Lucy Letby (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

I have decided, now I have stopped posting on Medium, to start importing selected stories from there to here. I may start a new thread in the appropriate section for this or just add them to existing ones. Since many of them started life here there may be a fair amount of duplication. They can be replied to or added to in the normal way. Or you can object to being second-hand roses if you wish.
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Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy?
Sep 6, 2023

Most of us are unfamiliar with the intricacies of statistics and this can lead to errors when unmasking serial killers. For example, if profiling has been used when seeking out a serial killer living among a population of a million non-serial killers, it is perfectly possible for a single person to be identified who meets all the criteria. Does this mean that person is the serial killer? Of course not, and no court would convict him (serial killers are overwhelmingly male) on such evidence.

However, police are people too. They may draw the understandable conclusion they have found their man and set about piecing together the evidence that will convict him in court. This in turn is a fraught procedure because evidence can be twisted (quite properly, we are not dealing here with so-called ‘noble-cause corruption’) to read one way when really it should be read another. When someone in court utters the fateful words — and someone always does — “It’s a million to one, the accused did the crime,” the accused is likely to be going away for a very long time.

Mostly this is right and proper. Sometimes it isn’t. In the Letby case there was a further difficulty: were there any crimes committed at all?

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Two

She would say that, wouldn’t she? Though to be fair, a lot of people have been saying a lot worse about a whole host of National Health hospitals.

Lucy Letby worked in the neonatal unit of The Countess of Chester hospital from 2009 until 2016. A neonatal unit is where babies that are premature or otherwise not routine births are cared for — the Countess of Chester’s treated some four hundred babies in an average year. It is sure to have a higher mortality rate than an ordinary maternity ward, though still not high

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Three

When dealing with such small numbers it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say whether such variations are normal or abnormal. For instance, it could be argued that the 2015 figure was skewed by the death of two triplets, the event that first triggered the investigation of Letby. In hospitals people are dying all the time, mortality spikes are happening all the time, serial killers are responsible almost none of the time.

When doctors and hospital administrators are faced with spikes they do not say — and nor should they say — “Oh, it’s our turn to have a spike.” They investigate. Oftentimes the spike is put down to normal variation, less often it is found there is a shortcoming that needs addressing. The real mischief comes with: “Is it a serial killer? If so, who is in the frame?”

In hospitals these can be difficult questions to answer. Even in the close confines of a neonatal unit the number of people that have access is extensive. Notably, every nurse in the unit. The pattern of shifts and rotas in an NHS hospital mean every one of its neonatal nurses will likely be caring for all babies at one time or another. The number comes down rapidly should investigators start going through one particular nurse’s attendance records, looking for any suspicious deaths, and discovering all of them occurred to babies under her care at one time or another.

Now it was just a question of gathering the evidence.

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Four

The problem was there was no evidence.

Every baby had been signed off as dying from natural causes, after a rigorous examination but no postmortem. The precise cause of death recorded at the time were ones that affect babies in neonatal units. The prosecution turned this to their advantage by listing the ways Letby could have killed the seven babies without leaving a trace, creating the unfortunate impression that that is how she did it.

The real evidence, the evidence that convicted a serial killer, was the material found in Letby’s home. She was that rare kind of serial killer, the one who keeps all the evidence of their crimes in loving detail. Not as trophies but as post-it notes and text messages.

Perhaps we are all just an examination of our messaging habits away from prosecution. If you are on holiday, for instance, confine yourself to sending ‘wish you were here’ postcards to work colleagues. Do not send a text such as

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Five

Never take work home.

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Six

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Seven

The police began to examine in detail the deaths of seventeen babies and the non-fatal collapses of sixteen more, some of whom had been left with life-changing injuries. They were the cases the doctors had selected from Letby’s workload.

We assume that for most problems there are experts ‘out there’ to solve them, which there usually is and which they normally do. But experts come with caveats. They have a tendency to

* treat problems in terms of their own expertise
* confirm conclusions known to have been arrived at by colleagues
* resist being judged by experts from other fields of expertise

Which is only to say that experts are human. Nevertheless it is worth bearing these things in mind as we watch the investigation unfold

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Eight

In Britain infant deaths are mercifully few, so experts are also few and, it would be fair to say, expertise is not extensive. But it was enough. The die was cast, in all probability a serial killer was at work. The task now was to identify him or her.

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Nine

It is not contested that Letby was suspected, investigated, tried and convicted largely on what might be called ‘guilt by association’. Here’s a question you might care to ponder: Which nurse in the Countess of Chester hospital was associated with most cases of newborn babies developing serious or fatal conditions in the period 2012–16?

[Brian Ambrose]

I’ve always been suspicious about the conviction, even when I knew hardly anything about the case. Now, if there’s a retrial, I believe Lucy will go free, and the real guilty will also go free.

[Mick Harper]

A timeline would be useful. Everyone believes she is innocent now.

There cannot be a retrial for many reasons, one of which being the possibility she will be convicted all over again. What The Law is trying to work out is how to set her free with the least harm being done (apart from to Lucy Letby). They may have a formal retrial lasting five minutes when the judge instructs the jury to bring in a verdict of Not Guilty on all charges and the jury does.

Who do you mean by the 'real guilty'?

[Mick Harper]

Lucy Letby: Baby-Killer or Patsy? Part Ten

[Mick Harper]

That does it for the trial. I'll be posting up some more Letby Medium stories starting tomorrow.

After putting this one up back in September 2023, I did a Medium search and got many hits but they were all expressions of outrage aimed at Letby. There were two considerations: 1. Medium is mostly US-based and Letby was UK-based and 2. Being nasty to women is verboten under Medium-think.

I googled lucy, letby, innocent and variations and all I could find was a slightly fruitcake-sounding operation in California. I got in touch and it turned out they were quite a serious bunch, headed by a US woman lawyer who was in trouble with the UK authorities for transgressing various British conventions about what she could and could not put on the internet. After an inordinately protracted exchange between me and them, the Medium piece was put, badly edited, on their blog and it led to some lively exchanges.

That was it as far as me and Lucy Letby was concerned until May 2024 when the New Yorker cracked the case wide open. Though by then (I think) Private Eye was trying its parochial best to drum up interest.

[Mick Harper]

Just to complete this part of the tail, here are the responses I got on Medium for the original story. They are not of great interest except to show how, over time, sentiment changed

Sep 6, 2023

John Welford
If this was a miscarriage of justice, would Letby not have launched an immediate appeal? Circumstantial evidence can be extremely strong and compelling, as seems to be the case here.

Mick Harper
Surely she would appeal, innocent or guilty? I knew nothing (consciously) of the case until Channel 4 News devoted half an hour to the verdict, and somebody on our website expressed misgivings about it. We do specialise a bit in these periodic fits of popular outrage. They generally lead to quite extravagant error. Remember Middlesbrough? Remember Satanic abuse?

I had hoped that I showed 'circumstantial evidence' was being misused in this case but clearly you didn't think so.

John Welford
What matters - as Horace Rumpole consistently pointed out - is what the jury members are persuaded by. In this case, they had doubts about some of the deaths, but not others.

Mick Harper
I guess they must have been done by someone else.

John Welford
Not necessarily. Some of the deaths might indeed have been down to natural causes, but there was no way of proving this. A guilty verdict is only justifiable if - in the view of the jury - the evidence takes the matter "beyond reasonable doubt".

Mick Harper
So the prosecutory authorities threw the lot at her and let the jury sort it out. Yes, I suppose that would do the job.
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Sep 23, 2023

Liam Ireland
"Every baby had been signed off as dying from natural causes."
Sorry Mick, wrong. Some babies were found to have high levels of injected rather than naturally produced insulin. That was enough to cause the babies to have a heart attack and die. Other babies were found to have had air introduced into their blood stream. You need to go back and re-read the evidence.

Argumentative Penguin
I'll reiterate what Liam said - there was a chemical trace of injected (rather than natural) insulin found during post-mortem. That's the smoking gun. At that point, the question necessarily moves from why did these babies die, to 'how' did these babies die - and the answer, statistically speaking was Lucy Letby. A post-it note may not have helped her case, but it certainly wasn't what put her behind bars.
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Jun 25, 2024

Harold De Gauche
The stats, as you point out, raised the alarm, and spikes should be investigated, as you also point out. Nothing untoward at this point. Once they realised, as others have pointed out, that something unnatural had been injected into the babies, then they knew there was a killer.

The who was then whittled down to who was always on duty when they died and were injured. That's Lucy I suppose. Then all the evidence in her room makes it pretty unlikely it was someone else. I'm not overly familiar with the case but that would be my assessment from what I've read here. Appreciate the analysis and you make a lot of solid points.

Mick Harper
There was no direct evidence that anything unnatural was injected into the babies. If there was, I for one would have taken no further interest.

By coincidence Letby is on trial right now for an attempted murder that resulted in a hung jury. at the original trial. The chief evidence appears to be from one of her original accusers, Ravi Jayaram, who testified that Letby was 'standing over the patient doing nothing' while the baby was 'deteriorating'. Letby, who is currently in the witness box, simply says she remembers nothing of such an incident. That should be enough. Guilty as originally charged.

The fact that such pointless proceedings have been brought tells us all we need to know about British prosecutional machinery. Its previous head, Sir Keir Starmer, is soon to be our Prime Minister so I don't think Ms Letby can look to that quarter for salvation.

Harold De Gauche
Okay, so what the other commenters were saying has never been proved?

Mick Harper
Absolutely not. There's a ton of literature on the subject.

Harold De Gauche
Okay, will read up more on the case.
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Oct 22, 2024

Susie K
According to something I saw on one of the documentaries about it recently, the air might have been introduced by resuscitation attempts, and the insulin could have been caused by an insulin disorder, which one baby was confirmed to have had. Although the experts seemed to have different opinions on whether the level of insulin could be caused by the disorder. This is the problem. Experts can't all agree either.

Liam Ireland
Naturally produced insulin is not the same as the injected type, it was the injected type they found.
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October 23, 2024

Susie K
"The judge refused permission (as he did with other defence 'experts')."
I didn't know the judge had refused to allow defence experts. Do you know why? I assume he thought they weren't credible.

Mick Harper
Strangely enough I'm not an expert on the case! As I understand it there was almost no refutation of the prosecution expert evidence which (therefore) had to be accepted more or less in toto. There is no question
(1) the defence decided not to call some of theirs--for reasons still unexplained
(2) the judge disallowed some of them--especially (I think) statisticians
(3) there was a shortage of experts prepared to dispute the findings of colleagues--a known minefield in medical cases.

But there are lots of questions about how expert testimony is treated in British courts. This is the real nub of the Letby case, not the fate of a single individual, whether guilty or innocent.

Susie K
I have a low opinion on medical experts and can absolutely believe that some of the experts didn't know what they were talking about. Or had a narrow view of things that failed to take into account all the facts and possibilities.

[Brian Ambrose]

No timeline - as soon as I heard of the conviction and the details of what she had supposedly had done, I thought something was a bit off.