Lucy Letby, Unanswered Questions.

gentleshores. her kc barrister has been in court with the prosecuting barrister on a number of times and lost a number of times. Not saying he’s no good, but that his opponent was better. The judge directs the jury based on her/his careful consideration of the evidence before the court. Barristers aren’t likely to ‘win’ for their clients if the evidence isn’t there to help them.

Your posts suggest you believe Letby’s defence team let her down. It’s likely they didn’t call their own independent experts because they reached similar conclusions to those called by the prosecution.

Letby had a lengthy trial after her not guilty plea. All the evidence will have been examined thoroughly. My sympathies are with the parents of those babies

There was no proof or evidence that synthetic insulin had been administered. They made a case for it, but there was no evidence. And the third case was diagnosed as hyperinsulinism. There are a number of medical papers online that say how raised insulin can be caused by immunological issues or genetic disease etc.

I'm no expert in it obviously - but there are medical experts and scientists raising these issues. Dr Evans of course is going to believe she did it because his reputation would be in shreds if he admitted to any doubts at all.

Both sides seem to have such strong beliefs about this case. I think there are some doubts. I'm not saying I think she didn't do it - just that there are quite a lot of issues.

Her KC Barrister has been in court with the prosecuting Barrister a number of times and lost a number of times. Not saying he's no good, but that his opponent was better.

I think generally her defence wasn't much in her favour though. They could have got all these experts together earlier maybe. But there are also odd laws that exclude various evidence as well so some things aren't seen or heard in court. I think the Judge decides on whether some things can be used or not.

In addition, the lab used for the immunoassay has regular checks on the accuracy of its findings. It is extremely unlikely that two separate tests on two occasions would give false readings.

It isn't the lab that's in question, it's the type of test. That was mentioned by an expert in the Panorama programme. That the test done at the time was not conclusive enough to be used as medical evidence in a court of law. And on the test itself it has a warning saying it can't be relied on (can't remember the wording) but to establish what type of insulin it needs a specific test doing at a specific lab. Those tests weren't done because there were no suspicions and the babies got better.

Five scientists have said the tests weren't reliable. There are medical experts disputing the evidence used in court. That's why the issue has arisen again.

gilljack68

*I have yet to hear of a serial killer being proved innocent*

What about Lucia de Berk.
The Lucia de Berk case was a miscarriage of justice in the Netherlands in which a Dutch licensed paediatric nurse was wrongfully convicted of murder. In 2003, Lucia de Berk was sentenced to life imprisonment, for which no parole is possible under Dutch law, for four murders and three attempted murders of patients under her care. In 2004, after an appeal, she was convicted of seven murders and three attempted murders.

Her conviction was controversial in the media and among scientists, and it was questioned by the investigative reporter Peter R. de Vries. Most prominently, the prosecution's case rested on statistical misrepresentation. In October 2008, the case was reopened by the Dutch Supreme Court, as new facts had been uncovered that undermined the previous verdicts. De Berk was freed, and her case retried; she was exonerated in April 2010.
You can read the case on her wikipaedia page this case included babies too.

Yes - I heard about that too :-)

Air embolism does not leave obvious traces.

I believe air was seen in the post mortem but accepted as normal - which is another argument I saw against the deliberate air embolism theory. Because it is supposed to be normal for air embolisms to form after death - which is why it was not seen as anything abnormal.

It's confusing how some Doctors saw it as normal and others saw it as suspcious but then it's confusing for anyone who isn't a pathologist or medical Doctor presumably.

I did read that it was a senior coroner who did the initial autopsies though.

I take your points though. But this thread shows the division of thought in the country at large perhaps - those who are absolutely sure and those with doubts. And those who just don't know whether there was enough evidence to be absolutely sure.

I have yet to hear of a serial killer being proved innocent

What about Lucia de Berk.
The Lucia de Berk case was a miscarriage of justice in the Netherlands in which a Dutch licensed paediatric nurse was wrongfully convicted of murder. In 2003, Lucia de Berk was sentenced to life imprisonment, for which no parole is possible under Dutch law, for four murders and three attempted murders of patients under her care. In 2004, after an appeal, she was convicted of seven murders and three attempted murders.

Her conviction was controversial in the media and among scientists, and it was questioned by the investigative reporter Peter R. de Vries. Most prominently, the prosecution's case rested on statistical misrepresentation. In October 2008, the case was reopened by the Dutch Supreme Court, as new facts had been uncovered that undermined the previous verdicts. De Berk was freed, and her case retried; she was exonerated in April 2010.
You can read the case on her wikipaedia page this case included babies too.

DoubleMM

the trial was given wrong information about probability. A number of leading statisticians have expressed concern. The same thing happened to Sally Clark who was wrongly convicted of killing her two children on the basis of false stat on probability of cot deaths of two children in same family . instead of that being highly improbably it was actually more probable.

As far as I know, the jury was given no information about probability. The chart showing that Lucy Letty was on duty for all the unexpected collapses and all the unexpected deaths was only presented to show that she had the opportunity to commit all the crimes of which she was accused, and that no one else did.

The statisticians who have expressed concern have not bothered to inform themselves sufficiently. (One who appeared on the Trial of Lucy Letby podcast had not even read the Court of Appeal ruling.)

JRTW2

M0nica

i think much of the hoo haa around Lucy Letby is led by the usual social media trolls that did so much harm by baseless rumours around the death of Nicola Bulley and her drowning.

Much of the rumour around Letby is of a minor items of evidence that do nto undermine the whole body of evidence presented at her trial. Further investigations are also producing evidence that the number of babies she harmed extends well beyond those for whom evidence was sufficient to present in court.

Comparing the Timothy Evans case with Lucy Letby is ridiculous, the crime, the circumstances around it are entirely different. Might as well compare Letby with one of the executed Queens of HenryVIII. It would be just as far fetched.

She wasn’t even present when some of the deaths took place. It was an old copy of the rosta. It looks like mega NHS bullying (very common) and a stitch up. Colleagues were told not to give evidence in support of her if they valued their own jobs

She was present at 12 out of 13 unexplained deaths between June 2015 and June 2016.

For the 7 deaths for which she was charged with murder, the police built a very careful and thorough case that she was in the room with each baby at the right time to have attacked them. They brought eyewitness evidence and medical notes evidence to demonstrate this.

It may well be that for the other 6 deaths for which she was present, they were not able to obtain enough evidence of her being 'cotside'.

What kind of stitch up ends up with everyone knowing that the managers allowed a serial killer to operate under their watch for a year? Wouldn't it be better for everyone just to know that the management was incompetent?

In any case, far from stitching her up, the hospital management defended and protected her for as long as they could. Unfortunately.

But there are still a lot of questions about the validity of the insulin results
It's not only the insulin and C peptide levels found by immunoassay that are evidence that two babies were poisoned by insulin. It's also the fact that their blood sugar levels went down when they were given intravenous feeds via particular TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) bags.

Insulin reduces the amount of sugar present in the blood. When Baby F, at 7 days old, was given a new TPN bag, his blood sugar crushed, his heart rate rose into the caution zone, and he had a large, milky vomit. He was given an infusion of dextrose to bring his blood sugar up, which had no significant effect.

Later that morning, the intravenous feeding was paused for roughly 2 hours because the infusion line failed and had to be replaced . Baby F received no TPN or dextrose during this time, yet his blood sugar levels began to rise.

When he was hooked back up to TPN and dextrose, his blood sugar levels fell again and again refused to rise. After after another 5 hours, the TPN and dextrose were discontinued, and his blood sugars again rose on their own and returned to normal.

No one has suggested any natural cause for this sequence of events. The only explanation is artificial insulin that the baby received from his TPN bag.

A similar sequence of events happened with Baby L, except that in his case the TPN infusion was not paused.

In addition, the lab used for the immunoassay has regular checks on the accuracy of its findings. It is extremely unlikely that two separate tests on two occasions would give false readings.

gentleshores

Skye17

I was concerned that she might be innocent when I read some of the articles expressing doubts. So I started finding out more. I read most of the Appeal Court ruling and listened to some of the trial transcripts read out on YouTube on the Crime Scene 2 Court Room channel. I also listened to the two Lucy Letby episodes of the Double Jeopardy podcast, by two experienced barristers, and some of the Trial of Lucy Letby podcast episodes.

I'm now convinced she's guilty. The evidence is strong and the trials were fair. There have been miscarriages of justice, but I will be astonished if this turns out to be one.

If anyone else is interested, I can recommend the resources above. (There's also a book coming out tomorrow by two of the Panorama team.)

This Daily Mail article by one of the journalists who sat through both trials is a summary of some of the evidence. I am not personally a Daily Mail fan, but she knows what she is talking about and it's a good article. She also presents the Trial of Lucy Letby podcast, with a colleague. They are good at making things clear.
archive.ph/2024.07.20-031303/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13652275/Lucy-Letby-innocent-madness-stop-trials-evidence-proves-guilt-LIZ-HULL.html

It's very confusing when there are strong arguments both sides. I know the youtube videos you mean, by the man who was at the trial and explained he sat there with nothing convincing him she was guilty until there was one thing she said that he thought - you wouldn't do that. And he decided she was guilty. I listened to that and didnt' agree - it was a minor thing. So that still didn't convince me.

The article you linked basically goes through what was heard at the trial and it's clear that anyone who sat through that trial and heard the mass of prosecution evidence and arguments - would have been convinced. And that there were no defence experts to counteract any of that (they are all coming out of the woodwork now - the professionals disputing the evidence presented). Except the plumber.

The issue seems to be whether the trial was wrong or unfair. The law is an adversarial system - each side wants to win their case. The prosecution won the case - it was a very emotive topic. Yes it was the jury who decided but as mentioned above - it seems anyone who sat through the one sided evidence would have been convinced. I don't think she had a good defence team. I'm not saying she isn't guilty but a lot of the doubts were about the fairness of the trial.

The main expert witness was Dr Evans, who it has been said - is not actually a neonatologist, but a paediatrician - who retired quite a long time ago. Neonatology is very specialised and it's neonatologists who are questioning his evidence.

The other medical experts who were asked their opinions after Dr Evans decided it was murder, would all have, by that time, known it was a murder case. So may have been influenced.

It just seems very odd that all the deaths were seen as normal by a senior coroner autopsy.

So yes I also watched and read quite a few things, and still couldn't decide. I have no idea whether she's guilty or not.

As I mentioned earlier, I think if she did do it, she maybe went a bit mad (if she was actually having a secret affair with that married Doctor who had children). Unhinged by it - it has been heard of. Women driven to it caught in a love trap - and him going home to his family and children. Just being "a bit on the side" and not seeing his other life. That might explain a hatred of seeing families with babies maybe. If she actually did it.

The Panorama programme does show (via her new Barrister) that the third suspected insulin case went to a more specialised hospital that knew more about very early neonates and was found to have a condition called hyperinsulinism. Where the baby creates too much insulin themselves.

It seems everyone, including the defence, accepted the insulin results must have been correct, so if insulin was found - and she was innocent then it would be normal to say - yes I accept insulin must have been put in the drip but I didn't do it.

But there are still a lot of questions about the validity of the insulin results as the tests weren't the ones that categorically proved it was synthetic insulin. And one of the babies Mothers was diabetic.

You can go down a rabbithole trying to work it all out - I gave up and thought, as someone said above - maybe we'll never know.

The only person who really knows is Lucy Letby. I don't think anything has been found categorically about earlier cases.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned a lot was that most of the deaths were over the summer - and there had been spikes in other hospitals too and an increase in infections. A lot of the babies had infections.

I take the point that only people at the trial heard everything - but maybe they didn't hear anything. Anyone would do badly under cross examination. That's what cross examination is about. It went on a long time I think. Questions about why did she say she was wearing a nightie when she was in a tracksuit? Would you remember if you'd been arrested twice? Unexpectedly. Which occasion you were wearing what?

I don't know. I think a lot of people have doubts and fluctuate. I wish the trial had been done better so we could be more convinced either way. The expert who was expecting to be called for her, was on the Panorama programme too. He expected to testify on her behalf (and he is a neonatologist I think). And said he wished he had been called and loses sleep over it. But I think it was explained that the reason he wasn't called was probably because he didn't have evidence - just explanations and the prosecution cross examination might have undermined it. But only Lucy Letby's Barrister would know why he wasn't called.

One thing that annoyed me about the Panorama programme was the female presenter saying that it would have been Lucy Letby herself - her decision not to call her witness. That is misleading. She was being advised by her Barrister - she isn't a lawyer.

It almost makes you wish she would confess - if she did it. But if she didn't do it - how could she?

I don't think she had a good defence team.
She had one of the best barristers in England, a KC. He worked with two junior barristers. There is no reason to think he was any less competent than usual.

The defence team commissioned at least two expert witnesses: a statistician and a professor of neonatology.
www.reddit.com/r/lucyletby/comments/165qarf/lucy_letbys_defence_team_whos_who/

But they didn’t call either of them to give evidence. Why not? Barristers who have commented think it is because this evidence would not have helped her case.

Probably due to the fact that she didn’t have a leg to stand on!

Dr Evans, who it has been said - is not actually a neonatologist, but a paediatrician - who retired quite a long time ago.
According to The Times, Evans ‘had worked as a consultant paediatrician in Swansea since 1980 and had developed numerous newborn and intensive-care services for babies.’ I have read elsewhere that he had comparable experience to a consultant neonatologist.

He retired in 2009, only eight years before he worked on this case. In between he worked as an expert witness on other legal cases, so it’s not like he would have forgotten everything he knew.
www.expertwitness.co.uk/articles/journal/i-m-not-here-for-the-prosecution-i-m-not-here-for-the-defence-i-m-here-for-the-court

The other medical experts who were asked their opinions after Dr Evans decided it was murder, would all have, by that time, known it was a murder case. So may have been influenced.
I would imagine they were asked to give their professional opinions without being told Dr Evans’ opinion first. But if not, they were probably able to remain reasonably objective. This would be the same in any murder case involving more than one expert opinion.

I believe that in this case eight expert medical witnesses for the prosecution were more or less agreed.

It just seems very odd that all the deaths were seen as normal by a senior coroner autopsy.
The pathologist (not coroner) who carried out the initial post-mortems will have been looking for natural causes of death, not signs of murder. Air embolism does not leave obvious traces. Nor would insulin, if the attempted murders using it had been successful.

The independent forensic pathologist who reviewed the post mortems, Dr Marnerides, disagreed with them on several counts.

The only person who really knows is Lucy Letby
I think we have enough evidence to have a good idea.

Which occasion were you wearing what?
There was no occasion on which she was arrested wearing a nightie. She just said that to try and get the sympathy of the jury. She was shown to lie on several occasions – this was just one of them.

That is misleading. She was being advised by her Barrister
She could have overruled him. Barristers take instructions from clients.

I will put my thoughts on the insulin results below, as this is already a long post.

ruthiek

Peter Hitchens think she is innocent. I tend not to agree with him on most things but he has stuck his neck out on this

Have you read many of Peter Hitchens' articles ruthick? He is the past master of sticking his neck out and one of the most controversial journalists alive. I would also add that he is neither a medical professional, a forensics expert, a lawyer or a statistician and he was no more privy to the evidence (or at the trial) than you or I.

Sometimes with horrific cases like this, there is no 'why'. Sometimes people commit horrific, heinous crimes just because they can.

And having said that, I do remember, there are bad nurses as well as good ones. I saw a few things - and some of us reported someone over elder abuse. But you risked losing your job if you blew a whistle as a mere student.

Even when I trained, while there were many who had a genuine vocation for caring for people - there were others who just needed a job and didn't care about patients. It was an easy job for a woman to get into. And they weren't in the right job at all.

As a result I am now a terrible patient and almost have a phobia of going into hospital!

But there are also bullying Doctors who blame nurses for their mistakes - seen that too. And some very bad Doctors as well!

Yes it is a good point. But what on earth would make her into a serial killer when she had such a normal life - even the Police said that - nothing unusual about her life at all. A criminologist a while back said usually serial killers have had some kind of awful childhood or a bad upbringing. Being an only child and possibly a bit spoilt doesn't make someone into a serial killer or there would be a lot more of them!

She worked an awful lot of overtime because they were short staffed.

I know when I was nursing, we young student nurses had to look after a lot of sick babies on a general paediatric unit. There were quite a few with whooping cough. Parents weren't allowed to sleep in the hospital then. We did everything - bathed, fed, cuddled them, the lot. We were all only about 18 to 20 years old and not had children ourselves. You did it as a job, but there was a general view that nurses should have had their own children before looking after babies. And I'll be the first to say we didn't feel googly about babies at all. They were patients. It didn't make you feel maternal because none of us were Mothers. We did the job we were trained to do.

But I do remember some nurses feeling a bit impatient with the odd baby who cried a lot. They wouldn't have harmed them though.

It must have been awful for the Mothers leaving nurses to bottle feed and bath their babies and having to go home at night.

So that old school thing of only nurses who had been Mothers themselves should be doing the job, might have some truth in it.

Neonatal and incubators and tubes must make them seem even less like babies to someone not interested in babies. At least the ones we looked after were fully grown babies - and you'd have to pick them up and comfort them when they had coughing fits.

So maybe if someone had a cold personality - they might not care about babies. So it's possible I guess that she's guilty.

But the question is - why?

If I’d been accused, tried and sentenced for something I didn’t do I’d be far more upset and vocal (yes, contempt of court) than she’s been throughout the whole procedure.

M0nica

While innocent people have been found guilty in the past. I have yet to hear of a serial killer being proved innocent. Often it is rather that they have only been convicted of a few of their crimes and there is insufficient evidence to convict them of more. For example the police know who killed Suzy Lamplugh. He is a man serving a prison sentence for several killings, but they lack sufficient evidence to able to ensure a conviction.

Nurses, by very definition, are going to have to be very subtle in the methods and times they use to kill their patients, making proving their guilt very difficult.

The three most recent nurse serial killers, Beverley Allitt, Ben Geen and Colin Norris, all acted much as Letby did, in how they killed or injured their victims and the circumstances in which they did it..

Recently further investigations into Letby's nursing history suggest that her potential victims extend well beyond those for which she was tried for.

Lucy Letby has been convicted of seven murders and seven attempted murders, and there were other cases where the evidence was not strong enough for presnentation to the court. It beggars belief that someone innocent of any crime at all could be misconvicted on a total of 14 different cases. across 2 seperate trials, with suspicions that she could have been involved in probably another 14, at least, cases, across several hospitals.

I have yet to hear of a serial killer being proved innocent

That's a good point, M0nica.

Musicgirl

I am not at all sure one way or the other. It seems odd that a nurse with no previous criminal convictions would suddenly start a murderous spree on this scale, However, the evidence given at the original trial seemed so overwhelming. Part of the problem is that the babies who died were the very sickest in the first place. The neonatal ward has since been downgraded so that such poorly babies are no longer treated there which, of course, means that there are fewer deaths. I am no medical expert, but I would imagine that there could well be times where the death rates fluctuate because of the nature of the ward. There appears to have been a lot of problems in that unit at that time, too. At the heart of it all are the families whose babies died and any investigation should put them at the centre. Miscarriages of justice have occurred all too frequently in the past. It is vital that all the evidence is looked at with the greatest sensitivity.

It seems odd that a nurse with no previous criminal convictions would suddenly start a murderous spree on this scale
If she had previous criminal convictions she would not have been working as a nurse.

It wasn't sudden, it was over many years and suspicions were raised at more than one hospital.

Many other babies also had unexplained collapses when Letby was on duty but she was not charged over these incidents.

Musicgirl
I am not at all sure one way or the other. It seems odd that a nurse with no previous criminal convictions would suddenly start a murderous spree on this scale

None of the three previous nurse serial killers, Beverley Allitt, Colin Norris and Ben Geen had previous convictions either.

In the last few days I have read reports that investigations are being made into specific deaths/ health problems in babies, going back to when she first started training and was working in prem baby units.

The suggestion is that she chose to work in baby units from the start because it would give her access to babies that she could harm or kill. In th same way that paedophiles choose careers that give them unsupervised access to vulnerable children.

mrsgreenfingers56

So if she isn't guilty, who is?

Does anyone have to be guilty? These babies were very, very poorly, which is why they were there to start with. Surely the most likely explanation is the original one: that they died precisely because they were so ill.

I meant the prosecution case (above).

Another thing that didn't get looked at was the maternity ward had similar issues - spikes of deaths that could have been saved, and terrible conditions. Lucy Letby was nothing to do with that.

Anyway I'm going down the rabbit hole again. I just wish we knew. Because I think a lot of people are concerned to know the truth - not just the defence case.

Maybe something will come up.

Skye17

I was concerned that she might be innocent when I read some of the articles expressing doubts. So I started finding out more. I read most of the Appeal Court ruling and listened to some of the trial transcripts read out on YouTube on the Crime Scene 2 Court Room channel. I also listened to the two Lucy Letby episodes of the Double Jeopardy podcast, by two experienced barristers, and some of the Trial of Lucy Letby podcast episodes.

I'm now convinced she's guilty. The evidence is strong and the trials were fair. There have been miscarriages of justice, but I will be astonished if this turns out to be one.

If anyone else is interested, I can recommend the resources above. (There's also a book coming out tomorrow by two of the Panorama team.)

This Daily Mail article by one of the journalists who sat through both trials is a summary of some of the evidence. I am not personally a Daily Mail fan, but she knows what she is talking about and it's a good article. She also presents the Trial of Lucy Letby podcast, with a colleague. They are good at making things clear.
archive.ph/2024.07.20-031303/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13652275/Lucy-Letby-innocent-madness-stop-trials-evidence-proves-guilt-LIZ-HULL.html

It's very confusing when there are strong arguments both sides. I know the youtube videos you mean, by the man who was at the trial and explained he sat there with nothing convincing him she was guilty until there was one thing she said that he thought - you wouldn't do that. And he decided she was guilty. I listened to that and didnt' agree - it was a minor thing. So that still didn't convince me.

The article you linked basically goes through what was heard at the trial and it's clear that anyone who sat through that trial and heard the mass of prosecution evidence and arguments - would have been convinced. And that there were no defence experts to counteract any of that (they are all coming out of the woodwork now - the professionals disputing the evidence presented). Except the plumber.

The issue seems to be whether the trial was wrong or unfair. The law is an adversarial system - each side wants to win their case. The prosecution won the case - it was a very emotive topic. Yes it was the jury who decided but as mentioned above - it seems anyone who sat through the one sided evidence would have been convinced. I don't think she had a good defence team. I'm not saying she isn't guilty but a lot of the doubts were about the fairness of the trial.

The main expert witness was Dr Evans, who it has been said - is not actually a neonatologist, but a paediatrician - who retired quite a long time ago. Neonatology is very specialised and it's neonatologists who are questioning his evidence.

The other medical experts who were asked their opinions after Dr Evans decided it was murder, would all have, by that time, known it was a murder case. So may have been influenced.

It just seems very odd that all the deaths were seen as normal by a senior coroner autopsy.

So yes I also watched and read quite a few things, and still couldn't decide. I have no idea whether she's guilty or not.

As I mentioned earlier, I think if she did do it, she maybe went a bit mad (if she was actually having a secret affair with that married Doctor who had children). Unhinged by it - it has been heard of. Women driven to it caught in a love trap - and him going home to his family and children. Just being "a bit on the side" and not seeing his other life. That might explain a hatred of seeing families with babies maybe. If she actually did it.

The Panorama programme does show (via her new Barrister) that the third suspected insulin case went to a more specialised hospital that knew more about very early neonates and was found to have a condition called hyperinsulinism. Where the baby creates too much insulin themselves.

It seems everyone, including the defence, accepted the insulin results must have been correct, so if insulin was found - and she was innocent then it would be normal to say - yes I accept insulin must have been put in the drip but I didn't do it.

But there are still a lot of questions about the validity of the insulin results as the tests weren't the ones that categorically proved it was synthetic insulin. And one of the babies Mothers was diabetic.

You can go down a rabbithole trying to work it all out - I gave up and thought, as someone said above - maybe we'll never know.

The only person who really knows is Lucy Letby. I don't think anything has been found categorically about earlier cases.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned a lot was that most of the deaths were over the summer - and there had been spikes in other hospitals too and an increase in infections. A lot of the babies had infections.

I take the point that only people at the trial heard everything - but maybe they didn't hear anything. Anyone would do badly under cross examination. That's what cross examination is about. It went on a long time I think. Questions about why did she say she was wearing a nightie when she was in a tracksuit? Would you remember if you'd been arrested twice? Unexpectedly. Which occasion you were wearing what?

I don't know. I think a lot of people have doubts and fluctuate. I wish the trial had been done better so we could be more convinced either way. The expert who was expecting to be called for her, was on the Panorama programme too. He expected to testify on her behalf (and he is a neonatologist I think). And said he wished he had been called and loses sleep over it. But I think it was explained that the reason he wasn't called was probably because he didn't have evidence - just explanations and the prosecution cross examination might have undermined it. But only Lucy Letby's Barrister would know why he wasn't called.

One thing that annoyed me about the Panorama programme was the female presenter saying that it would have been Lucy Letby herself - her decision not to call her witness. That is misleading. She was being advised by her Barrister - she isn't a lawyer.

It almost makes you wish she would confess - if she did it. But if she didn't do it - how could she?

So if she isn't guilty, who is?

There have been miscarriages of justice, though ‘all too often’ seems a tad exaggerating.

People with no previous convictions do commit horrific crimes
The evidence was looked at forensically, as it should have been

I am not at all sure one way or the other. It seems odd that a nurse with no previous criminal convictions would suddenly start a murderous spree on this scale, However, the evidence given at the original trial seemed so overwhelming. Part of the problem is that the babies who died were the very sickest in the first place. The neonatal ward has since been downgraded so that such poorly babies are no longer treated there which, of course, means that there are fewer deaths. I am no medical expert, but I would imagine that there could well be times where the death rates fluctuate because of the nature of the ward. There appears to have been a lot of problems in that unit at that time, too. At the heart of it all are the families whose babies died and any investigation should put them at the centre. Miscarriages of justice have occurred all too frequently in the past. It is vital that all the evidence is looked at with the greatest sensitivity.