Heart of darkness: Lucy Letby

[Slick]

I think the majority of people questioning it just want it to be a transparently safe conviction. Something it really doesn't always feel like.

I think you are being quite generous. There is a huge amount of LOOK AT ME going on, even by people that are meant to be experts.

[Margin__Walker]

I think the majority of people questioning it just want it to be a transparently safe conviction. Something it really doesn't always feel like.

I think you are being quite generous. There is a huge amount of LOOK AT ME going on, even by people that are meant to be experts.

That wouldn't by my main takeaway from this. Who in particular?

[Torquemada 1420]

Just more for the "NHS is wonderful" cult.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045pp740vro

You are now in the minority:

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/major-poll ... n-with-nhs

[Blackmac]

Just more for the "NHS is wonderful" cult.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045pp740vro

You are now in the minority:

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/major-poll ... n-with-nhs

FFS, was one thread not enough. Spam a few more.

[Torquemada 1420]

Just more for the "NHS is wonderful" cult.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c045pp740vro

You are now in the minority:

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/major-poll ... n-with-nhs

FFS, was one thread not enough. Spam a few more.

Wind your neck in. This was the last discussion thread I was involved in re the NHS. Had no idea that the weirdly named Starmageddon was where another "the NHS is sh*t" discussion was taking place.

Meantime, good to see The Met being true to form
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyd9g2pnwxo

[Margin__Walker]

This is an absolute shocker re the Baby K conviction.

According to Jayaram’s testimony, when he walked into a room where Letby was alone with Baby K, he discovered that the infant’s oxygen levels had plummeted because her breathing tube had been dislodged, and that the nurse was standing over the baby’s cot without raising the alarm. “Lucy Letby was stood next to the incubator. She wasn’t looking at me. She didn’t have her hands in the incubator,” he told the court at her retrial.

Yet in an email seen by UnHerd, Jayaram initially suggested that, in fact, Letby had called him for help, and this was why he went to see Baby K. This was exculpatory evidence that could have helped Letby’s defence team, yet her lawyers were not told of its existence before either trial. It was not disclosed to them until late September last year.

.....

On several further occasions, Jayaram repeated the claim that no one had warned him there was a problem before he entered Baby K’s room: in statements to police, in his courtroom evidence at Letby’s trials, and at the public inquiry chaired by Lady Justice Thirlwall, whose report is expected later this year. In one statement in 2018, he said that usually, when a baby’s oxygen level fell, a nurse would “come looking for a doctor to assist”, but Letby “had not called me in”.

.....

Jayaram’s email was not disclosed to the defence before Letby’s trials. In other documents seen by UnHerd, Cheshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service state that they only became aware of it in August 2024 — one month after Letby had been convicted of attempting to murder Baby K.

However, the documents say it was supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry, but it was not discussed there nor published on its website. We asked the Inquiry whether it received the email before or after Letby’s retrial, but it refused to comment.

It was not until late September that Letby’s former defence team was finally sent the email by Operation Duet, the police inquiry into possible corporate or gross negligence manslaughter at the Chester hospital unit. We understand it will now be added to the dossier submitted by Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is being asked to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/hidden-emai ... y-verdict/

[Enzedder]

Lots of little chinks developing in this whole circumstantial castle.

[dpedin]

I know I keep repeating myself on this thread but there should have been no way on earth that this number of unexplained incidents and deaths of neonates should have gone on without a serious and rapid external review by Royal College and/or external independent clinical experts. Letby may be or may not be guilty but there appears to have been a complete collapse in the internal audit processes and clinical audit by senior clinicians. It should never have happened even if it was only Letby killing babies. The more I read about this the more I suspect the clinicians in the unit and those Clinical Directors and Executives they reported to have been very, very negligent and are trying to cover up their failings which might be about allowing Letby to continue to work or may be about their poor clinical performance and possible negligence? Letby seems to have become a very convenient scapegoat for a very badly run and obviously dangerous neonatal unit that led directly to the avoidable deaths of a number of neonates.

[Uncle fester]

This is an absolute shocker re the Baby K conviction.

According to Jayaram’s testimony, when he walked into a room where Letby was alone with Baby K, he discovered that the infant’s oxygen levels had plummeted because her breathing tube had been dislodged, and that the nurse was standing over the baby’s cot without raising the alarm. “Lucy Letby was stood next to the incubator. She wasn’t looking at me. She didn’t have her hands in the incubator,” he told the court at her retrial.

Yet in an email seen by UnHerd, Jayaram initially suggested that, in fact, Letby had called him for help, and this was why he went to see Baby K. This was exculpatory evidence that could have helped Letby’s defence team, yet her lawyers were not told of its existence before either trial. It was not disclosed to them until late September last year.

.....

On several further occasions, Jayaram repeated the claim that no one had warned him there was a problem before he entered Baby K’s room: in statements to police, in his courtroom evidence at Letby’s trials, and at the public inquiry chaired by Lady Justice Thirlwall, whose report is expected later this year. In one statement in 2018, he said that usually, when a baby’s oxygen level fell, a nurse would “come looking for a doctor to assist”, but Letby “had not called me in”.

.....

Jayaram’s email was not disclosed to the defence before Letby’s trials. In other documents seen by UnHerd, Cheshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service state that they only became aware of it in August 2024 — one month after Letby had been convicted of attempting to murder Baby K.

However, the documents say it was supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry, but it was not discussed there nor published on its website. We asked the Inquiry whether it received the email before or after Letby’s retrial, but it refused to comment.

It was not until late September that Letby’s former defence team was finally sent the email by Operation Duet, the police inquiry into possible corporate or gross negligence manslaughter at the Chester hospital unit. We understand it will now be added to the dossier submitted by Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is being asked to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/hidden-emai ... y-verdict/

Hmm that is a bit troubling. Isolated incident or part of a pattern?

[Margin__Walker]

Yeah, he was notably criticised in the court of appeal judgement. Seemed to forget that he'd caught Letby 'virtually red handed' until a long time after the event.

“Legitimate criticism can be made of his evidence… although he believed that Letby had deliberately dislodged the endotracheal tube, he said nothing about it at the time, nor for many months thereafter. There was an inconsistency between his evidence and the contemporaneous records.”

Baby K was almost the most baffling conviction. Needed the second trial so her already being judged to be a serial killer could tip the evidential scale as there is nothing really in the way of actual evidence other than Jayaram's testimony.

Edit - And even his revised recollection only had Letby hovering over an incubator during a desat. I spent a long time in a neonatal ICU a few years ago and that would happen all the time whilst nurses saw whether it was a brady that would self correct.

[Uncle fester]

Until they come up with a better explanation for the insulin, those particular babies were definitely poisoned.

[Margin__Walker]

Until they come up with a better explanation for the insulin, those particular babies were definitely poisoned.

Plenty of expert push back on the strength of the insulin evidence.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... xperts-say