Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
The evidence was rejected for it allegedly being "not new evidence".
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Merged Concerns over baby killer ignored? / Nurse Lucy Letby killed babies in her care
The evidence was rejected for it allegedly being "not new evidence".
Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
What action? There was no evidence supplied by the prosecution that Lucy Letby carried out any actions at all, because they had none.
And on the "statistical evidence" they did have, there were 35 additional neonatal deaths during the relevant time which could not be tied to Lucy Letby, because she had nothing to do with the infants, and which were of a similar nature to the ones investigated.
The simple fact of the matter was that the neonatal unit was old, badly designed, understaffed, wrongly staffed (only one of the consultants in the unit had any neonatal expertise or training), and badly maintained. There are far more plausible reasons why these babies died other than murder, especially given that there was no evidence presented to conclusively prove any were murdered.
At best this is a miscarriage of justice due to the English legal system not understanding statistics (again) and not understanding what a neonatal intensive care unit is. At worst it's Lucy Letby being offered up as fall guy in a deliberate fit-up (a la the Birmingham Six or Guildford Four). And the English legal system is still more interested in protecting itself than finding the truth.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Cite your source!
That would be over 50 neonatal deaths at the same unit in a period of 13 months...about one every week, during a period when there were only four a year in the years before and after.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Never underestimate the obsessive drive of a narcissistic sociopath to get the attention they crave.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
I finally got my PRIVATE EYE in which the the rebuttals to the Letby case 'they dared not print' (it was placed under an injunction by Justice Goss during the trial - sub judice rules being normal the UK - but now the trial and appeal is over anyone can publish whatever). Opposing and alternative views are a good and strong part of British culture, so it is interesting to see what the New Yorker and GRUANIAD had to say. Whilst interesting, I note the writer of the PE piece gives a one-sided argument notable for what he leaves out.
He recommends that in cases such as this, expert witnesses from the Royal Statistical Society should be called. This follows on from his main argument which was along the lines of,:
The writer leaves the unwary reader with the impression that the hospital had more deaths than normal so the police simply decided there must be someone nefariously responsible for them He fails to inform the reader of the following, which changes the context completely:
So, it really was not a case of some dumb cops not understanding how statistics work.
He recommends that in cases such as this, expert witnesses from the Royal Statistical Society should be called. This follows on from his main argument which was along the lines of,:
- the hospital experienced more deaths than usual within a certain period
- the police and prosecutors relied on a spreadsheet showing Letby was present on the cases they cherry picked for attention.
- This post hoc ergo propter hoc method - he argues - goes against all statistical principals.
- This is because, he argues, it fails to realise that trends aren't regular, there can be extreme variations that are actually random chance.
The writer leaves the unwary reader with the impression that the hospital had more deaths than normal so the police simply decided there must be someone nefariously responsible for them He fails to inform the reader of the following, which changes the context completely:
- That it was a group of concerned doctors who complained to the police.
- The doctors identified their extreme discomfort around Nurse Letby.
- Dr. Jayaram reported he caught Letby doing nothing at all in the face of a baby desaturating in front of her.
- The monitor alarm had not gone off, which compounded his suspicions.
- He had already began to suspect Letby, and it was the fact of her being alone with the baby that made him check up on her.
- Many of the babies in question were twins or triplets.
- Deaths caused by synthetic insulin in babies not prescribed it is certainly suspicious and nothing to do with being within the bounds of normal probability.
- When police receive a complaint they are obliged to investigate.
- Chester police investigated for almost seven years before finally arresting Letby.
So, it really was not a case of some dumb cops not understanding how statistics work.
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Here's the Private Eye report, so you can make up your own mind about what it says:
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/lucy-letby.pdf
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/lucy-letby.pdf
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Yup. Read it, and I still agree with Vixen.
Some are arguing "She must be innocent because the statistics are misleading", or "She must be innocent because there could be other reasons for those babies' collapses", or "She must be innocent because the notes she wrote might not mean what they say", or "She must be innocent because the hundreds of confidential documents found in her house don't mean anything", or "She must be innocent because her Facebook searches of the grieving families don't mean anything".
This is conspiracy theorist type reasoning. Its the sort of stuff we see daily in claims against LHO being the lone gunman in the JFK assassination, or the claims that the Apollo moon landings never happened. They pick on one or two thing that don't look right and regard them as some kind of smoking gun evidence that will bring the whole edifice crashing down. In reality, things don't work that way. The totality of the evidence needs to be taken into account... so its the statistics PLUS the way the babies collapsed and died PLUS the post-it notes PLUS the illegal possession of confidential medical documents PLUS the Facebook searches PLUS the deep concern of the doctors at the unit, and the many other aspects of her behaviour.
No-one else was on duty for every suspicious death.
No-one else was found with notes of self-confession.
No-one else had hundreds of related confidential medical documents in their possession.
No-one else made Facebook searches of the grieving victims.
No-one else caused deep concern among the doctors at the unit.
angrysoba
Philosophile
I think this is a misleading way to characterize the Private Eye article.
The author does not claim "she must be innocent". I don't think many people here, except maybe Gulliver Foyle, has made any claim that she is innocent.
Most of what I have seen is wondering if she was convicted on good evidence.
As for suspicious deaths, from what I remember, pathologists and coroners had NOT found any suspicious deaths. It was only because she had caused "deep concern" among some medical staff that the deaths were considered suspicious.
As for the rest of it, "no one else was found" because no one else was looked into.
The idea of doing Facebook searches of the grieving victims is no evidence whatsoever of guilt.
The note is certainly something that raises eyebrows, no doubt, but it is not a completely clear-cut confession given what else she wrote on the note.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I don't
I was more referring to the apologists
The death rate went up 10x in a 13 months period. You don't find this suspicious?
And you know this how exactly?
You are still looking at each thing individually, i.e. you're looking for one smoking gun thing to go "Aha, see?" You seem not to understand the concept of totality of the evidence. There are too many things that all point to her, and ONLY to her.
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angrysoba
Philosophile
Not really. If she was under a cloud of suspicion then it would go some way to explaining other evidence.
If I were to use your own rhetorical tactics I could say that you seem not to understand the concept of confirmation bias.
angrysoba
Philosophile
She was arrested and her house and computer were searched.
Do you think anyone else was arrested and had their house and computer searched?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Really? Please explain this, I'm fascinated as to why you think this is the case.
Only if my arguments were rhetorical... they are not.
Only after the killings were investigated for a number of years; investigated as separate killings, by separate teams of investigators working individually on each child's death.
https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14368640&postcount=262
Do you honestly believe that no-one else, none of the other staff, were interviewed, investigated or looked into in any way, by any investigator - that the investigators focused solely on her from the beginning.
If you, you're living in la la land!
angrysoba
Philosophile
You claim your arguments are not rhetorical and yet here you are employing a motte-and-Bailey argument and then saying I’m in la-la land.
Notice that I did not say Letby was the only one investigated; I said she was the only one to be arrested, to have her house and computer searched.
Do you actually know whether or not nurses and doctors blame themselves for the deaths of people who are in their care? How do you know that other nurses and doctors don’t scrawl notes about how they were responsible for people in their care dying or doing Facebook searches for the families?
I suggest you do not know this and that you only know about Letby because she was arrested and had her house and computer searched.
Judging by some of these discussion threads, it seems some doctors and nurses regularly search social media for people they have treated or have died: Facebook, GoFundMe, obituaries etc…
https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/8ia4du/what_are_your_thoughts_on_looking_up_patients_on/
https://www.quora.com/Do-doctors-or-nurses-ever-look-up-their-patients-Facebook-profile-pages
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
What is going on here is not so much conspiracy theory (although there is that on social media), it is more a case well known in criminology circles of a belief in society that women are incapable of committing such heinous crimes. It took a long time for members of the public to accept that Myra Hindley was just as murderous and depraved as Ian Brady - there was an initial belief by some that she was an unwitting victim of his. Likewise, even today, there are some who believe Ruth Ellis' crime was 'a crime of passion': done in the heat of the moment after being overcome by emotion, thanks to her heartless lover. Most criminologists now accept that her crime was entirely premeditated and in cold blood. Some still see Rose West as some kind of motherly figure and not someone who actively participated with Fred West in unspeakable crimes against female lodgers and their own children.
In time, people will come round to seeing that Letby is not 'just an ordinary person' and that being convicted of fifteen serious crimes in fifteen different cases was 'just a mistake'. Given the probability of a woman giving birth the natural triplets (other than via fertility treatment) times the probability of two or three sets of twins also being targetted, that is really unfortunate bad luck for such a nice ordinary kind nurse, eh?
Fact is, people cannot accept that females can be just as wicked as men, albeit statistically rarer.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Ha! I have no problem accepting that, believe me!
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Utter crap. There was no switch anywhere.
Because police arrest people for murder all the time without investigating them first
Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but I'm sure very few write it down on post-it notes... Again, you are attacking ONE piece of evidence, pretending it exists in isolaton, and pretending that none of the other pieces of evidence exist.
What makes you think they did? You've made a positive claim. Do you have evidence that others did so... and in this case specifically? If so, let's see it!
Again, What makes you think they did? Again, you are attacking ONE piece of evidence, and pretending it exists in a vacuum, while hand-waving away everything else.
As I said, if you have evidence that other people in the unit did any other the things Letby did, present that evidence!
Still attacking ONE piece of evidence as it if exists without context..
I repeat, we need to take notice of the totality of the evidence
The on-duty statistics
PLUS
The way the babies collapsed and died
PLUS
The post-it notes
PLUS
The illegal possession of confidential medical documents
PLUS
The Facebook searches
PLUS
The deep concern of the doctors at the unit
She was on duty for every suspicious death.
She was found to have dozens of notes of self-confession.
She had hundreds of related confidential medical documents in their possession.
She made Facebook searches of the grieving victims.
She caused deep concern among the doctors at the unit.
No-one else had ALL of these as evidence against them, if they did, we would know about it because the Police would have been required to provide that information to the defence under sections 3 and 7A of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996. (which is a common law duty and a statutory requirement on the Crown to disclose all material evidence), and the defence would certainly have used it in court.
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angrysoba
Philosophile
Utter crap. There was no switch anywhere.
Because police arrest people for murder all the time without investigating them first
Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but I'm sure very few write it down on post-it notes... Again, you are attacking ONE piece of evidence, pretending it exists in isolaton, and pretending that none of the other pieces of evidence exist.
What makes you think they did? You've made a positive claim. Do you have evidence that others did so... and in this case specifically? If so, let's see it!
Again, What makes you think they did? Again, you are attacking ONE piece of evidence, and pretending it exists in a vacuum, while hand-waving away everything else.
As I said, if you have evidence that other people in the unit did any other the things Letby did, present that evidence!
Still attacking ONE piece of evidence as it if exists without context..
I repeat, we need to take notice of the totality of the evidence
The on-duty statistics
PLUS
The way the babies collapsed and died
PLUS
The post-it notes
PLUS
The illegal possession of confidential medical documents
PLUS
The Facebook searches
PLUS
The deep concern of the doctors at the unit
She was on duty for every suspicious death.
She was found to have dozens of notes of self-confession.
She had hundreds of related confidential medical documents in their possession.
She made Facebook searches of the grieving victims.
She caused deep concern among the doctors at the unit.
No-one else had ALL of these as evidence against them, if they did, we would know about it because the Police would have been required to provide that information to the defence under sections 3 and 7A of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996. (which is a common law duty and a statutory requirement on the Crown to disclose all material evidence), and the defence would certainly have used it in court.
Gish gallup which essentially boils down to no smoke without fire.
Nessie
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
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True
Was anyone else investigated to that extent? How do you know no-one else was doing what she did?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Handwave which essentially boils down to you've got nothing.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Answer in two parts...
Part 1. Investigations
a. No-one else caused deep concern among the doctors at the unit.
I am pretty sure that none of the doctors or other staff expressed concerns to the hospital administration about any other staff members. They only expressed concerns about Letby.
b. No-one else made Facebook searches of the grieving victims.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Police to have investigated the Social media posts of the other staff members. Do I know whether they did or not? No, I do not, but I cannot conceive of a scenario where Police knew about Letby's Facebook searches, and then didn't question other staff about their Social media activities, or conducted inquiries to at least find out if searching Facebook for grieving families of victims was common practice or not.
... the result of such investigations where Letby was the only person concerned about, and the only person doing these things on Social media lead to further investigations...
c. No-one else was found with notes of self-confession. and
d. No-one else had hundreds of related confidential medical documents in their possession.
While I don't know for sure if others were investigated to the extent Letby was, it stands to reason from a. and b. above that none of the other staff gave pause to the police to carry out searches of the places where they lived. Only Letby had acted suspiciously in those regards, and that gave Police sufficient cause to believe Letby was the only person involved, so she was scrutinized more closely.
... and all of this leads to....
Part 2. The Trial and the Defense.
If the Police HAD had investigated and found evidence of doctors or other staff members with concerns about other staff members, or found evidence of doctors and other staff members conducting Facebook searches of grieving families, then we would know about it. How? Because the Defense would also have known about it and they would most certainly have used that in court. The crown are required by law to provide that information to the defence under sections 3 and 7A of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.. This is a common law duty and a statutory requirement on the Crown to disclose all material evidence.
Similarly, if 1a. and 1b. above HAD yielded those kinds of result, leading to investigations of other staff members as outlined in 1c. and 1d., and searches had revealed other staff members were illegally in possession of confidential medical documents relating to the victims, and were found to have written confession notes, then that would also have been required by law to be handed over to the defense, used at trial, and therefore we would know about it.
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