the case of Sally Clark, who spent over three years in prison for murder. Both her children died a “cot death” (or SIDS: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome): this is quite rare, and so the prosecution made much play of the assumed ‘fact’ that the probability of both babies dying that way was “one in 73 million”. Jurors are rather easily convinced by these large numbers. Of course, it was later established that the family was genetically disposed to a relevant condition, and so the fact of one death made a second death in the family more likely. To use the statistical jargon, the two deaths were not independent.
In the Letby case, it appears that, once one or two colleagues had become suspicious, there was an investigation into all those cases where she had been on duty at the relevant time. Well, what a surprise! She was present. That means nothing unless you also analyse the cases where she was not on duty. It was, after all, a ward on which quite a lot of deaths of babies would be expected. (Note: I am not saying that this did happen, just that that impression has been given.)
Much of the problem is that judges, and lawyers generally, do not understand statistics and frequently distrust it. “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” What that means in Letby’s case is that prosecution lawyers found an expert who would convince the jury that she was guilty. The judge would have been quite content to accept that – why shouldn’t he? But the defence lawyers did not appreciate that this argument might be quite shaky – and therefore it never occurred to them to find an expert who could demonstrate this fact. The Royal Statistical Society has recently expressed doubts based on the work of an eminent independent statistician.
What do I conclude? That in cases like this, where neither judge, lawyers or jurors can be expected to appreciate the reliability of expert evidence, it should be incumbent upon the Court to call an independent, unbiased witness. In the case of statistics, I am sure that the RSS would be willing to recommend a panel of such experts from which the Court could select. It would cost, yes. But better that than more potential miscarriages of justice.
Like you I know very little of the detail of the case, only having watched a documentary aired soon after the conviction.
However, “it appears that, once one or two colleagues had become suspicious, there was an investigation into all those cases where she had been on duty at the relevant time. Well, what a surprise! She was present” is not my understanding of what happened.
What was done, at least to start with, was that the doctors compiled a list of suspicious deaths and then cross-checked that against who was on duty.
Was this done blindly though?
Similarities with the Australian case of Kathleen Folbigg who spent 20 years in prison found guilty of murdering her four infant children. The notion of probability was used in that case I think. She was released and pardoned after it was found that all four infants could have died as the result of rare genetic factors.
At least there’s one investigative journalist left:
NHS hospital told nurse who tried to support Lucy Letby ‘she shouldn’t give evidence’
Medics say they were advised against getting involved in the case as it could harm their career
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/20/claim-nhs-hospital-told-nurse-dont-give-evidence-lucy-letby
I am going to say the unsayable: would this have amassed as much interest, comment and analysis if Lucy Letby was male?
Privilege isn’t white, it’s female.
Of course, I have no idea if Letby is guilty but it’s not unreasonable to challenge such verdict
Multiple murders of babies is (almost) unprecedented whether by women or men (much more likely to be murderers). It’s not silly to think something else (incompetence) might be relevant.
After the terrible and tragic miscarriage of justice with Sally Clark, it is sensible to be wary of convicting women of such crimes.
And, before you have a go at me, I believe women are just as capable of terrible evil as men. Women’s cruelty is not usually of this style.
Is she the victim of anti-white racism?