Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Air bubbles in the stomach as a cause of death? Like with Baby C, though we have already established that Letby can't have been the cause of the air in his stomach? Riiiiiight.
Merged Concerns over baby killer ignored? / Nurse Lucy Letby killed babies in her care
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Try paying attention for once. It was a symptoms of what was done to them.
ETA: That you dodged the important questions is noted!
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
I don't even know what that means.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Consider this: a man dies of a heart attack. We know what he died of. An expert using his best educated judgement based on years of experience says the heart attack was caused by the guy, say, jumping into freezing cold water. Later he decides the heart attack was to do with a blocked artery. It doesn't follow that the guy didn't die of a heart attack. Likewise, Baby C died 14 June two days after the X-Ray showing the split diaphragm. The X-Ray was taken as a standard diagnosis of pneumonia. We know Baby C was stable because he was put on antibiotics and had even had skin-to-skin time with Mummy, being taken off the unit for a few hours. Baby C suddenly collapsed without any monitor indicators or signs. As the court expert pointed out, when people deteriorate whilst under hospital monitoring, there are indicators via heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation rates. Baby C did not show any of these indications, hence SUDDEN and UNEXPECTED.
A SIDS death is one that happens at home in unmonitored conditions, which is true for the vast majority of babies born in the UK, and for which no explanation can be found.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Exactly!
And again, you dodge the really important questions, so I will ask them again.
Leaving aside the question about air in the stomach...
- How do sewage leaks cause insulin poisoning/overdoses?
- How do sewage leaks cause air bubbles in the bloodstream?
- How do sewage leaks cause breathing tubes to become dislodged?
And why did Letby herself not want Dr Michael Hall to testify for her? What did she think he knew that he might have to reveal under procession cross?
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Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
The whole point of the dispute over this case is that some people don't actually believe those are the correct causes of death, so asking how they happened is rather missing the point. But I'm sure you knew that and are just incapable of discussing things sensibly - it's all bluster and haranguing, for some reason.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
That is the whole point of the Thirlwall Inquiry to investigate why the hospital managers were so dismissive of the fact of Letby cruelly abusing and harming small defenceless babies. The nursing head on over £120K pa and the NHS Trust bosses on double or treble the salary of hers failing to do their job and not bothering to investigate properly whilst at the same time mindlessly sticking up for Letby and sneering and threatening the doctors who tried desperately to have Letby removed. And we still have people racing to Letby's defence based on nothing but their belief it is not possible that a nurse would deliberately hurt babies. It indicates a total lack of compassion for the babies and their families, recognising they were entitled to justice, too. As if it is more an affront to be accused of murder than it is to have committed it.
<snip>
Dr Jayaram claimed that Tony Chambers and co 'choreographed' a meeting demanding the doctors 'draw a line underneath it'.
<snip>
What makes you so certain that Letby did not harm the babies and that their cause of death was anything but intentional? Is it an inability to accept the findings of a near year-long trial?
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
This is a lie, proving it's not worth engaging with you. You really should try steel-manning instead of straw-manning. It makes for a more interesting and productive experience for everyone.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
You haven't actually managed to provide any reasoning as to your belief it is a miscarriage of justice other than incredulity at the guilty verdict.
Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
Given that Dewi Evans, the only prosecution witness of consequence, changes how the babies were "murdered" on a weekly basis, and is in fact incompetent to pronounce on any of the cases, I couldn't care less how his little fee-fees get hurt when more qualified people rip apart his nonsense.An interesting article here, looking at the viewpoint of those who were witnesses for the prosecution, some of whom are rightly angered by the ill-informed of their honesty and integrity the Letby innocence mob.
Lucy Letby: We spent years covering the case – here’s why experts are still arguing about it
For more than a year, we’ve been examining the scientific evidence and speaking to the experts at the centre of the case.www.bbc.com
INJECTED AIRSyringes in hospitals are thrown away and incinerated after they have been used. As a murder weapon, they are virtually untraceable.
According to the prosecution, the babies deteriorated suddenly and unexpectedly. Retired consultant paediatrician Dr Dewi Evans was the prosecution's main medical expert witness. He told us: “Babies don't suddenly drop dead.”
Many exhibited strange skin discolourations that medics on the unit hadn’t seen before. Some babies screamed.
The babies also failed to respond to resuscitation as medics expected. Post-mortem X-rays revealed air in the blood vessels of some.
One of the paper’s authors, Dr Shoo Lee, later appeared as a witness in Letby’s defence, during her unsuccessful attempt to appeal her convictions in April 2024. He said none of the skin discolourations seen on the babies in the Letby case were proof of air embolism.
Lawyers for the prosecution disagreed. They also pointed out that skin discolouration was just one item on their air embolism checklist and that they had never argued that one particular form of skin discolouration was, on its own, proof of air embolism.
(Dr. Mike Hall said) “I think that what the prosecution experts said was misleading for the jury. That’s not the same thing as saying that they deliberately misled the jury.”
It is an allegation that both of the main prosecution experts reject emphatically.
Dr Dewi Evans told us: “Those suggestions are completely flawed and indicate either that the people making them have not seen the clinical evidence or that they are unaware of what constitutes well-being in a premature baby.”
Consultant paediatrician Dr Sandie Bohin, the prosecution's other main expert, who is speaking about the controversy surrounding the case for the first time, said: “I gave evidence under oath 16 times. I told the truth.” "It was my opinion and remains my opinion that these babies were stable prior to their collapse, so I can’t agree with those people that suggested that I misrepresented the stability of the babies and that I misled the jury.
“I think that’s an outrageous suggestion.”
One obvious question is why Dr Hall didn’t testify in court. He clearly disagreed with the prosecution experts, and the fact that he didn’t give evidence meant that Letby had no medical expert witnesses in her defence.
That has prompted some to argue she didn’t have a fair trial.
We asked Dr Hall if he had been willing to testify and he said he had.
He told us he was expecting to give evidence and that he was told of the decision not to call him “right at the last minute”- a decision that left him “at odds” with Letby’s defence team. Dr Hall told us he was so concerned that he even considered writing to the judge to say he believed that the jury had not heard the whole truth.
But the ultimate decision not to call Dr Hall as a witness came from Letby herself.
Now, I wonder why that was!!?
INSULINWhere you find high levels of insulin, but low levels of C-peptide, there is only one obvious conclusion: the insulin is not natural and has instead been administered from the outside.
That is what investigators found in two of the babies in the Letby case. One had extremely high levels of insulin in his blood and a C-peptide level that was so low that it was unmeasurable. The second baby had an insulin level more than four times higher than the C-peptide level, again indicating it had not been naturally produced.
The medical condition of the babies also fitted with the lab results. In both cases, the babies’ blood sugar levels had plummeted, which is what you would expect to see with insulin poisoning. And while no-one saw Letby poisoning either of the two babies, she was there when they started experiencing symptoms.
Of all the allegations in the case, this one looked like the most solid. In court, Letby herself accepted the scientific evidence that the babies had been given dangerous quantities of insulin. She just denied being responsible. Her lawyers were more cautious. They did not accept the insulin evidence, but they did not say it was incorrect either.
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
If I haven't provided any reasoning, how did you manage to make up my reasoning for me?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
No you will nitpick ONE thing, and ignore all the other evidence because it doesn't suit your chosen narrative of "Letby = good, sweet and innocent, Justice system = bad, evil and guilty".
Sorry to have to tell you, but that is a hallmark of conspiracy theorism!
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Another person who likes to tell people what their argument is. Sigh.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
That's always going to happen if you keep making that argument.
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Please quote the argument you think you're refuting.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Latest from the Thirlwall Inquiry today:
<snip>
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
You answer these questions first (no handwaving either)
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
OK, that's actually pretty easy.
Sewage leaks cannot cause insulin poisoning.
Sewage leaks cannot cause air bubbles in the bloodstream.
Sewage leaks cannot cause breathing tubes to become dislodged.
I'm not quite sure why you asked me those questions since I have never said or implied any of those things, but you seem to get something out of it so I'm happy to oblige.
Sewage leaks cannot cause insulin poisoning.
Sewage leaks cannot cause air bubbles in the bloodstream.
Sewage leaks cannot cause breathing tubes to become dislodged.
I'm not quite sure why you asked me those questions since I have never said or implied any of those things, but you seem to get something out of it so I'm happy to oblige.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Given that the vast majority of people accept a guilty verdict after a trial, we have to ask what is the problem here? Seems to fit one of three categories:
- "I read an article in the New York Post/GUARDIAN/Spectator/Daily Mail/ PRIVATE EYE citing Dr Gill. Dr Hammond and Dr Shoo saying the statistics are all wrong."
- "She looks normal. Serial killers are male and have brooding menacing eyes and disconcerting features."
- "It's the capitalist establishment that pits working class women such as nurses against the economic class of bourgeois men. In this class war, the establishment has the , er, hegemony, and in the dialectics of class struggle, er, we have a Malkinson situation. Letby is a hostage to the rulling classes...er, er... she's a political prisoner. Let me show you a long list of miscarriages of justice by the imperialist, colonialist British government. Er, that's it. Oh, yeah, and then there's the borgeois sexist git, Dr. Dewi Evans, suppressing this poor girl. Free Letby now!"
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Fair enough. You are acknowledging that the babies didn't die because of the claimed poor conditions at the hospital rather than being murdered by Letby (or highly unlikely, some other staff member). That's progress... I guess!
So I'll answer your question. Your argument is that Letby must be innocent because you think the evidence against her is flawed (various causes of death, the fact that she is the only staff member who was present for all the murders etc, all flawed).
Much has been made of the supposed flawed nature of the statistical evidence against Letby, however there is ZERO doubt that babies were murdered, ZERO - they did NOT die of natural causes. Insulin overdoses don't happen by themselves, air bubbles don't get into the bloodstream by accident. Breathing tubes might occasionally get dislodged, but they don't cause bleeding from the mouth from being mishandled by accident on a regular basis. There was only one nurse who was on duty for every single one of these occasions, and that was Letby. Yes, a couple of other babies did die during that period, and Letby was not present for those, but on those occasions, the babies were very ill, and the cause of death was known. However, Letby was the only nurse on duty for all of the babies that died after a sudden collapse when they had previously been healthy and on a path to recovery. And yes, there was one charged incident where a baby died and Letby had not been on duty at the time of death (but had been the day before). That doesn't mean she wasn't involved. If you shoot someone on Monday, but they die from their wounds on Wednesday, you can't claim innocence because you were somewhere else on Wednesday.