Revisiting The Lucy Letby case - what if she was innocent?

[mtmkjr]

This is a very long article with an audio option. I hope some folks who follow this case and agreed with the guilty verdict will read/listen and share their thoughts.t

I came away from this article really questioning the evidence - very speculative and the accusations brought against her largely based on an inability to comprehend that her involvement in so many cases could have been coincidental.

Additionally, it seems that British media is under strict rules in order not to underminine their judicial system. There is a threat of contempt of court if they question the verdict. So there is a complete lack of reporting from any viewpoint other than that she is guilty. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/lucy-letby-was-found-guilty-of-killing-seven-babies-did-she-do-it

I had not paid much too much attention to the initial story, but did not question the outcome when the headline came and went.  So this is my first in-depth reading of the events of the case. I am very troubled by the possibility of a severe injustice.

[darnold38, BSN, RN]

I only knew of this case in passing so didn't have an opinion. After reading this article it sure seems as if she was railroaded. They did some casual eyeballing, thought "how can this be a coincidence", threw together shoddy statistics and went after her. What worked against her:  1) The prosecution "expert" Evans sounds like a nut job; 2) the notion that they didn't want the NHS to look bad to anyone even though staffing was low, they didn't have needed equipment and it sounds like the place was in chaos; 3) it's looks like her side didn't have or didn't present needed evidence; 4) the courts forbade anything that would diminish the legal system's integrity in people's eyes during the trial and even after the trial was over. This last point really looks as if she was railroaded and the courts are working to keep it that way. Nobody can talk about it, even as far away as California? So if she is innocent, and I believe she is, just from the facts presented in the article, digging for the truth and presenting it to a court is now undermining that court's integrity? It certainly resembles some cop shows where they know the person they have isn't guilty but they have no other suspects so they just run with it. I'm sure that sort of thing is done in real life too, we just don't know how to what extent. What a giant farce. I will be researching this case more. 

[mtmkjr, BSN]

MaxAttack said:

This case is kind of scary. This all started because someone noticed that a particular nurse was on shift during patient deterioration and deaths. If you pick up shifts and are quick to help in an emergency, that would be you, too.

The first thing I thought of when I looked at this was where are the hours worked and typical patient acuity? I know a couple of nurses that pick up a ton of hours and are usually given high-acuity patients. Would there be a correlation? Absolutely. Does that mean they're responsible for the deaths of their patients? Of course not.

Also this fun quote (Lucy Letby: What did the nurse do to babies in her care?😞

My specialty is adults but you get prior warning on every single patient? Are neonatal bodies so different from adults that they are immune to sudden cardiovascular collapse? I've seen patients ready to transfer end up dead less than 24 hours later. Maybe neonates are just that special, though.

This does not seem like an investigation where all angles were looked at. This was a witch hunt with a single suspect in mind. I'm not saying for sure she didn't do it, but I am saying it's disturbing how quickly she became the first and only explanation. 

Here's a line of questioning Dr Evans

Think back to all the times a patient declined and then died and the cause wasn't clear. Everyone concluded that it must have been murder, right? NOT.

Quote

 

....When Evans testified, he said the same thing.

What's the evidence?” Myers asked him.

"Baby collapsed, died,” Evans responded.

"A baby may collapse for any number of reasons,” Myers said. "What's the evidence that supports your assertion made today that it's because of air going down the NGT?”

"The baby collapsed and died.”

"Do you rely upon one image of that?” Myers asked, referring to X-rays.

"This baby collapsed and died.”

"What evidence is there that you can point to?”

Evans replied that he'd ruled out all natural causes, so the only other viable explanation would be another method of murder, like air injected into one of the baby's veins. "A baby collapsing and where resuscitation was unsuccessful—you know, that's consistent with my interpretation of what happened,” he said.

 

 

[jaymo1004]

I have very little to say other than as a Middle Aged almost retirement aged person I truly believe this guilty verdict to be a huge miscarriage of justice. I pray to god she IS truly guilty because if not then this poor woman will never recover from this.. I pray that I don't one day see Lucy Letby exonerated after having spent many years locked up as an innocent person.. I feel she will die in prison for crimes she never committed. That scares me A LOT!! 

[mtmkjr, BSN]

jaymo1004 said:

I have very little to say other than as a Middle Aged almost retirement aged person I truly believe this guilty verdict to be a huge miscarriage of justice. I pray to god she IS truly guilty because if not then this poor woman will never recover from this.. I pray that I don't one day see Lucy Letby exonerated after having spent many years locked up as an innocent person.. I feel she will die in prison for crimes she never committed. That scares me A LOT!! 

Those are my feelings as well

[kp2016]

It seems to me this all started because the senior doctors faced with a steep increase in neonatal deaths got together to review the situation and "find a cause". Instead of finding the fact that the unit was understaff by nurses and doctors, under equipped for the equity of their patients and that the junior doctors were poorly supervised and lacked appropriate support by experienced consultants and this lead to devastating outcomes they chose to ignore all of those factors and blame one nurse. 

The fact that a young single nurse who was saving to buy a house happened to be doing a lot of overtime is hardly unusual. The fact that a relatively young nurse was one of their most experienced nurses and therefore would likely have gotten a disproportionately high number of the units sickest patients is also completely typical to anyone who knows anything about how units especially chronically understaffed ones are managed. 

It also seems likely to me that the mortality rate on the unit went down after the nurse in question was removed because in the same time frame the acuity of the unit was down graded. Their patients were now less sick and therefore less vulnerable to the impacts of the lack of equipment, poor staffing and inadequate supervision by experienced consultants.

On the whole, based on the article the OP posted, I can't find much other information that really contains any facts just emotion and opinions this just seems like a witch hunt. Sad but not really surprising that the towns folk decided that the witch was a nurse. 

[Asadtimefornursing]

I attend Court during the cross examination of One of the Chief consultant accusers evidence and cross examination. He continually contradicted himself. There was no direct evidence of harm. It is even unclear if Lucy was even in the room at the time. Documentation had her doing cares for another child in a different room. The police intelligence had the swipe data was wrong , it was actually the time people entered the unit not left. The nurse in charge of baby K care said alarms were ringing when she entered the room. The consult in police interviews said he could not remember. But had a miraculous moment of clarity during the criminal case that the alarms were not ring. The consultant became quite arrogant and angry during during cross examination, looked like a deer in head lights. Did NOT feel a credible witness, 

The child was born at 24+6 weeks, was dusky and blue at birth needed resuscitation and ventilation. The Junior Doctor mid grade register level had multiple attempts at intubation, placing a tube size 2. The Consultant did not take over the intubation after the first failed attempt.

There was a 94% air leak, on cross examination both Doctors tried to dispute the relevance of the air leak, saying it was inconsequential. The Junior Doctor under cross, said he did not know how the ventilator worked and said to the Deference, ask the manufacture, I did not build it. The Child x-ray had hazy shadowing to the left lung. From what I could see look more than hazy. The Consultant tried to say it it could be surfactant . Well if the shadowing/hazy/white appearance on x-ray was surfactant , then it would appear the ET tube had to have been too far and only ventilating one lung. This child had been re intubated on at lest 3 occasions , each occasion requiring multiple attempts. There was no documentation from the Doctors of blood stained secretions from one of the tubes. They never considered a blocked tube. The Documentation was from Nurse Williams. Again contradictory response from the consultant, instatements he said he never looked at the tube in court he said he glanced. During cross examination by the Defense, Consultant asked if he had caught Miss Letby red handed so to speak why he did not inform the police, used the same old excuse, felt he would not be listen too. But when asked would he have called the police if it was his family member said yes, asked would he have called the police if it was a friends family member said yes. My question why was this baby not important enough to call the police. He thought that Miss Letby was trying to murder this baby, but was happy to leave her on the unit, and even left the unit, supposedly knowing a murder was at large . What is worse he let her work for another 4 months. None of it adds up absolutely known of it.

[kp2016]

https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-trial-new-evidence-guilty-nurse-b2691730.html

https://uk.news.Yahoo.com/lucy-letby-conviction-evidence-case-appeal-experts-173551527.html?

2 high lights from an article published today in the UK and USA. 

Lucy Letby did not murder seven babies at Countess of Chester Hospital, claim experts, who say fresh medical evidence shows natural causes and bad medical care were to blame

Dr Lee said the Countess of Chester would have been shut down if it was in his homeland of Canada. 

[MaxAttack, BSN, RN]

kp2016 said:

https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-trial-new-evidence-guilty-nurse-b2691730.html

https://uk.news.Yahoo.com/lucy-letby-conviction-evidence-case-appeal-experts-173551527.html?

2 high lights from an article published today in the UK and USA. 

Lucy Letby did not murder seven babies at Countess of Chester Hospital, claim experts, who say fresh medical evidence shows natural causes and bad medical care were to blame

Dr Lee said the Countess of Chester would have been shut down if it was in his homeland of Canada. 

The more I read about this case the more I'm convinced she ended up the fall guy and will spend her life in prison because the alternative would've been for a hospital to actually take accountability for poor care. The testimony read more like it came from a script of Grey's Anatomy than from anyone who's actually dealt with critical patients.

Some of the "circumstantial evidence" was just dumb. The judge said she had "morbid records" of her crimes because she kept records and looked up families of the deceased. Or maybe, just maybe, people have different ways of coping with the death of infants while being overworked, undervalued, and unsupported. I've kept certain records and I have printouts of agonal rhythms and aystole. I was present at those deaths. I must've done it by the same logic applied to her case.

Now we have a panel of 14 neonatologists who say wait, there are actual medical reasons for these deaths. Dr Lee was a co-author for a paper that was part of the prosecution's evidence and he's already gone on record saying it was misinterpreted. The more that comes out the more it unravels.

And yet in an article that covers the fact that an international panel of experts reviewed the medical records and couldn't find any evidence of murder, she's still referred to as a child murderer: 

Quote

 

"In July last year, Letby was also convicted at a retrial of attempting to kill a two-hour-old baby girl on the same hospital ward where she murdered her other victims."

https://uk.news.Yahoo.com/lucy-letby-case-evidence-appeal-what-happens-next-154703111.html

 

It's so much easier to sensationalize the idea of a psychotic murderous nurse that was living amongst us than to admit that sometimes hospitals don't live up to standards and patients suffer. Plus, how else are hospitals supposed to keep understaffing and underpaying their staff while giving them minimal tools to work with if the public actually realizes lives are on the line? Sweep it under the rug. If that doesn't work, blame the nurse and move on.

[mtmkjr, BSN]

Quote

 

A panel of experts in the care of newborn babies will present "significant new medical evidence" today in the case of convicted killer Lucy Letby.

Letby, 35, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders for the murder of seven infants and attempted murder of seven others between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

On Tuesday, analysis conducted by a committee of 14 neonatalogists will be revealed at a press conference in central London.

On the panel will be retired medic Dr Shoo Lee, a Canadian neonatologist whose work was cited by the prosecution in the original trial. Dr Lee is expected to tell the press conference that his work was misused by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Tory former minister Sir David Davis, who has campaigned for a retrial for Letby, will chair the panel and the former nurse's barrister, Mark McDonald, will also be present.

Letby lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal but still maintains her innocence.

 

Update - a 2-hour panel convenes to discuss how the evidence that led to her conviction was improperly interpreted. 

Many props to these neonatologist who came forward after dedicating so many hours of their own time looking into each death and coming up with a report that calls everything into question. 

 

[Wuzzie]

I am seriously shocked and massively impressed that these physicians have gone to this length to support Lucy and are working so hard to right what I have come to believe is an egregious wrong.