Lucy Letby, Unanswered Questions.

Her family background is entirely irrelevant to her crimes and conviction. People like her come from all kinds of backgrounds.

We are shaped more by nature than nurture, and just like great humanitarians may come from dreadful backgrounds where selfishness and indifference to human suffering is the norm, so the best of families can contain villains.

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.

while she was suspended under suspicion of killing the babies she was advised by a counselling service to write down what was thinking and feeling - her worst thoughts and feelings.these included questions that were quoted in the trial such as "am I a monster?" "am I evil?" etc. but without an explanation that was advised to write down her fears and feelings. It perhaps is not farfetched to think that she maybe did fear she had lost her mind

I still feel gut instinct of various of her colleagues is good enough for me along with expert witness evidence.
The fact that she was a decent person from a decent home means nothing, as Monica said serial killers ?

I’m satisfied that her trial enabled forensic examination of the facts surrounding the deaths of those babies. I’m surprised David Davies has expressed his belief in her innocence, he didn’t sit in the jury, nor as the Judge.
My sympathies are with the parents of these babies. I also believe the trial must have been difficult for the Jury, the Judge, the investigating team of detectives, witnesses etc, onky now to find a campaign suggesting they all got it badly wrong

I do hope that in prison she is being assessed and analysed as to her state of mind and personality to find out the cause of her actions.
Were there any personality traits inherited that may have contributed?
Is it relevant that she was an only child?
Surely she will be the study of criminal psychologists for years to come.
Not so as to help her as she is possibly beyond repair but in order to understand and hopefully prevent future cases like this.

I do keep thinking of Kathleen Folbigg in Australia who had her 4 little ones die and was jailed for murdering them. Quite some time later it was found every one of them had a hereditary disorder and she was released and given compensation for her many years in jail. However, if this lady is innocent there are an awful lot of coincidences around her, it would be very unlikely.

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 don’t know whether she did it or not, but I’m happy to accept the verdict of the jury because they sat through months of evidence.
However, there are miscarriages of justice, we cannot deny that. Whether or not LL has been wrongly convicted I cannot say, but I can say that I’m glad we no longer have the death penalty.

She’s not the first nurse to be found guilty of killing patients.

Babs03

agnurse

Last night I watched a video about Lucy Letby that was done by a true crime enthusiast (so not a professional). From what was described, and speaking as a nurse myself, even if we say for the sake of argument that these were accidents, at the very least she was grossly negligent. The hospital should have recognized sooner that there was a serious problem with her and retrained or reassigned her.

I just wonder if she was simply very incompetent and maybe the ward was so short staffed that they couldn't see what was going on.

Here are three incidents that I don't think were accidents or incompetence.

- Babies L and F almost certainly had insulin put into their TPN (intravenous nutrition) bags to poison them. This was shown by the timing of symptoms as the bags were hung and removed, as well as by lab tests.

- Baby E's mother came down to the neonatal unit at 9 pm to find him screaming frantically with blood all round his mouth. Lucy Letby told her to go back to her ward. Then she didn't call a doctor to help for another hour.

- Baby O had a completely ruptured liver. The independent pathologist who reviewed the post mortem said he had only seen such injuries in cases of a road accident, a trampoline accident or deliberate assault.

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

agnurse

Last night I watched a video about Lucy Letby that was done by a true crime enthusiast (so not a professional). From what was described, and speaking as a nurse myself, even if we say for the sake of argument that these were accidents, at the very least she was grossly negligent. The hospital should have recognized sooner that there was a serious problem with her and retrained or reassigned her.

I just wonder if she was simply very incompetent and maybe the ward was so short staffed that they couldn't see what was going on.

Last night I watched a video about Lucy Letby that was done by a true crime enthusiast (so not a professional). From what was described, and speaking as a nurse myself, even if we say for the sake of argument that these were accidents, at the very least she was grossly negligent. The hospital should have recognized sooner that there was a serious problem with her and retrained or reassigned her.

A view some still hold today

Every time there was any publicity about Timothy Evans I can remember my father being convinced that he was guilty, and that even if he wasn't he was just a waste of space anyway. I suspect a lot of people would have thought the same in those days. My parents dismissed Ludovic Kennedy's book as just the usual lefty rubbish. Their view was that the court was always right.

Quote flappergirl Wed 23-Oct-24 20:06:12
Anniebach
Timothy Evans was found guilty March 1950. Hanged June 1950.

Evans was granted a posthumous pardon. The High Court dismissed proceedings to officially quash Evans's murder conviction in 2004 on the grounds of the cost and resources that would be involved, but acknowledged that Evans did not murder his wife or his daughter, a full 54 years after his wrongful execution.
That is rather simplifying the Evans case. There was more to it than that, including a full confession from him.

Do you mean he had severe leaning difficulties and the witness
for the prosecution was John Christie who had been a special constable so deserve£ respect ? And when Timothy Evans
confessed to killing his wife with a poison and where he had buried her, police serched for her body , didn’t find one.
Christie was found to be a serial killer .

If the babies weren't fragile, they wouldn't be on a NICU. But these deaths were unexpected. A baby who seems to be going the right way can suddenly destabilise, but this was happening a lot more often than it should, on that unit, with that nurse. The experts who testified for the prosecution had access to the babies' records but I don't think the experts who are challenging the verdict have had that access.They only know what was used in court, which would be a tiny % of the records. Obviously the records are only released on a strict "need to know" basis.I would go with the judgement of the experts who knew more of the facts, & my feeling is that she is guilty.

Anniebach

Timothy Evans was found guilty March 1950. Hanged June 1950.

Evans was granted a posthumous pardon. The High Court dismissed proceedings to officially quash Evans's murder conviction in 2004 on the grounds of the cost and resources that would be involved, but acknowledged that Evans did not murder his wife or his daughter, a full 54 years after his wrongful execution.

That is rather simplifying the Evans case. There was more to it than that, including a full confession from him.

None of the world recognised experts in this piece was called by the defence.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0023vnp

So do you think the judge's summing up would have been slanted ie prejudiced?

The jury are no different to us though just ordinary people with ordinary minds who hear a story which can be slanted The people who are unsure on these documentaries are experts in the fields and really need to be listened too
None of us know, only Lucy Letbe knows.
It is just a big concern

M0nica

Oreo I am totally with you.

Me too.

Oreo I am totally with you.

The judge and jury had all the information and we don’t.They convicted her.
Her writings are important as they show her state of mind which was very dark.
She was over invested in the parents and enjoyed her status as a heroic caregiver when she was the opposite.