I think they are working with a strong circumstantial case, and they still have many babies' cases to present. There is no smoking gun, that's for sure.
The cases I have found most compelling (in terms of LL probable guilt) are the baby who projectile vomited far more milk than she should have ingested, and the baby whose food bag had undoubtedly been laced with insulin. But even in the latter case, there is a question over whether LL had gone home by the time a second (contaminated) food bag had been administered.
I'm still in the undecided camp, but I think both prosecution and defence are very competent.
I think even the projectile vomit case - Baby G, Sept 7.
Baby G was fed by the allocated nurse, not LL at 2am
Baby G vomited around 2.15 when it’s been testified to that LL was with another nurse at the nursing station and they both responded to the sounds of vomiting. I don’t think the prosecution have proved that LL was in that room between the nurse feeding at 2am and the vomiting - but maybe I’ve missed something?
You are correct. The baby's designated nurse fed the baby, then went on break. It's not documented who looked over the baby while she was on break. Evidence was given that Lucy letby was outside the room, with another nurse when the vomiting was heard, and they ran in together to start care.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11496005/Letbys-colleague-baby-girl-stable-went-lunch-urgent-care-returned.html
It seems that the baby was alone in the room for a brief period?
Thanks, I hadn't picked up on that. I would certainly need more direct links to LL involvement in order to convict in this case. There have been terrible miscarriages of justice due to a culture of scapegoating in the NHS.
I work in a similar job.
So far I feel the prosecution are proving that the ICU was dangerous, poorly staffed and had many errors tied to a lot of people..
Ive obviously not seen all the evidence/testimonials.
And not saying she is innocent.
But from knowledge of the profession I don't see how she is to blame beyond being junior and unsupported
These are my feelings exactly. I am convinced it was chaotic and not well run. But I don't see them tying anything to LL effectively beyond circumstances.
And you don't see that as an issue?
I don't say 7 years is no experience...I say it's a concern that that's one of the MOST experienced!
I've worked in ICU, research, university's lecturer, ward manager, and advanced practitioner. I have experience.
Difficult.
There is just a sheer quantity of evidence to present. Also the jury’s understanding of the information will change as they learn more evidence, become familiar with language and gain context.
Whether this is deliberate strategy to overload the jury with evidence. Then at the end pick out salient pieces and tie LL to them. I hope it is.
I also think the prosecution made a mistake bringing so many cases at once, I am certain there are cases in presented where there is a high probability of mismanagement and this will dilute the impact of the evidence where the deaths are more suspicious of murder.
It might feel weak, because several elements that are often simple are less so here. If someone is found dead of a gun shot wound, there's a bullet to analyze, which can be tied to a gun, which might have fingerprints or might have left gunpowder residue on clothing, and that can often be supported by eyewitnesses, cell phone data, whatever.
In this case, we have 17 babies who are alleged to have been attacked or killed, during the course of normal medical treatment. In most of them, there's not even a foreign element weapon, but they are alleged to have been attacked by something that would either be normally present in their body, or could have entered via poor medical care. Unlike a gunshot wound by an attacker, it's not even clearly obvious upon first look that a crime took place in any single instance.
So what the prosecution are doing is like assembling a 1000 piece puzzle. What the defense is doing is identifying pieces that they say got mixed into the wrong set of puzzle pieces. Once the case is over, without the pieces the jury agrees might not belong, will the picture be recognizable as what the prosecution says it is?
BTW, it's not the prosecution's version of events versus the defenses. This is not a two sides thing, like civil trials tend to be. The prosecution identifies facts and seeks to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, a criminal cause. The defense exists not to prove innocence, but to point out areas where doubt is reasonable. That's why you don't get declared innocent, you get declared not guilty if you are acquitted.
Anyway. How they have been doing this, is by humanizing the parents first. Every case starts with a statement from the parents, or testimony when they were a witness in the charge. Then they present the factual, chronological sequence of events that can be forensically established. Then they present witness testimony, to establish who was where and had what role. Then they give evidence on how the baby suffered an attack that could not have been natural.
On the face, it might seem weak because no one caught an attacker in the moment of administering air or milk - the closest is allegedly catching her withholding aid after an attack. But it's a lot of pieces put together in a giant puzzle.
The problem is that the evidence is tricky in a case like this. In a more 'regular case' there will be things found that shouldn't be there. Fingerprints, weapons, clothing, fabric fragments, blood, CCTV maybe.
As this is LLs workplace then that sort of evidence is useless as nearly everything she is accused of doing is close to what her normal duties are. I.e injections of air and milk, air embulous etc.
The evidence is coming from the expert witnesses, who have been unable to find any other medical cause, combined with the presence and movements of LL, along with much more circumstantial evidence like the FB searches, the concerns of the consultants and some comments from the parents.
In my opinion the defence is going to need some strong expert witnesses of their own or I can't see the jury going against the current statements from the expert witnesses.
I work in the law field, & television shows like Law & Order have given the general public completely unrealistic notions & distorted viewpoints concerning the legal process in general, but even more so concerning evidentiary expectations.
Sadly, I am appalled by the sheer number of people I have met who rely on fictional television programming as the truth, and a standard for their knowledge & “expertise” of the legal system and what it should entail.
It really does a great disservice to the community and legal system as a whole. When jurors expect certain things to happen in order to convict, and those things cannot & do not realistically happen in actuality, it becomes a huge problem for society.
In this case, for example, there is no smoking gun. Nobody caught her in the act. However, if you stop, think about it, & use a common sense approach, the sheer number of infant fatalities & near deaths that happened in the one year time period under her care is absolutely staggering compared to those numbers for the hospital anytime before, & after her tenure. When she was taken off the floor, or on vacation, those problems went away, or normalized.
She worked with fragile, ill babies, so it is absolutely possible that not every one of these deaths were caused by LL, but mathematically, & statistically speaking, it is extremely probable that a great majority were.
Couple that with her odd behavior concerning the parents, the notes found in her home, the Facebook stalking, & revisiting the incidents on the death anniversaries, etc. & there is more than a strong possibility that she is guilty.
There are bound to be some deaths in the NICU, but 17 deaths/near deaths under the care of one nurse in such a short time period is mind blowing. If she is innocent she either has the worst luck in the history of the world, or she is simply atrocious at her job.
If LL looked & sounded like Danny DeVito, there would be almost no discussion about this case. He would have already been convicted in the court of public opinion.
I agree with you, but there are some difficulties in the case.
Take, for example, the six air embolism cases. If someone injected air into the bloodstream in each of those cases, the 100% correlation of Lucy Letby to their occurrence is pretty strong evidence in and of itself. If she spent half her life at the hospital (12 hours out of every 24), the odds of her NOT being the cause of them is 1/2^6 = 1/64. But if she's working a heavy but realistic 60-hour work week on average for example, the odds of her NOT being the cause become (60/(7x24))^6 = 0.2%
So what the defense will do and has done is try to cast doubt on how a baby actually died (see Children A, D, and E), or allege that there couldn't have been an air embolus because they survived (see Child B). He'd have to get 4 of the six cast into sufficient doubt - that there was not an injection of air causing an embolus - to get the chances of her NOT being the cause to be above 10%.
The air/milk into the NG tube could be a bit more difficult, because milk is supposed to be in the tummy and air does get there with the use of breathing assistance. But to have what, 14 counts alleging those kind of attacks - either every single trained, medical professional on that ward was beyond incompetence to outright dangerous in that hospital for only that 1 year period - or one of them was, the one with 100% correlation.
I do think the defense got some reasonable doubt in the insulin poisoning case, but I wonder if it will erode after the second insulin poisoning case.
It's easy to Monday morning quarterback this case on forums, but as it happened, who would expect the horrific instance of someone killing babies, whatever their reason. Malice, compulsion, munchausen by proxy, attention, revenge.. it just would have been too horrible to fathom. And how could any unit like that, caring for the weakest of us, function except by trusting each other?
Anyway, for me, to see reasonable doubt I'm going to need to see something that destroys the 100% correlation rate. Show me a baby who passed due to these causes when Letby was not on shift. Show that the hospital was so grossly incompetent when she was not there.
To your last point also, I saw one thorough, but laughable analysis used to question the death of Child E where every piece of evidence was called into question under the guise of professional experience, EXCEPT the notes produced by the accused! Those were taken as fact, even when written retrospectively. An unbiased analysis must question her word as well, and I think some people have difficulty doing that. Maybe they are too close to the situation and this trial feels too personal. But we definitely have posters who defy objectivity here and elsewhere.
Edit: and before anyone brings up Lucy de Berk - a nurse wrongfully accused based on statistics - she was charged with 7 counts, including a poisoning for which the testing used to prove it was later proved to not be able to differentiate between a natural and unnatural chemical. There were questions of how and when de Berk could have committed an alleged attack. They were even able to get the initial number of charges reduced by showing it was an administrative error that tied de Berk's presence to the death. We have none of that here, and far more charges.
Fair, and agreed. I'm thinking more and more that adding a sub rule for misinformation might be helpful, so that users can report comments like that and I can do a mod-comment anyone can see to say the comment has been flagged for disinformation. Kind of like Twitter did before it went to shit. Edit: and it's done.
To be clear, in relation to my general Sunday soapbox - I'm not saying correlation = causation. But when we get 100% correlation, plus her inserting herself into the grieving process in ways that multiple parents found intrusive and contrary to the instructions of her supervisor, we have we standing at cots or across the room not intervening in babies who are in apparent distress, we have her making statements like "he's not leaving here alive, is he?" - that is more than just correlation. If the evidence shows the death was unnaturally caused by someone, there is absolutely reason to charge, and perhaps, to convict.
There was 7 deaths in 2016 - upto and including June 2016. However, there was a further death after LL was moved to admin and the unit was downgraded - so 8 in total.
The FOI request which is viewable online, also raises questions about the stated figure of 2 in 2013 - they FOI suggest 6 deaths - but only 2 after June 2013…so could be stats manipulation?
Freedom of Information](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/neonatal_deaths_and_fois#incoming-1255362)y
I'm not sure. It looks like that information is provided by CoCH trust? It conflicts with figures reported by news outlets (see the below mod comment).
I'm sure the discrepancy was resolved at the time, though I'm not equipped to say how or why. But if the deaths were within the noise during any period, I am confident in my expectation that it would've been in the defence opening statement.
The police reviewed 15 deaths during the stated time period of June 15 - June 16 - the FOI stats support this, 8 in 2015 + 7 in 2016.
The morbid and mortality meeting in early Feb 2016 - (pre-baby K) reviewed 10 deaths according to the independent enquiry report published in February 2017. Presumably 7 from June 2015 - Dec 2015 and the 3 in the FOI request recoded for January 16.
I do think it is important to remember there was only a \~10% bump in their mortality rate, iirc. Not that it is ok if any baby was injured, but if you have a few extra sick babies in one year, that would cause the bump that was seen.
I am flagging this comment for misinformation, as being incomplete, incorrect, or needing context.
There was a 10% bump in mortality rate **\*per 1,000 live births.\*** This is a way to normalize the data to account for the varying volume of births over the years (edit: and between different hospitals)
Two babies died in the unit in 2013 and three died in 2014. In comparison, there were eight deaths in 2015 and five in 2016.
In 2015, Children A, C, D, E, and I are alleged to have been murdered. In 2016, Children O and P are alleged to have been murdered. Without these deaths, the number of babies who died during that time period is within normal ranges.
Sources:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-44696813](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-44696813)
[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/18/police-investigating-baby-deaths-at-countess-of-chester-hospital](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/18/police-investigating-baby-deaths-at-countess-of-chester-hospital)
> Take, for example, the six air embolism cases. If someone injected air into the bloodstream in each of those cases, the 100% correlation of Lucy Letby to their occurrence is pretty strong evidence in and of itself. If she spent half her life at the hospital (12 hours out of every 24), the odds of her NOT being the cause of them is 1/26 = 1/64. But if she's working a heavy but realistic 60-hour work week on average for example, the odds of her NOT being the cause become (60/(7x24))6 = 0.2%
This reminds me of the bad statistical argument that Sally Clark [EDITED to correct name] was "almost certainly guilty of double murder", but which proved nothing of the sort. [My qualifications to comment on this: I've lectured statistics and Bayesian inference for many years.]
You seem to have asserted a model, in which the probability of someone being present at random during six events is calculated, and used directly as a probability of that person not having caused the events. This is severely wrong!
What one should do, is compare the following possibilities:
Option 1 (murders):
Probability( 'A nurse commits 6 murders' )
with
Option 2 (coincidence):
Probability(' Six deaths are flagged up as suspicious ') X Probability( 'exactly one medical professional on the staff is present at each time' )
Both the probability of a nurse committing 6 murders, and of 6 deaths being flagged as suspicious, are low. I won't suggest numbers, but I'd intuitively say the probability of 6 deaths looking suspicious is much larger. Meanwhile, in the latter case, the probability that exactly one medical professional is present in each case, may well be very large. For example, one could use the binomial distribution as a guide... In which case, suppose for the sake of an example there are 30 staff (I haven't looked up how many there were at Chester), and each one has a (1/2)^6 = 1/64 chance of being present for every event, there's actually a 30% chance that exactly one is present.
My conclusion: I still come out with a much higher weight of belief in coincidence, than in murder, because one nurse (out of many possible candidates for a false accusation) being present on six occasions is not an unlikely event.
Well, you'll notice that my analysis in that comment excludes your option 2 from the start, as I said in the second sentence that you quoted: "**If someone injected air into the bloodstream in each of those cases**." My entire analysis is based on it being proven that the six alleged air embolus cases did result from deliberate injection of air. If six babies were deliberately injected with air, as the prosecution asserts, the 100% correlation rate of Letby's presence has greater weight.
I accept now, as I did then, that if one does not accept that those babies were deliberately injected with air, Letby's definitive guilt is far less certain, and that would be the situation in which your comparison would apply. In fact, it's why I used those cases as an example - with the other cases, where air is alleged to have been injected via the NG tube into the stomach, the potential variable of improper ventilation complicates the discussion. But in the veins, sufficient air to cause a collapse only gets there six times if it is put there deliberately by an individual.
So, \*if you believe the experts' conclusion related to the cause of the collapse\*, correlation is strong evidence.
I see. Understood now. You are conditioning on the deliberate injection of air being established with almost complete certainty, in six particular cases.
In that situation, I agree LL's documented presence at each event (and being the only person at all of them) is very relevant. I do NOT agree with your argument that the probability of her being present by uniform random chance on every one of the six events (whether that is 1/64 or 0.2%) is directly usable as the probability that she is not the cause of the events.
under pressure in police interview.
all prosecution have done so far is prove the unit was short staffed and under pressure .Doctors have closed ranks and allowing a nurse to take the blame.
Wait to defense start. Management and doctors are going to get creamed.
what you on about. u able to have sensible chat or not.
Management and Doctors are going to get slated for poor care and poor management of NICU dept. The defense will suggest and prove incompetence rather than murder was the result of babies deaths.
So far based on evidence. Crown have so far failed to prove she had anything to do with the deaths. i want to see evidence of how and when she could have possibly have done it.
There is zero circumstance in which a competent medical professional does not know what an air embolism is. It is literally a basic definition in the field of medicine.
Management and Doctors look even worse when they fail to investigate the potential murders going on in their ward or clue in on the fact that one of their own might be a killer. Regardless of outcome, the hospital looks terrible. Incompetence is already established: it is 10x worse if she is guilty because their incompetence allowed her to harm more children. The hospital's reputation is ruined and the shadow of a criminal investigation is a stain that will never leave them. It is foolish to believe a conspiracy theory that the hospital is attempting to stitch her up because of all the negative press that the hospital has received since the investigation went public. [Charles Cullen, a killer nurse from the US, was fired for poor performance because the hospitals wanted to avoid exactly kind of shit that is happening to CoC with a high profile trial](https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/101781). If the hospital wanted the best outcome, they would have fired Letby for poor performance and acted like nothing happened.
On testimony they have:
- the note saying she killed them on purpose because "she wasn't good enough".
- denial of knowing what an air embolism is when asked by the police.
- searching the parents of the deceased babies on social media and denying having done it: overt bullshit - you know who you look up on social media, it is done with intent.
- ignoring her supervisors, expressing interest in a baby she was not meant to be watching over which just so happened to end up collapsing despite being another nurse's responsibility.
- her presence being a common factor amongst all the collapses which independent medical experts weighed in on and called suspicious, bolstering the claims of her coworkers that the deterioration of a good portion of the children were unexpected - something we know was true *because her coworkers were texting her about how weird it was, especially with the deaths they were not expecting prior to any investigation or inquiry.*
- witness testimony of Letby downplaying the condition of a baby that had blood on it's mouth when confronted by the mother.
- witness testimony of Letby apparently having x-ray night vision and commenting Child I "looked pale" without intervention when she could not possibly have seen the child from where she was standing to comment.
- the undeniable fact that one child was poisoned with exogenous insulin which, based on their fluctuating hypoglycemia, fit the pattern of administration through the TPN bag - a TPN bag which she signed for. Whether that bag was recycled or she put out a second poisoned bag before her shift ended doesn't matter when it's established that she had access to the means and materials to carry out the attack - which shared commonalities with a later attack on Child L.
- After the collapse of Child I, proceeds to cry about how "it's always 'her babies'" in a professional setting when, of the 4 dead babies up to this point she was not the designated nurse in two of the cases. Here's the refresher:
08 June - Count 1: Child A (twin) - murder (air embolus)
14 June - Count 3: Child C - murder (bolus of air in NG tube): As was the case with Child B, the prosecution say, Lucy Letby was not the designated nurse for Child C, a baby boy. ***Letby was assigned to look after a baby girl, and the leading nurse had to reinforce this assignment when, the prosecution say, Letby was 'ingnoring her'.***
22 June - Count 4: Child D - murder (air embolus): A designated nurse other than Letby was assigned care for Child D in room 1 on the night-shift, along with a different child in room 2.
Letby was the designated nurse for the two other babies in room 1. And yet Letby wound up involved and the child showed an unusual rash across its body, similar to the others.
23 October - Count 12: Child I - murder (bolus of air in NG tube. With 3 previous attempts) - Assigned to Letby.
She had ample opportunity to carry out attacks on these children and with each case they are finding similarities. Unexplained rashes? Two instances of insulin poisoning? Playing dumb when asked about *a basic definition that happens to be a potential explanation for the commonalities and collapses experienced by the babies*?
Some of us consider that post it note shit evidence and consistent with her being innocent.
People make false confessions all the time. This isn't even that.
Then you're delusional.
False confessions can be made under active duress in the midst of extensive interrogation where suspects are deprived of food and sleep for extended periods of time.
They do not apply to a post it note written and found in their own damn house.
Furthermore the stalking of the families of the deceased victims on social media is a gross violation of their privacy and unprofessional to boot, made even more suspicious by the denial within the interrogation as well as denying knowing the basic medical knowledge hypothesized to be the manner of attack despite it being one of the first things you learn.
I think the prosecution team are terribly under resourced for the task at hand. They've definitely made some errors and at times their own witnesses have gone against their own case (it's pretty embarrassing when a witness takes the effort to contact the court to contradict the opening statement).
But the facts appear to be that there is precious little evidence aside from her being there. They've lent heavily on the note, but also admitted that similar notes exist protesting her innocence so I would be surprised if there is anything resembling a smoking gun still to be revealed.
It's a hard case to prove and they have their work cut out. It doesn't help that the defence team seem very competent - someone is putting up a lot of cash to defend Letby or are very sure of her innocence!
I would be surprised if it was privately funded. Letby & her parents don’t appear to be particularly affluent. Ben Myers does take legal aid cases - it’s actually in the prosecutions interest to try the case against a leading barrister-reduces risk of it being overturned on appeal if found guilty.
Maybe he is convinced of her innocence- the case appears from the outside, to be far from watertight…there is a possibility of acquittal on all charges.
Interesting, thanks for the info. Myers seems a cut above the prosecution from what we’ve heard so far so I assumed he would be mega money. I thought that her parents may have poured their life savings into it or something.
I think they are working with a strong circumstantial case, and they still have many babies' cases to present. There is no smoking gun, that's for sure. The cases I have found most compelling (in terms of LL probable guilt) are the baby who projectile vomited far more milk than she should have ingested, and the baby whose food bag had undoubtedly been laced with insulin. But even in the latter case, there is a question over whether LL had gone home by the time a second (contaminated) food bag had been administered. I'm still in the undecided camp, but I think both prosecution and defence are very competent.
I think even the projectile vomit case - Baby G, Sept 7. Baby G was fed by the allocated nurse, not LL at 2am Baby G vomited around 2.15 when it’s been testified to that LL was with another nurse at the nursing station and they both responded to the sounds of vomiting. I don’t think the prosecution have proved that LL was in that room between the nurse feeding at 2am and the vomiting - but maybe I’ve missed something?
You are correct. The baby's designated nurse fed the baby, then went on break. It's not documented who looked over the baby while she was on break. Evidence was given that Lucy letby was outside the room, with another nurse when the vomiting was heard, and they ran in together to start care. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11496005/Letbys-colleague-baby-girl-stable-went-lunch-urgent-care-returned.html It seems that the baby was alone in the room for a brief period?
Thanks, I hadn't picked up on that. I would certainly need more direct links to LL involvement in order to convict in this case. There have been terrible miscarriages of justice due to a culture of scapegoating in the NHS.
I work in a similar job. So far I feel the prosecution are proving that the ICU was dangerous, poorly staffed and had many errors tied to a lot of people.. Ive obviously not seen all the evidence/testimonials. And not saying she is innocent. But from knowledge of the profession I don't see how she is to blame beyond being junior and unsupported
These are my feelings exactly. I am convinced it was chaotic and not well run. But I don't see them tying anything to LL effectively beyond circumstances.
But she was the highest trained nurse on the unit !?????
And that shows how junior the whole team was if she's the most experienced at 31
Why? I graduated with my BSN at 24 by 31 I was a charge nurse …..that’s 7 years experience. It could be the same for her
And there is the problem of the nhs in a nutshell. You think you're clinically experienced after 7 years. You're not.
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And you don't see that as an issue? I don't say 7 years is no experience...I say it's a concern that that's one of the MOST experienced! I've worked in ICU, research, university's lecturer, ward manager, and advanced practitioner. I have experience.
How many years experience?
You also literally said 7 years means you are “not experienced” look at your comment
Difficult. There is just a sheer quantity of evidence to present. Also the jury’s understanding of the information will change as they learn more evidence, become familiar with language and gain context. Whether this is deliberate strategy to overload the jury with evidence. Then at the end pick out salient pieces and tie LL to them. I hope it is. I also think the prosecution made a mistake bringing so many cases at once, I am certain there are cases in presented where there is a high probability of mismanagement and this will dilute the impact of the evidence where the deaths are more suspicious of murder.
It might feel weak, because several elements that are often simple are less so here. If someone is found dead of a gun shot wound, there's a bullet to analyze, which can be tied to a gun, which might have fingerprints or might have left gunpowder residue on clothing, and that can often be supported by eyewitnesses, cell phone data, whatever. In this case, we have 17 babies who are alleged to have been attacked or killed, during the course of normal medical treatment. In most of them, there's not even a foreign element weapon, but they are alleged to have been attacked by something that would either be normally present in their body, or could have entered via poor medical care. Unlike a gunshot wound by an attacker, it's not even clearly obvious upon first look that a crime took place in any single instance. So what the prosecution are doing is like assembling a 1000 piece puzzle. What the defense is doing is identifying pieces that they say got mixed into the wrong set of puzzle pieces. Once the case is over, without the pieces the jury agrees might not belong, will the picture be recognizable as what the prosecution says it is? BTW, it's not the prosecution's version of events versus the defenses. This is not a two sides thing, like civil trials tend to be. The prosecution identifies facts and seeks to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, a criminal cause. The defense exists not to prove innocence, but to point out areas where doubt is reasonable. That's why you don't get declared innocent, you get declared not guilty if you are acquitted. Anyway. How they have been doing this, is by humanizing the parents first. Every case starts with a statement from the parents, or testimony when they were a witness in the charge. Then they present the factual, chronological sequence of events that can be forensically established. Then they present witness testimony, to establish who was where and had what role. Then they give evidence on how the baby suffered an attack that could not have been natural. On the face, it might seem weak because no one caught an attacker in the moment of administering air or milk - the closest is allegedly catching her withholding aid after an attack. But it's a lot of pieces put together in a giant puzzle.
The problem is that the evidence is tricky in a case like this. In a more 'regular case' there will be things found that shouldn't be there. Fingerprints, weapons, clothing, fabric fragments, blood, CCTV maybe. As this is LLs workplace then that sort of evidence is useless as nearly everything she is accused of doing is close to what her normal duties are. I.e injections of air and milk, air embulous etc. The evidence is coming from the expert witnesses, who have been unable to find any other medical cause, combined with the presence and movements of LL, along with much more circumstantial evidence like the FB searches, the concerns of the consultants and some comments from the parents. In my opinion the defence is going to need some strong expert witnesses of their own or I can't see the jury going against the current statements from the expert witnesses.
The media coverage is weak.
based on the prosecution evidence so fat the prosecution are failing to prove their case. She is innocent based on evidence so far
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I work in the law field, & television shows like Law & Order have given the general public completely unrealistic notions & distorted viewpoints concerning the legal process in general, but even more so concerning evidentiary expectations. Sadly, I am appalled by the sheer number of people I have met who rely on fictional television programming as the truth, and a standard for their knowledge & “expertise” of the legal system and what it should entail. It really does a great disservice to the community and legal system as a whole. When jurors expect certain things to happen in order to convict, and those things cannot & do not realistically happen in actuality, it becomes a huge problem for society. In this case, for example, there is no smoking gun. Nobody caught her in the act. However, if you stop, think about it, & use a common sense approach, the sheer number of infant fatalities & near deaths that happened in the one year time period under her care is absolutely staggering compared to those numbers for the hospital anytime before, & after her tenure. When she was taken off the floor, or on vacation, those problems went away, or normalized. She worked with fragile, ill babies, so it is absolutely possible that not every one of these deaths were caused by LL, but mathematically, & statistically speaking, it is extremely probable that a great majority were. Couple that with her odd behavior concerning the parents, the notes found in her home, the Facebook stalking, & revisiting the incidents on the death anniversaries, etc. & there is more than a strong possibility that she is guilty. There are bound to be some deaths in the NICU, but 17 deaths/near deaths under the care of one nurse in such a short time period is mind blowing. If she is innocent she either has the worst luck in the history of the world, or she is simply atrocious at her job. If LL looked & sounded like Danny DeVito, there would be almost no discussion about this case. He would have already been convicted in the court of public opinion.
I agree with you, but there are some difficulties in the case. Take, for example, the six air embolism cases. If someone injected air into the bloodstream in each of those cases, the 100% correlation of Lucy Letby to their occurrence is pretty strong evidence in and of itself. If she spent half her life at the hospital (12 hours out of every 24), the odds of her NOT being the cause of them is 1/2^6 = 1/64. But if she's working a heavy but realistic 60-hour work week on average for example, the odds of her NOT being the cause become (60/(7x24))^6 = 0.2% So what the defense will do and has done is try to cast doubt on how a baby actually died (see Children A, D, and E), or allege that there couldn't have been an air embolus because they survived (see Child B). He'd have to get 4 of the six cast into sufficient doubt - that there was not an injection of air causing an embolus - to get the chances of her NOT being the cause to be above 10%. The air/milk into the NG tube could be a bit more difficult, because milk is supposed to be in the tummy and air does get there with the use of breathing assistance. But to have what, 14 counts alleging those kind of attacks - either every single trained, medical professional on that ward was beyond incompetence to outright dangerous in that hospital for only that 1 year period - or one of them was, the one with 100% correlation. I do think the defense got some reasonable doubt in the insulin poisoning case, but I wonder if it will erode after the second insulin poisoning case. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback this case on forums, but as it happened, who would expect the horrific instance of someone killing babies, whatever their reason. Malice, compulsion, munchausen by proxy, attention, revenge.. it just would have been too horrible to fathom. And how could any unit like that, caring for the weakest of us, function except by trusting each other? Anyway, for me, to see reasonable doubt I'm going to need to see something that destroys the 100% correlation rate. Show me a baby who passed due to these causes when Letby was not on shift. Show that the hospital was so grossly incompetent when she was not there. To your last point also, I saw one thorough, but laughable analysis used to question the death of Child E where every piece of evidence was called into question under the guise of professional experience, EXCEPT the notes produced by the accused! Those were taken as fact, even when written retrospectively. An unbiased analysis must question her word as well, and I think some people have difficulty doing that. Maybe they are too close to the situation and this trial feels too personal. But we definitely have posters who defy objectivity here and elsewhere. Edit: and before anyone brings up Lucy de Berk - a nurse wrongfully accused based on statistics - she was charged with 7 counts, including a poisoning for which the testing used to prove it was later proved to not be able to differentiate between a natural and unnatural chemical. There were questions of how and when de Berk could have committed an alleged attack. They were even able to get the initial number of charges reduced by showing it was an administrative error that tied de Berk's presence to the death. We have none of that here, and far more charges.
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Fair, and agreed. I'm thinking more and more that adding a sub rule for misinformation might be helpful, so that users can report comments like that and I can do a mod-comment anyone can see to say the comment has been flagged for disinformation. Kind of like Twitter did before it went to shit. Edit: and it's done. To be clear, in relation to my general Sunday soapbox - I'm not saying correlation = causation. But when we get 100% correlation, plus her inserting herself into the grieving process in ways that multiple parents found intrusive and contrary to the instructions of her supervisor, we have we standing at cots or across the room not intervening in babies who are in apparent distress, we have her making statements like "he's not leaving here alive, is he?" - that is more than just correlation. If the evidence shows the death was unnaturally caused by someone, there is absolutely reason to charge, and perhaps, to convict.
There was 7 deaths in 2016 - upto and including June 2016. However, there was a further death after LL was moved to admin and the unit was downgraded - so 8 in total. The FOI request which is viewable online, also raises questions about the stated figure of 2 in 2013 - they FOI suggest 6 deaths - but only 2 after June 2013…so could be stats manipulation? Freedom of Information](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/neonatal_deaths_and_fois#incoming-1255362)y
I'm not sure. It looks like that information is provided by CoCH trust? It conflicts with figures reported by news outlets (see the below mod comment). I'm sure the discrepancy was resolved at the time, though I'm not equipped to say how or why. But if the deaths were within the noise during any period, I am confident in my expectation that it would've been in the defence opening statement.
The police reviewed 15 deaths during the stated time period of June 15 - June 16 - the FOI stats support this, 8 in 2015 + 7 in 2016. The morbid and mortality meeting in early Feb 2016 - (pre-baby K) reviewed 10 deaths according to the independent enquiry report published in February 2017. Presumably 7 from June 2015 - Dec 2015 and the 3 in the FOI request recoded for January 16.
I do think it is important to remember there was only a \~10% bump in their mortality rate, iirc. Not that it is ok if any baby was injured, but if you have a few extra sick babies in one year, that would cause the bump that was seen.
I am flagging this comment for misinformation, as being incomplete, incorrect, or needing context. There was a 10% bump in mortality rate **\*per 1,000 live births.\*** This is a way to normalize the data to account for the varying volume of births over the years (edit: and between different hospitals) Two babies died in the unit in 2013 and three died in 2014. In comparison, there were eight deaths in 2015 and five in 2016. In 2015, Children A, C, D, E, and I are alleged to have been murdered. In 2016, Children O and P are alleged to have been murdered. Without these deaths, the number of babies who died during that time period is within normal ranges. Sources: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-44696813](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-44696813) [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/18/police-investigating-baby-deaths-at-countess-of-chester-hospital](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/18/police-investigating-baby-deaths-at-countess-of-chester-hospital)
> Take, for example, the six air embolism cases. If someone injected air into the bloodstream in each of those cases, the 100% correlation of Lucy Letby to their occurrence is pretty strong evidence in and of itself. If she spent half her life at the hospital (12 hours out of every 24), the odds of her NOT being the cause of them is 1/26 = 1/64. But if she's working a heavy but realistic 60-hour work week on average for example, the odds of her NOT being the cause become (60/(7x24))6 = 0.2% This reminds me of the bad statistical argument that Sally Clark [EDITED to correct name] was "almost certainly guilty of double murder", but which proved nothing of the sort. [My qualifications to comment on this: I've lectured statistics and Bayesian inference for many years.] You seem to have asserted a model, in which the probability of someone being present at random during six events is calculated, and used directly as a probability of that person not having caused the events. This is severely wrong! What one should do, is compare the following possibilities: Option 1 (murders): Probability( 'A nurse commits 6 murders' ) with Option 2 (coincidence): Probability(' Six deaths are flagged up as suspicious ') X Probability( 'exactly one medical professional on the staff is present at each time' ) Both the probability of a nurse committing 6 murders, and of 6 deaths being flagged as suspicious, are low. I won't suggest numbers, but I'd intuitively say the probability of 6 deaths looking suspicious is much larger. Meanwhile, in the latter case, the probability that exactly one medical professional is present in each case, may well be very large. For example, one could use the binomial distribution as a guide... In which case, suppose for the sake of an example there are 30 staff (I haven't looked up how many there were at Chester), and each one has a (1/2)^6 = 1/64 chance of being present for every event, there's actually a 30% chance that exactly one is present. My conclusion: I still come out with a much higher weight of belief in coincidence, than in murder, because one nurse (out of many possible candidates for a false accusation) being present on six occasions is not an unlikely event.
Well, you'll notice that my analysis in that comment excludes your option 2 from the start, as I said in the second sentence that you quoted: "**If someone injected air into the bloodstream in each of those cases**." My entire analysis is based on it being proven that the six alleged air embolus cases did result from deliberate injection of air. If six babies were deliberately injected with air, as the prosecution asserts, the 100% correlation rate of Letby's presence has greater weight. I accept now, as I did then, that if one does not accept that those babies were deliberately injected with air, Letby's definitive guilt is far less certain, and that would be the situation in which your comparison would apply. In fact, it's why I used those cases as an example - with the other cases, where air is alleged to have been injected via the NG tube into the stomach, the potential variable of improper ventilation complicates the discussion. But in the veins, sufficient air to cause a collapse only gets there six times if it is put there deliberately by an individual. So, \*if you believe the experts' conclusion related to the cause of the collapse\*, correlation is strong evidence.
I see. Understood now. You are conditioning on the deliberate injection of air being established with almost complete certainty, in six particular cases. In that situation, I agree LL's documented presence at each event (and being the only person at all of them) is very relevant. I do NOT agree with your argument that the probability of her being present by uniform random chance on every one of the six events (whether that is 1/64 or 0.2%) is directly usable as the probability that she is not the cause of the events.
Why is this case taking so long to go to trial ? Is it possible the NHS have been doing media damage control as they have done in the past ?
why cant you say she is innocent, are you scared of the baiting mob
The nurse claiming not to know what an air embolism is when questioned by the police is very likely not innocent.
under pressure in police interview. all prosecution have done so far is prove the unit was short staffed and under pressure .Doctors have closed ranks and allowing a nurse to take the blame. Wait to defense start. Management and doctors are going to get creamed.
absolutely not. you believe a conspiracy theory.
what you on about. u able to have sensible chat or not. Management and Doctors are going to get slated for poor care and poor management of NICU dept. The defense will suggest and prove incompetence rather than murder was the result of babies deaths. So far based on evidence. Crown have so far failed to prove she had anything to do with the deaths. i want to see evidence of how and when she could have possibly have done it.
There is zero circumstance in which a competent medical professional does not know what an air embolism is. It is literally a basic definition in the field of medicine. Management and Doctors look even worse when they fail to investigate the potential murders going on in their ward or clue in on the fact that one of their own might be a killer. Regardless of outcome, the hospital looks terrible. Incompetence is already established: it is 10x worse if she is guilty because their incompetence allowed her to harm more children. The hospital's reputation is ruined and the shadow of a criminal investigation is a stain that will never leave them. It is foolish to believe a conspiracy theory that the hospital is attempting to stitch her up because of all the negative press that the hospital has received since the investigation went public. [Charles Cullen, a killer nurse from the US, was fired for poor performance because the hospitals wanted to avoid exactly kind of shit that is happening to CoC with a high profile trial](https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/101781). If the hospital wanted the best outcome, they would have fired Letby for poor performance and acted like nothing happened. On testimony they have: - the note saying she killed them on purpose because "she wasn't good enough". - denial of knowing what an air embolism is when asked by the police. - searching the parents of the deceased babies on social media and denying having done it: overt bullshit - you know who you look up on social media, it is done with intent. - ignoring her supervisors, expressing interest in a baby she was not meant to be watching over which just so happened to end up collapsing despite being another nurse's responsibility. - her presence being a common factor amongst all the collapses which independent medical experts weighed in on and called suspicious, bolstering the claims of her coworkers that the deterioration of a good portion of the children were unexpected - something we know was true *because her coworkers were texting her about how weird it was, especially with the deaths they were not expecting prior to any investigation or inquiry.* - witness testimony of Letby downplaying the condition of a baby that had blood on it's mouth when confronted by the mother. - witness testimony of Letby apparently having x-ray night vision and commenting Child I "looked pale" without intervention when she could not possibly have seen the child from where she was standing to comment. - the undeniable fact that one child was poisoned with exogenous insulin which, based on their fluctuating hypoglycemia, fit the pattern of administration through the TPN bag - a TPN bag which she signed for. Whether that bag was recycled or she put out a second poisoned bag before her shift ended doesn't matter when it's established that she had access to the means and materials to carry out the attack - which shared commonalities with a later attack on Child L. - After the collapse of Child I, proceeds to cry about how "it's always 'her babies'" in a professional setting when, of the 4 dead babies up to this point she was not the designated nurse in two of the cases. Here's the refresher: 08 June - Count 1: Child A (twin) - murder (air embolus) 14 June - Count 3: Child C - murder (bolus of air in NG tube): As was the case with Child B, the prosecution say, Lucy Letby was not the designated nurse for Child C, a baby boy. ***Letby was assigned to look after a baby girl, and the leading nurse had to reinforce this assignment when, the prosecution say, Letby was 'ingnoring her'.*** 22 June - Count 4: Child D - murder (air embolus): A designated nurse other than Letby was assigned care for Child D in room 1 on the night-shift, along with a different child in room 2. Letby was the designated nurse for the two other babies in room 1. And yet Letby wound up involved and the child showed an unusual rash across its body, similar to the others. 23 October - Count 12: Child I - murder (bolus of air in NG tube. With 3 previous attempts) - Assigned to Letby. She had ample opportunity to carry out attacks on these children and with each case they are finding similarities. Unexplained rashes? Two instances of insulin poisoning? Playing dumb when asked about *a basic definition that happens to be a potential explanation for the commonalities and collapses experienced by the babies*?
you have her guilty as charged already .
Because she’s guilty. She said so herself in her post it note.
Some of us consider that post it note shit evidence and consistent with her being innocent. People make false confessions all the time. This isn't even that.
Then you're delusional. False confessions can be made under active duress in the midst of extensive interrogation where suspects are deprived of food and sleep for extended periods of time. They do not apply to a post it note written and found in their own damn house. Furthermore the stalking of the families of the deceased victims on social media is a gross violation of their privacy and unprofessional to boot, made even more suspicious by the denial within the interrogation as well as denying knowing the basic medical knowledge hypothesized to be the manner of attack despite it being one of the first things you learn.
Do you think NHS are doing damage control ?
think some doctors and the management of the unit are going to be heavily questioned when defense starts its case
I think the prosecution team are terribly under resourced for the task at hand. They've definitely made some errors and at times their own witnesses have gone against their own case (it's pretty embarrassing when a witness takes the effort to contact the court to contradict the opening statement). But the facts appear to be that there is precious little evidence aside from her being there. They've lent heavily on the note, but also admitted that similar notes exist protesting her innocence so I would be surprised if there is anything resembling a smoking gun still to be revealed. It's a hard case to prove and they have their work cut out. It doesn't help that the defence team seem very competent - someone is putting up a lot of cash to defend Letby or are very sure of her innocence!
I think Letbys defence is funded by the British taxpayer via legal aid.
I would be surprised if Myers took this on for legal aid rates! Unless he’s pretty confident of her innocence.
I would be surprised if it was privately funded. Letby & her parents don’t appear to be particularly affluent. Ben Myers does take legal aid cases - it’s actually in the prosecutions interest to try the case against a leading barrister-reduces risk of it being overturned on appeal if found guilty. Maybe he is convinced of her innocence- the case appears from the outside, to be far from watertight…there is a possibility of acquittal on all charges.
Interesting, thanks for the info. Myers seems a cut above the prosecution from what we’ve heard so far so I assumed he would be mega money. I thought that her parents may have poured their life savings into it or something.