As the retrial of Lucy Letby on one of the ‘no verdicts’, Baby K, gets underway in Manchester, NHS Insider writes about their concerns about Lady Thirwall’s decision not to livestream the public inquiry
Mephitis….you ask is there is a serious problem…..YES THERE IS!
The problem is that the charges against Lucy Letby were dreamed up by certain colleagues at The Counter of Chester hospital and some fake ‘experts’ who worked out some fake statistics to feed to the police. It’s amazing what you can do with numbers if you think of an end result and then pick the pieces you need to prove the point. This is exactly what happened here and then the lie was sold to the gullible Constabulary.
Top that with fantasy diagnoses from ‘expert witnesses’ who came up with ridiculous and medically unsubstantiated evidence and mix that in with what appears to have been a totally inadequate defence team and then you have Lucy Letby convicted.
Of course any doctor who cares to study the real details of this case will see in moments that this is 101 Fraud and we as a profession should be holding our heads in shame for staying silent. But no longer,it is time to out the real guilty parties in this tragedy and to hold them to account.
It is time stop the prosecution and the persecution of this nurse whose only mistake was to go and work at the Counter of Chester hospital. She was trying to do her best in what was a chaotic cesspit. This is too a tragedy for the parents of babies harmed as they have been sold a lie as to what happened and unless it is stopped the Thirwell enquiry is going to be starting an investigation into something that never happened, that is Lucy Letby killed nobody but the medical and corporate establishment did.
The statistics, the insulin fairytale, the fantasy diagnoses will soon be outed and those in the media licking their lips at the thought of making money out of dramatising this tragedy will soon be having to re-write their tawdry scripts.
In 2021, 90 eminent scientists signed a petition requesting a pardon and the immediate release of Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian mother wrongly accused of murdering her four children and sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2003. The petition was instrumental in her subsequent exoneration and release.
I am hoping that today’s article in Mephitis and Rachel Aviv’s in the New Yorker magazine three weeks ago will galvanise support for Lucy ‘s cause and spur medical experts and doctors (whether retired, practising or junior), statisticians, mathematicians and other scientists into joining forces to denounce the pseudo science which led to the gravest miscarriage of justice in British history, the wrongful conviction of a young nurse whose only crime was to care too much, to work her socks off and report malpractice even when displayed by senior consultants, proving the saying ‘ no good deed goes unpunished ‘.
Absolutely true. I don’t know how they are all getting away with this. Poor defenceless LL, no friends in high places, no top legal team. A lamb to the slaughter. But I know the truth will out eventually. Look at the Post Office scandal. God help LL meantime
Absolutely there is a problem.
A problem in Cheshire (but not limited to) for sure.
First issue – Countess Hospital
I visited A&E with my son with a head injury and was appalled and quite worried at the staffing, procedure and treatment, my son was treated by a un supervised junior who i spotted on a pc googling when I went to the toilet whilst my son had been left to wait for hours to be seen.
There was a distinct lack of any authority figure on watch and a distinct lack of staff, polar opposites to any other A&e I’ve attended. This hospital is not spoken about very highly amongst locals. We left the hospital at that point with little confidence in their ability to treat my son.
Then there is social and networking behaviours that I feel play a huge part in this area of the UK. Everyone knows everyone here. It’s a very ‘who knows who’ society to live in dominated by the old money and huge landowners and well connected families that live here and a trickle down effect to the those that aspire to be and those that just are part of the fold.
If you are not from here you are an outsider and people gossip more on assumptions made not on any basis of fact. In the same way that Lucy was talked about that she was different and how gossip and different then makes her a possible criminal.
If there was a place where network and connections in society play a part, Chester is it.
Then there is policing procedures. In an area where the policing is more kids burning wheelie bins than serious crime they are lacking in experienced officers. They arrested Lucy and did not have any evidence to charge her but then later rearrested her. In between one arrest and the other they looked for evidence to pin her to the crime, sought statements from people that already thought because they were told she was guilty of a crime having already been arrested and were probably too scared or connected in one way or any other to say otherwise.
I’ve had experience when writing a statement (for a totally unrelated crime) submitted it to CP only for another version be emailed to me for me to sign – one which fitted their story better.
This is not how the law should work. Police shouldn’t be writing statements so they fit their narrative.
The basis on which their investigation methods is and was carried out was flawed from the get go.
How do you go about proving any of this in a court of law.? Where everyone before you is singing off the same song sheet. When there is such a winding web of complexities for peoples steadfast belief in the lie than getting to the real reason why any deaths occurred.
The system is broken.
This article is as clear, powerful, and compelling as Rachel Aviv’s. It is a must-read as the retrial in relation to Baby K (Travesty of Justice: Take Two?) is about to start next week.
While the outcome of the retrial will not impact on Lucy’s sentence since she has already received 14 life orders, what it might do, if found guilty, is reduce or delay further her chances of getting her appeal heard by the not fit for purpose CRCC. In my mind, the retrial has no other purpose than to vindicate the prosecution and the Judge and put an end to the increasingly loud and clear claims of miscarriage of justice. A guilty verdict would also vindicate the celebrity doctor whose evidence, central to the case of Baby K, was rejected by the jury, and enable him to pursue his career in show business…
Therefore, I think we should brace ourselves for more dirty tricks from the prosecution. As always, though, I would love to be proven wrong…
We had ‘ Why did they ask Evans?’ and ‘Three Act Tragedy ‘. Whether the Thirwall inquiry in the autumn will turn out to be ‘Cards on the Table ‘remains to be seen.
I find it incredible and very concerning, that whilst the Media are not only dedicating entire programmes to the recent miscarriages of justice, they are constantly reporting upon the terrible failings of the hospitals and the NHS system, and yet they seem incapable of registering the fact that these same circumstances can be related to what has happened in the COCH.
Instead they are intent upon pushing the sensationalist narrative which appears to have been scripted straight out of a fictional psychological thriller. Unfortunately people are so easily led by the Media that often they cannot differentiate fact from fiction.
The flaws in the evidence are so glaringly obvious to anyone who has the ability to think for themselves. Questions need to be asked as to why it is that these flaws have not been permitted to be discussed and challenged, yet the sensationalist serial killer narrative has been permitted to be promoted incessantly before, during and after the trial. Could it be that the Media is also complicit in this stitch-up?
With so many stakes at risk if this narrative fails, I would not be surprised to find some “surprise new evidence” being put forward at the trial next week!
I don’t think we can rely on there being no dirty business next week in fact I expect to see more outrageous bullying of Lucy by that peacock Johnson .The truth about this case will bring down swathes of the doctors, hospital management, the pseudo ‘medical expert’s, the police and the whole mechanics of the judicial system which is clearly more interested in preserving the status quo than reforming itself. Whatever happens next, the truth will out, even if it takes a little time.
It will not only be Johnson involved in bullying. My perception of the Judge tells me that he will relish having another opportunity to deliver a tirade at Lucy after she had the courage to refuse to be present to listen to his last one.
I am interested in the way in which the retrial will be conducted, assuming that Ben Myers will still be acting for the defence.
I saw, from a report yesterday in the Chester Standard, that a group of 43 potential jurors were asked to return to court this afternoon but told by the Judge not to try to individually research the case as this could amount to contempt of court and possible imprisonment.
It seems to me highly improbable that any chosen juror will enter the court with a completely open mind
but I do wonder if Ben Myers will make the the same argument of unproven assumption of guilt or if he will try to bring in evidence of flaws in the evidence used in the original trial ( and new evidence not previously examined ). I suspect that there would be objections to this by the prosecution but, as this is a completely new trial, and all the arguments will presumably have to be put forward again, should it not be possible to argue that mistakes should not be overlooked in the pursuit of justice.
It would be very interesting to get the view of a legal expert on this.My attempts at googling did produce something of interest – on gov.uk – Retrial of Serious offences
Sch 78(2) – I will not try to quote word for word but it relates to new evidence previously not admitted or withheld for tactical reasons but now possibly allowable.( It should be noted that this seems to relate to retrials requested by defence not prosecution).
It’s incorrect to say that dextrose in a feedbag laced with insulin would neutralise the insulin and act as an “antidote”. Insulin has a narrow therapeutic range. Glucagon would be an antidote. Dextrose if given unwittingly with even more insulin from the same feedbag that caused the overdose would not.
Sounds like you know what you are talking about but this is from someone who also knows what they are talking about: “This is correct. But irrelevant. Insulin drives the absorption of glucose / dextrose if you like – from the blood into cells. So if you are short of glucose – because, due to high insulin, it is being absorbed by cells, adding more dextrose to the blood will top up the glucose levels in the blood. The absorption rate of glucose into cells is a function of the insulin concentration and the glucose concentration. If the insulin is high, the absorption rate (rate – not amount!) will drive upwards and the glucose concentration in blood will drive downwards. Since adding dextrose also increases the glucose concentration, this also drives the absorption rate upwards. There is always an equilibrium state resulting from all the reactions balancing out – however it is never a steady equilibrium state unless the person has been fasting – it is a constantly moving equilibrium state.”
So relying on Journalists for our an objective account of the trial proceedings will serve the purpose of open justice? Here’s a snippet from a report of the 2023 trial by Judith Moritz of the BBC: “Very rarely, as she was brought in and out, she’d look up and catch my eye, but just as quickly, she’d look away again. I tried to look into her soul. I drew a blank.”
So then, we can make a note that Lucy had no soul. Magical gobbledegook.
I think it’s fair to say that Judith Moritz is to journalism what Dewi Evans is to medical witness expertise. She seems incapable of seeing past the end of her powdered nose, as evidenced in the Panorama programme.
I am on holiday in the most beautiful of places with my family, however I can not forget or turn my back on Lucy Letby and what I perceived as the most hideous miscarriage of justice in my lifetime. It keeps me awake at night because I am utterly convinced that an innocent nurse is in prison and I feel powerless to help her. Today, looking at the sketch of her in court broke my heart. It is inconceivable to think of her suffering. I don’t know her but I can not rest until justice comes and I see her vindication.
Georgina – there are many of us who feel just as you do! When I first took note of the case when she was found guilty, I could see the flaws in the evidence straight away. It horrified me so much that I felt it was up to me to try to tell everyone that it was all wrong and there had been a huge miscarriage of justice which needed to be resolved. Then I found to my relief that there were others who thought as I did.
We must keep raising awareness of the issue as the media will only cherry pick what they report from the trial and continue to portray her as guilty.
‘Former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby’s conviction over the murder of seven babies is an ‘important piece of the evidence’ when deciding if she tried to kill another infant, a jury has been told.’
In other words, give a dog a bad name and hang it. Surely this goes against every principle of a fair trial.
From the live reporting of the trial – Johnson said “Ultimately this case may come down to a single issue. Do you believe what Dr Jayaram says he saw? Are you sure, will you be sure, that he is telling the truth about what he saw.’
So if they find her innocent of this allegation, will he be done for Perjury?
I don’t think the prosecution will have thought thus far- so convinced are they that the doctor turned celebrity turned whistleblower,with his 26k Facebook followers, is no match for the evil little nurse convicted of seven murders and sentenced to 14 whole life orders. I look forward to seeing him fall on his sword.
I am with you on this.
How much will be uncovered ref the public enquiry into natal hospitals?
More cover ups I suspect..
We need an “Alan Bates”
I imagine that’s rather the point of putting Lucy in prison – so that she can’t be a Bates.
I always look forward to your posts as they offer an alternative view, rather than the same regurgitated nonsense that the media seem to prefer.
Mephitis….you ask is there is a serious problem…..YES THERE IS!
The problem is that the charges against Lucy Letby were dreamed up by certain colleagues at The Counter of Chester hospital and some fake ‘experts’ who worked out some fake statistics to feed to the police. It’s amazing what you can do with numbers if you think of an end result and then pick the pieces you need to prove the point. This is exactly what happened here and then the lie was sold to the gullible Constabulary.
Top that with fantasy diagnoses from ‘expert witnesses’ who came up with ridiculous and medically unsubstantiated evidence and mix that in with what appears to have been a totally inadequate defence team and then you have Lucy Letby convicted.
Of course any doctor who cares to study the real details of this case will see in moments that this is 101 Fraud and we as a profession should be holding our heads in shame for staying silent. But no longer,it is time to out the real guilty parties in this tragedy and to hold them to account.
It is time stop the prosecution and the persecution of this nurse whose only mistake was to go and work at the Counter of Chester hospital. She was trying to do her best in what was a chaotic cesspit. This is too a tragedy for the parents of babies harmed as they have been sold a lie as to what happened and unless it is stopped the Thirwell enquiry is going to be starting an investigation into something that never happened, that is Lucy Letby killed nobody but the medical and corporate establishment did.
The statistics, the insulin fairytale, the fantasy diagnoses will soon be outed and those in the media licking their lips at the thought of making money out of dramatising this tragedy will soon be having to re-write their tawdry scripts.
In 2021, 90 eminent scientists signed a petition requesting a pardon and the immediate release of Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian mother wrongly accused of murdering her four children and sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2003. The petition was instrumental in her subsequent exoneration and release.
I am hoping that today’s article in Mephitis and Rachel Aviv’s in the New Yorker magazine three weeks ago will galvanise support for Lucy ‘s cause and spur medical experts and doctors (whether retired, practising or junior), statisticians, mathematicians and other scientists into joining forces to denounce the pseudo science which led to the gravest miscarriage of justice in British history, the wrongful conviction of a young nurse whose only crime was to care too much, to work her socks off and report malpractice even when displayed by senior consultants, proving the saying ‘ no good deed goes unpunished ‘.
Absolutely true. I don’t know how they are all getting away with this. Poor defenceless LL, no friends in high places, no top legal team. A lamb to the slaughter. But I know the truth will out eventually. Look at the Post Office scandal. God help LL meantime
Absolutely there is a problem.
A problem in Cheshire (but not limited to) for sure.
First issue – Countess Hospital
I visited A&E with my son with a head injury and was appalled and quite worried at the staffing, procedure and treatment, my son was treated by a un supervised junior who i spotted on a pc googling when I went to the toilet whilst my son had been left to wait for hours to be seen.
There was a distinct lack of any authority figure on watch and a distinct lack of staff, polar opposites to any other A&e I’ve attended. This hospital is not spoken about very highly amongst locals. We left the hospital at that point with little confidence in their ability to treat my son.
Then there is social and networking behaviours that I feel play a huge part in this area of the UK. Everyone knows everyone here. It’s a very ‘who knows who’ society to live in dominated by the old money and huge landowners and well connected families that live here and a trickle down effect to the those that aspire to be and those that just are part of the fold.
If you are not from here you are an outsider and people gossip more on assumptions made not on any basis of fact. In the same way that Lucy was talked about that she was different and how gossip and different then makes her a possible criminal.
If there was a place where network and connections in society play a part, Chester is it.
Then there is policing procedures. In an area where the policing is more kids burning wheelie bins than serious crime they are lacking in experienced officers. They arrested Lucy and did not have any evidence to charge her but then later rearrested her. In between one arrest and the other they looked for evidence to pin her to the crime, sought statements from people that already thought because they were told she was guilty of a crime having already been arrested and were probably too scared or connected in one way or any other to say otherwise.
I’ve had experience when writing a statement (for a totally unrelated crime) submitted it to CP only for another version be emailed to me for me to sign – one which fitted their story better.
This is not how the law should work. Police shouldn’t be writing statements so they fit their narrative.
The basis on which their investigation methods is and was carried out was flawed from the get go.
How do you go about proving any of this in a court of law.? Where everyone before you is singing off the same song sheet. When there is such a winding web of complexities for peoples steadfast belief in the lie than getting to the real reason why any deaths occurred.
The system is broken.
This article is as clear, powerful, and compelling as Rachel Aviv’s. It is a must-read as the retrial in relation to Baby K (Travesty of Justice: Take Two?) is about to start next week.
While the outcome of the retrial will not impact on Lucy’s sentence since she has already received 14 life orders, what it might do, if found guilty, is reduce or delay further her chances of getting her appeal heard by the not fit for purpose CRCC. In my mind, the retrial has no other purpose than to vindicate the prosecution and the Judge and put an end to the increasingly loud and clear claims of miscarriage of justice. A guilty verdict would also vindicate the celebrity doctor whose evidence, central to the case of Baby K, was rejected by the jury, and enable him to pursue his career in show business…
Therefore, I think we should brace ourselves for more dirty tricks from the prosecution. As always, though, I would love to be proven wrong…
We had ‘ Why did they ask Evans?’ and ‘Three Act Tragedy ‘. Whether the Thirwall inquiry in the autumn will turn out to be ‘Cards on the Table ‘remains to be seen.
What are Lucy’s options from here? Poor lady, how she and her family are suffering…
I find it incredible and very concerning, that whilst the Media are not only dedicating entire programmes to the recent miscarriages of justice, they are constantly reporting upon the terrible failings of the hospitals and the NHS system, and yet they seem incapable of registering the fact that these same circumstances can be related to what has happened in the COCH.
Instead they are intent upon pushing the sensationalist narrative which appears to have been scripted straight out of a fictional psychological thriller. Unfortunately people are so easily led by the Media that often they cannot differentiate fact from fiction.
The flaws in the evidence are so glaringly obvious to anyone who has the ability to think for themselves. Questions need to be asked as to why it is that these flaws have not been permitted to be discussed and challenged, yet the sensationalist serial killer narrative has been permitted to be promoted incessantly before, during and after the trial. Could it be that the Media is also complicit in this stitch-up?
With so many stakes at risk if this narrative fails, I would not be surprised to find some “surprise new evidence” being put forward at the trial next week!
I don’t think we can rely on there being no dirty business next week in fact I expect to see more outrageous bullying of Lucy by that peacock Johnson .The truth about this case will bring down swathes of the doctors, hospital management, the pseudo ‘medical expert’s, the police and the whole mechanics of the judicial system which is clearly more interested in preserving the status quo than reforming itself. Whatever happens next, the truth will out, even if it takes a little time.
It will not only be Johnson involved in bullying. My perception of the Judge tells me that he will relish having another opportunity to deliver a tirade at Lucy after she had the courage to refuse to be present to listen to his last one.
typo – “surprise new evidence” should read “shock new evidence!”
I am expecting the Dirty Tricks campaign by all the players involved in the fantastical guilty narrative to be in full force this week.
I am interested in the way in which the retrial will be conducted, assuming that Ben Myers will still be acting for the defence.
I saw, from a report yesterday in the Chester Standard, that a group of 43 potential jurors were asked to return to court this afternoon but told by the Judge not to try to individually research the case as this could amount to contempt of court and possible imprisonment.
It seems to me highly improbable that any chosen juror will enter the court with a completely open mind
but I do wonder if Ben Myers will make the the same argument of unproven assumption of guilt or if he will try to bring in evidence of flaws in the evidence used in the original trial ( and new evidence not previously examined ). I suspect that there would be objections to this by the prosecution but, as this is a completely new trial, and all the arguments will presumably have to be put forward again, should it not be possible to argue that mistakes should not be overlooked in the pursuit of justice.
It would be very interesting to get the view of a legal expert on this.My attempts at googling did produce something of interest – on gov.uk – Retrial of Serious offences
Sch 78(2) – I will not try to quote word for word but it relates to new evidence previously not admitted or withheld for tactical reasons but now possibly allowable.( It should be noted that this seems to relate to retrials requested by defence not prosecution).
Additional comment –
If Lucy is found not guilty in this one case. it could stimulate a lot more debate of the other cases.
Couldn’t agree more. Very very well said. I wish there was something we could do. It’s an atrocity and it sickens and disturbs me to my core.
It’s incorrect to say that dextrose in a feedbag laced with insulin would neutralise the insulin and act as an “antidote”. Insulin has a narrow therapeutic range. Glucagon would be an antidote. Dextrose if given unwittingly with even more insulin from the same feedbag that caused the overdose would not.
Sounds like you know what you are talking about but this is from someone who also knows what they are talking about: “This is correct. But irrelevant. Insulin drives the absorption of glucose / dextrose if you like – from the blood into cells. So if you are short of glucose – because, due to high insulin, it is being absorbed by cells, adding more dextrose to the blood will top up the glucose levels in the blood. The absorption rate of glucose into cells is a function of the insulin concentration and the glucose concentration. If the insulin is high, the absorption rate (rate – not amount!) will drive upwards and the glucose concentration in blood will drive downwards. Since adding dextrose also increases the glucose concentration, this also drives the absorption rate upwards. There is always an equilibrium state resulting from all the reactions balancing out – however it is never a steady equilibrium state unless the person has been fasting – it is a constantly moving equilibrium state.”
So relying on Journalists for our an objective account of the trial proceedings will serve the purpose of open justice? Here’s a snippet from a report of the 2023 trial by Judith Moritz of the BBC: “Very rarely, as she was brought in and out, she’d look up and catch my eye, but just as quickly, she’d look away again. I tried to look into her soul. I drew a blank.”
So then, we can make a note that Lucy had no soul. Magical gobbledegook.
I think it’s fair to say that Judith Moritz is to journalism what Dewi Evans is to medical witness expertise. She seems incapable of seeing past the end of her powdered nose, as evidenced in the Panorama programme.
I am on holiday in the most beautiful of places with my family, however I can not forget or turn my back on Lucy Letby and what I perceived as the most hideous miscarriage of justice in my lifetime. It keeps me awake at night because I am utterly convinced that an innocent nurse is in prison and I feel powerless to help her. Today, looking at the sketch of her in court broke my heart. It is inconceivable to think of her suffering. I don’t know her but I can not rest until justice comes and I see her vindication.
Georgina – there are many of us who feel just as you do! When I first took note of the case when she was found guilty, I could see the flaws in the evidence straight away. It horrified me so much that I felt it was up to me to try to tell everyone that it was all wrong and there had been a huge miscarriage of justice which needed to be resolved. Then I found to my relief that there were others who thought as I did.
We must keep raising awareness of the issue as the media will only cherry pick what they report from the trial and continue to portray her as guilty.
‘Former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby’s conviction over the murder of seven babies is an ‘important piece of the evidence’ when deciding if she tried to kill another infant, a jury has been told.’
In other words, give a dog a bad name and hang it. Surely this goes against every principle of a fair trial.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13522259/lucy-letby-conviction-child-killer-evidence.html
From the live reporting of the trial – Johnson said “Ultimately this case may come down to a single issue. Do you believe what Dr Jayaram says he saw? Are you sure, will you be sure, that he is telling the truth about what he saw.’
So if they find her innocent of this allegation, will he be done for Perjury?
What did he say he saw this time ? Something like the Beatles’ “I saw her standing there ” ?
Responding to Florence
I don’t think the prosecution will have thought thus far- so convinced are they that the doctor turned celebrity turned whistleblower,with his 26k Facebook followers, is no match for the evil little nurse convicted of seven murders and sentenced to 14 whole life orders. I look forward to seeing him fall on his sword.