[Crimson Dynamo]

Peter Hitchens has been on this from the start saying its a travesty of justice

he has been somewhat of a lone voice

[user104658]

The whole case is a mess and even more of a mess if you start delving into healthcare politics, particularly the culture of doctors blaming other staff to avoid criticism, or outright punitively.

I think there's a decent chance that not only did Letby not murder those children, it's likely that no one did, and they died because of systemic issues and medical negligence. She was whistleblowing about various consultants being lazy, hardly ever turning up in person to do the checks they should have been doing, under-resourcing, under-staffing, babies were dying unnecessarily. The doctors openly disliked her for "kicking up fuss" and then all of a sudden she's being charged with murder. If it turns out to be anything resembling that, the implications are massive.

I in fact don't even think they intended to frame her for murder - I think they started saying "She's always on shift when things go wrong" (which has been since shown to not even be true) in the hopes that she'd be investigated as dangerously incompetent and struck off the nursing register because they wanted rid of her. But then authorities started sniffing around it questioning if it was intentional - and in fear for their own jobs, they doubled-down and started presenting things in a way that would make sure the gaze stayed on her.

It was a jury trial and so the opinions of both judge and jury were informed mostly by expert opinion and circumstantial evidence, not hard evidence... and the expert opinions were fudged from the start - in some cases have now been all but proven to be inaccurate or plainly wrong.

My genuine belief is that this or something close to this is what has happened here and really all it comes down to now is whether or not it will blow wide open, or be rapidly swept under the rug because of the massive political implications.

[AnnieK]

This is awful if it does end up being a miscarriage of justice. For her having been locked up for it and also for the families of the babies who died, they thought they had a little bit of justice for the loss of their children and been through harrowing court cases and all for what? It will be a very dark day if it's all been for nothing

[Oliver_W]

Her defence was woeful, I think she deserves a re-trial for that alone.

[Cherie]

The compensation for the medical negligence alone would be huge, never mind a miscarriage of justice if that is what we are looking at

[arista]

[arista]

[arista]

[arista]

[Ammi]

…I mean it would just spark a new word for dreadful if there were no babies killed at all and this was an horrific miscarriage of justice…/…and also if this was all purposefully done as well to cover so many inadequacies and fault with the hospital/to save the facility from being closed down or whatever…was fault and blame deliberately pointed toward Lucy Letby….why were such important and key things misrepresented in court in the first place….and because of the nature of what was presented as her crime, how can that ever be set right again as there inevitably now be many who will never believe her innocence if innocence was what we were looking at as a fact…the headlines above say it all, really…one still has ‘baby killer’ used in the title and another is saying that one of the parents is outraged at the thought of her going free because those parents will have all sat in court and listened to the evidence that Lucy Letby killed their babies…that can’t ever be taken back or erased…that will be the belief of many forever….it just defies words really, doesn’t it…a life label has been placed on her that many always will believe ….

[bots]

if it's found that she was indeed a whistleblower and the nhs/prosecution colluded to blame her and send her to jail for whole life, it could be the biggest conspiracy that has ever been uncovered

At the very least it's going to get a detailed review now, so thats at least good

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Her defence was woeful, I think she deserves a re-trial for that alone.

Yeah I remember thinking that her defence was very weak in the trial whereas the prosecution case seemed much stronger even though it was all circumstantial

[Crimson Dynamo]

"Never before in British legal history has such a highly respected group of medical experts
come together to challenge the evidence against a convicted serial killer"

DT

[Alf]

So she was a Patsy?

[Livia]

I think that after a trial by jury and a subsequent appeal where she was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, we should hold fire on now presuming her not guilty on the evidence of a group of doctors after the fact, led by one retired doctor from Canada. For the sake of the bereaved families who don't seem to have the benefit of celebrity supporters or sensational headlines, I think we should all wait for more information.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

I think that after a trial by jury and a subsequent appeal where she was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, we should hold fire on now presuming her not guilty on the evidence of a group of doctors after the fact, led by one retired doctor from Canada. For the sake of the bereaved families who don't seem to have the benefit of celebrity supporters or sensational headlines, I think we should all wait for more information.

The thing is though, a paper written by one of the group of medical experts challenging this was used by the prosecution to secure the conviction. The person who wrote the paper they used AS evidence is saying that the findings of the paper were deliberately misrepresented in court.

There is a lot of available information about this and there has been since before she was even convicted. Extremely high levels of skepticism in the healthcare community, at all levels, and very plausible reasons for why it would have happened.

If these babies were dying not by deliberate acts, but because of medical failings, those failings fall upon the consultants. Who have high earnings, and reputations to protect, and would probably lose their careers.

Do I believe those people would, instead, blame one nurse? I absolutely do - especially if their original intent was to frame it as incompetence not murder. Once that ball was rolling they had even more reason to keep rolling with it, as at that point they'd have been facing criminal charges.

Yes the courts and jury convicted - but the evidence they were presented came FROM those consultants. What those parents have been told and believe about what happened, came from the same people. SEVERAL other medical professionals - unbiased ones, who don't have any reason to be anything Hut objective - have cast doubt on what those doctors (whose reputations were on the line if it was found to simply be deaths from a failing system) have said about it.

[Livia]

You would think that her defence lawyers would have thought of all that...

[bots]

i don't know what other evidence there was that led to her conviction, so I agree with Livia, we should be careful about drawing conclusions from what could, relatively, be a small contributor to the evidence.

I don't think there is any harm in reviewing all that was presented at the original trial, that can only be a good thing

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

You would think that her defence lawyers would have thought of all that...

Plenty of this has been raised since before conviction; not having followed it doesn't mean it didn't happen. If you're trying to make an argument that any justice system (let alone our current justice system) is infallible... it's just not a viable stance. Human systems are flawed; the only hope is ever "as good as possible" not "perfect".

And ours isn't even close to being as good as possible.

[arista]