Nurse Lucy Letby found guilty of murdering seven babies

That was over a year ago !

You don't quote the actual post you mention . I looked it up and it is agreeing with the verdict at the time based on the investigation and jury trial .

I never said I had " done a lot of research " .I think I said I had since" read a bit " more about it at that time but that was mainly the articles presented here .I avoided it otherwise .

I didn't conclude she was guilty .

No ,I am not medical ,..nursing background.

But I am posting here same as as anyone else with knowledge based on the mostly tabloid UK press except for the Panorama episode and trying to correlate it with my very enjoyable and excellent experience working in the NHS years ago in that field of work .

The Panorama episode ... did not go into her defence in court much.

After reading the NYT article I have many questions and think this may be an unsafe conviction , based on her poor defence .

Not sure if I could or anyone could say she is innocent , but it should go to appeal at least .

Originally .. felt it strange that the doctors who would normally be responsible / accountable for these babies' health were blaming a nurse without much proof except a very subjective sense that "something was not right ".

Fair enough if they felt she was a bad neonatal nurse, who did not react quickly enough to her babies' determination, I agree then with removing her from the area .

I didn't read anything that pointed to anything more than that .

Then thought there must have been something more that the police arrested her and charged her.

Would usually be on the nurse's side anyway . .no surprise there !

But it was very highly charged and emotive in here with parents of babies' undergoing similar , and I didn't want to say anything to contribute to that

Tuned out until I read that article above and it reinforced my earlier feelings about this .

I was a bit horrified to see what the actual evidence was in the end presented at trial against her Appears to be in the main her demeanour , .circumstantial ..and a note ..and an investigating witness / doctor who was allowed change his testimony and not be cross examined ?

Very poor for so many convictions .Although I am sure the parents and families of those poor babies are relieved to have some closure.

But what if was not her and just poor care generally by the hospital the doctors and the unit as a whole

But if it's not reexamined we will never know for sure .

Still just gut feeling though .I don"t know enough about it still to be definitive .

And another thought- proving murder in a medical setting must be one of the hardest things for a barrister to achieve - but the prosecution were very successful - just what sort of defence did she have? Did they make the decision that no way would a jury convict on the evidence and just sit back? Where were the counter arguments backed up by an alternative set of medical “experts”?
Im not a lawyer but I have been a jury member - this is basic defence 101- even if the argument's or evidence put forward by the defence are ultimately dismissed in favour of the prosecution there has to be a level of effort put in on behalf of the defence- one would have thought they would have had counter arguments all the way through especially for things like the roster contrasted with serious medical events taking place when she was on duty - Shirley an alternative reality could have been created there that greatly reduced that evidential impact or even negated it

They admit they haven't read the transcripts and they're basing their opinion on the dailymail podcast.

That's not providing balance.

That NYT piece was providing balance to the dailymail podcast and similar. So that's just repeating the same stuff that everyone has already heard.

She was initially charged with murder for that baby, but the CPS decided not to bring the evidence, so the Judge recorded a 'Not guilty' verdict before or at the start of the first trial.

Maybe because the evidence from the other hospital of Child Ks condition when she reached that hospital seemed damning for the care received at the COCH.

thanks I’ll take a look

5 minutes of reading shows the whole deliberate embolus theory to be ridiculous.

Prof. Arthurs himself agreed the embolus could have been caused by misplacement of the long line or during CPR. There were several people present during baby A's collapse yet Letby somehow managed to inject lethal amounts of air without anyone noticing, she even called for help ffs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/lucyletby/comments/y9ref4/lucy_letby_trial_updates_prosecution_day_6_21/

https://www.reddit.com/r/lucyletby/comments/y8w2i7/lucy_letby_trial_updates_prosecution_day_5_201022/

That talk of coincidence is making the same logical error that the paediatrician who got Sally Clark convicted for the murder of her children. The point is that these are not “normal” children - they were the most seriously ill of premature babies, and being treated in a hospital that was struggling to provide proper maternal and infant care.

”Is suspicions are correct “, that’s some ancient aliens language right there.

Reading that it looks to me like she could have been responsible for some of the deaths, but the evidence that she intended to kill them looks much more thin. I obviously haven't seen the totality of it, but some of what was quoted in the media, like the postit notes wondering if she was responsible, could just as easily be seen as an ordinary human reaction. What kind of person doesn't have thoughts like that when they were involved and maybe in a position to prevent the death?

A red flag for me was the hospital not allowing staff to testify in her favour. How do you justify that? They decided she was guilty obviously and it was one nurse versus two consultants at the end of the day.

The other thing I find interesting in these cases is the family background. Who was on her side? Seems like all she had was her elderly parents. Father in his 70's and mother aged 60 I think. She was fighting this for a number of years even before the criminal trial on her own. Doesn't sound like her own legal representation was that great when it got to the trial either.

Loads of kids died when she was around, it stopped completely after she left. She also wrote notes confessing it and online stalked the parents of the dead kids. It is so obvious she did it but always some contrarians will want to claim the opposite. Is there 1 single huge piece of evidence pointing her way? Maybe no. But there are 100 smaller pieces of evidence pointing her way and not a single one pointing at anyone else. It's more than enough.

She is guilty

This is mostly wrong. The 'innocent' campaign isn't just Jessica Fletcher types or armchair detectives. It includes statisticians who have brought their concerns to the RSS, multiple consultants, medical experts and NHS officials, at least one high-profile Conservative MP, and journalists who've produced episodes of Rough Justice & Dispatches. It's a very broad spectrum of concerned people.

FWIW, I agree that doesn't mean they are correct and that she is innocent. But clearly this whole situation is very different to how you described it.

I believed she was guilty, because I had assumed the deaths were murders, but in fact when you look at the evidence in detali, it's not at all clear that they were. Several had initially been classed as natural deaths, and were only reclassed as homicide in light of the later allegations against Letby. I won't go over it all again (there are links on the thread) but it's far from clear that any deliberate harm was caused at all. All the evidence against her was circumstantial, and depends on there having been actual murders.

But it isn't certain that there were murders: the death rate was too high, yes - but the department was being sent the sickest, weakest babies from the whole area, so that's one reason for a high death rate. Worse, there were signficant problems with the care the babies were getting - several mothers who had given birth there had also complained, separately, about poor perinatal care, but that wasn't considered in the court case because their babies hadn't died. Finally, the claim has been that the death rate fell after she was arrested - but the department itself was downgraded around the same time, and so was no longer taking those very sickest babies. So of course the death rate fell.

IOW it's very possible that some of those very sick babies died in higher numbers than they should have without there having been any murders committed.

ETA: concerning her needing to be found not guilty on all counts: as I understand it, the prosecution basically took one or two cases for which the evidence was particularly damning against her (but still circumstantial), "proved" those, and then by extrapolation claimed that she must also have committed the others as well.

So in reality, she would only need to be cleared of those killings and all the other convictions would automatically collapse.

Yes I think that's a valid comparison. It illustrates how people at the top may need to find an explanation (one that doesn't involve criticism of their own actions) for something that's gone wrong on their watch.

They probably even believe it, to some extent, especially those running Countess of Chester Hospital: nobody wants to think babies died because of their own carelessness or incompetence. Much easier to believe there was some evil person going around deliberately doing something unimaginable, and that one's own innate goodness made this impossible to suspect. The alternative is horrendous.

Yeah him not called is bizarre - essentially a criminal trial is “here’s what the prosecution thinks” and “heres what the defence thinks”- make your own mind up - did the defence take the approach of simply “prove it!” as opposed to actually proactively defending their client? If so their approach spectacularly back fired.

Whilst there’s no onus of the defence to prove innocence, common sense here was needed to supply an alternative narrative to what happened in each and every case- I attended a criminal trial in recent years as a jury member- whilst the evidence for the prosecution was strong, the defence made a valiant effort - now it was hard to swallow some of the boll0x put forward by them- but look if I were in their position I’d be happy with their lawyer for trying😀

We’ve seen people put away on expert evidence many times through the years- one of the most famous ones was Louise Woodward and the shaken baby syndrome that the developer of that theory has now completely rejected as unscientific.

I’m probably in the category of “better 10 guilty men go free than an innocent one suffers” sort of mindset here- from the summaries of the evidence I’m not sure if would have convicted if I was a juror but I certainly would be wondering why they didn’t have more witnesses countering the prosecution evidence - a jury can only consider evidence and testimony- if there was the slightest chance they could have created reasonable doubt they should have called this witness