Merged Concerns over baby killer ignored? / Nurse Lucy Letby killed babies in her care

[catsmate]

Thanks. I wasn't aware of that case. The Wikipedia article is shockingly badly written and written from the perspective of guilt, but if the facts are as stated I don't see what's so dubious about it. I'm certainly not about to leap on my white charger and ride to his rescue.

Oh it's not nearly so obviously a miscarriage as the Letby case but dubious statistics played an important part in the Green case as well.

New evidence claimed to undermine nurse’s conviction for killing patients

Exclusive: Benjamin Geen was jailed for life after ‘unusual’ number of respiratory arrests on his ward, but expert claims it was not unusual

www.theguardian.com

 

[Mojo]

He seems to think Letby is like-for-like with those three. Ask Smart Cooky what was he thinking, not me.

Smartcooky never mentioned any psychosis, you brought it up in response to his mentioning the Clarke, Canning and Anthony cases. Do you think Clarke, Canning and Anthony were suffering from "some kind of post-natal hormone-induced psychosis"? If not, why did you bring it up?

 

[Vixen]

Smartcooky never mentioned any psychosis, you brought it up in response to his mentioning the Clarke, Canning and Anthony cases. Do you think Clarke, Canning and Anthony were suffering from "some kind of post-natal hormone-induced psychosis"? If not, why did you bring it up?

You seem strangely unaware that postnatal depression is a major factor in the infanticide of neonates.

Trying to associate Letby with the tragic cases of women clearly not well was not really comparable in any way whatsoever.

 

[Mojo]

You seem strangely unaware that postnatal depression is a major factor in the infanticide of neonates.

Trying to associate Letby with the tragic cases of women clearly not well was not really comparable in any way whatsoever.

What evidence do you have that they were "clearly not well"? Why did you bring up "some kind of post-natal hormone-induced psychosis"?

 

[Vixen]

What evidence do you have that they were "clearly not well"? Why did you bring up "some kind of post-natal hormone-induced psychosis"?

1. Being female does not make you identical to other females accused of infanticide.
2. Mothers convicted of killing their babies are not the same as a third-party nurse killing other people's babies.
3. Mothers who kill almost always bring up a defence of post-natal imbalances
4. Sally Clarke's case was overturned as unsafe due to technical issues in how the court handled it, not because the jury got it wrong.
5. Sally Clarke died of alcoholism. She was very unwell.
6. Sally, Angela and Other have zero in common with Letby just because they are female.

 

[catsmate]

You seem strangely unaware that postnatal depression is a major factor in the infanticide of neonates.

Irrelevant.

Trying to associate Letby with the tragic cases of women clearly not well was not really comparable in any way whatsoever.

And yet these miscarriages did occur.....

 

[Vixen]

Irrelevant.

And yet these miscarriages did occur.....

And the remedies worked. Technically bungled? The conviction is unsafe.

 

[catsmate]

1. Being female does not make you identical to other females accused of infanticide.

Irrelevant.

1. Mothers convicted of killing their babies are not the same as a third-party nurse killing other people's babies.

Irrelevant. The issue was the cases were miscarriages of justice.

1. Mothers who kill almost always bring up a defence of post-natal imbalances

Do you deny the existence of post partum mental illness?

1. Sally Clarke's case was overturned as unsafe due to technical issues in how the court handled it, not because the jury got it wrong.

This is untrue

1. Sally Clarke died of alcoholism. She was very unwell.

Because of her treatment.

1. Sally, Angela and Other have zero in common with Letby just because they are female.

They are examples of miscarriages of justice.

 

[Vixen]

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant. The issue was the cases were miscarriages of justice.

Do you deny the existence of post partum mental illness?

This is untrue

Because of her treatment.

They are examples of miscarriages of justice.

In criminal law each case is judged on its own individual merits. Yes failures happen. In Malkinson's case it was a police failure (withholding exculpatory evidence); re Clarke, a technical cock up by the court in presentation: these were grounds to overturn the convictions. In Malkinson's case another man was convicted due to DNA being his.

If Letby is innocent there is a safety net.

 

[Rolfe]

Oh it's not nearly so obviously a miscarriage as the Letby case but dubious statistics played an important part in the Green case as well.

New evidence claimed to undermine nurse’s conviction for killing patients

Exclusive: Benjamin Geen was jailed for life after ‘unusual’ number of respiratory arrests on his ward, but expert claims it was not unusual

www.theguardian.com

That article conflicts with the Wikipedia one. According to Wikipedia he was stationed in the minor injuries unit, not A&E, and a number of patients who went into respiratory distress had relatively trivial presentations, one was a dislocated shoulder. However he had a habit of gravitating towards the A&E department, allegedly because he enjoyed the higher stakes and the life-threatening situations. He was reprimanded for this behaviour.

There seems to have been more than just statistics against him. The syringe in his pocket for example.

 

[Mojo]

1. Being female does not make you identical to other females accused of infanticide.
2. Mothers convicted of killing their babies are not the same as a third-party nurse killing other people's babies.
3. Mothers who kill almost always bring up a defence of post-natal imbalances
4. Sally Clarke's case was overturned as unsafe due to technical issues in how the court handled it, not because the jury got it wrong.
5. Sally Clarke died of alcoholism. She was very unwell.
6. Sally, Angela and Other have zero in common with Letby just because they are female.

Sally Clarke died of alcoholism after she was wrongly convicted of killing her children and banged up for life, of which she served about four years before being released on appeal. In none of the cases was it actually established that there had even been a murder.

Why did you bring up "some kind of post-natal hormone-induced psychosis"? Was it just because they were female? Do you automatically assume that any woman accused of killing their child is suffering from "some kind of post-natal hormone-induced psychosis"?

 

[catsmate]

In criminal law each case is judged on its own individual merits. Yes failures happen. In Malkinson's case it was a police failure (withholding exculpatory evidence); re Clarke, a technical cock up by the court in presentation: these were grounds to overturn the convictions. In Malkinson's case another man was convicted due to DNA being his.

If Letby is innocent there is a safety net.

This is, again, rubbish.

 

[catsmate]

That article conflicts with the Wikipedia one. According to Wikipedia he was stationed in the minor injuries unit, not A&E, and a number of patients who went into respiratory distress had relatively trivial presentations, one was a dislocated shoulder. However he had a habit of gravitating towards the A&E department, allegedly because he enjoyed the higher stakes and the life-threatening situations. He was reprimanded for this behaviour.

There seems to have been more than just statistics against him. The syringe in his pocket for example.

There is more. But a major plank of the prosecution case was, again, dubious statistics condemned by a experts.

 

[Rolfe]

They need to stop doing that. After Lucia de Berk they should have learned their lesson. But in a case like Geen's, where nobody saw him harm a patient, something is necessary.

 

[angrysoba]

It's humour. Calm down.

No, it isn’t. It’s a nasty smear.

 

[smartcooky]

What does Letby have in common with three women accused of killing their own children?

Letby v Clark:
• Both involve the murder of babies.
• Both heavily involved complex and strongly disputed medical testimony.
• Both used shoddy statistics and biased interpretations presented by expert witnesses as evidence of rare clusters of infant deaths.
• Both involved withheld pathology evidence.
• Both had no "smoking gun" evidence linking the defendant directly to a physical act of harm.

Letby v Cannings:
• Both involve the murder of babies.
• Both involved a heavy reliance on contested, complex medical and scientific expert testimony.
• Both relied heavily on the the treatment of coincidence as proof that a crime had been committed.
• Both involved alternative hypotheses that were withheld from the jury by the prosecution.
• Both had no "smoking gun" evidence linking the defendant directly to a physical act of harm.

Letby v Anthony:
• Both involve the murder of babies.
• Both the prosecution's narrative alleging the statistical improbability of multiple rare events happening in proximity without foul play.
• Both cases triggered significant backlash from statisticians and medical experts who argued that the courts misinterpreted scientific data.
• Both had no "smoking gun" evidence linking the defendant directly to a physical act of harm.

Anything else I can educate you about?

 

[Orphia Nay]

Is the Lindsay Clancy case relevant here? I don't follow this subforum closely, and read about this today.

Lindsay Clancy murder trial has divided US on whether she's victim or criminal

Some say the case shed light on the mental health struggles of mothers, while others argue it's no excuse for murder.

www.bbc.com

Mother suffering post-partum psychosis kills her children, jury can't decide if she's guilty of murder.

 

[Matthew Best]

Anything else I can educate you about?

How much time do you have, exactly?

 

[Rolfe]

You seem strangely unaware that postnatal depression is a major factor in the infanticide of neonates.

Trying to associate Letby with the tragic cases of women clearly not well was not really comparable in any way whatsoever.

None of these three women killed their babies. They were acquitted on appeal.

Sally Clarke's case was overturned as unsafe due to technical issues in how the court handled it, not because the jury got it wrong.

Sally Clark was acquitted on appeal because a lab report was found which had been removed from the case notes by the pathologist (but was still in the laboratory archives) which proved one of her baby sons (the only one whose records were still available) had died of meningitis. He wasn't even a cot death, never mind a murder victim.

 

[Rolfe]

Is the Lindsay Clancy case relevant here? I don't follow this subforum closely, and read about this today.

Lindsay Clancy murder trial has divided US on whether she's victim or criminal

Some say the case shed light on the mental health struggles of mothers, while others argue it's no excuse for murder.

www.bbc.com

Mother suffering post-partum psychosis kills her children, jury can't decide if she's guilty of murder.

I'm surprised there isn't a thread on that case.