I find a lot of things involving her conviction to be quite troubling. If you take away her alleged “confession”, then there’s not much to go on it seems. It also appears that some of the logs showing who was on duty when babies died were incorrect which was another key thing in her conviction.
Obviously if she is guilty of these crimes then she is a complete monster, but a potential miscarriage of justice in such a high profile case is incomprehensible
It may be that she is guilty as charged, but the way the two cases against her were conducted is rather troubling.
It seems quite a lot of selecting the evidence that fits her being guilty, while ignoring-even burying evidence that doesn’t fit, has gone on.
Some rather shaky science has been deployed by expert witnesses for the prosecution, without it’s basis being thoroughly explained to the jury, who are of course not scientifically trained people.
It does, however, seem rather strange to me that the defence does not appear to have really queried any of that science. I do wonder about the advice she was given by defence counsel and the competence of her representation.
There’s a documentary probably still available on Channel 5 over here that really casts a lot of shade on the trial. For example the defence did not call a single expert to counter the testimony of the 7 that the prosecutors called, and did not defend the damning statistic on the on-duty spreadsheet that was the central argument of the prosecution case.
TV doc Phil Hammond has been covering the medical side for Private Eye, I believe, and features heavily in the programme.
The upcoming public enquiry could be worse for her chances of an appeal, given that the remit is not to question her guilt or otherwise (reasonable, given the verdicts already handed down).
If Phil Hammond thinks it’s unsafe then she must be guilty
Never has someone taken the wrong view so consistently as Covid Phil
So have you watched the programme? Are you aware of the issues behind it? Whatever your opinion of his views on Covid might it make sense to hear those regarding this case before a blanket dismissal?
An unsafe conviction doesn’t necessarily mean Letby is innocent.
Agreed.
You’d be amazed at the number of people who think unsafe = innocent, and by how dark it seems just before the dawn
Yes I have watched the program
Enough evidence to convict I’d say.
Perfect? No. But enough to convict someone committing such appalling crimes
I just don’t take the word of someone being a contrarian for the sake of it, especially one with a track record of previous wrongness
Smells of conspiracy theory to me. You only have to see some of the characters on the web who’ve jumped behind this one to smell a rat
I see we’ve descended to not looking at potential evidence and instead taking a person-led approach to it.
I feel that this has somehow become a culture war topic out there in the unreal world of social media. News sites have figured out it gets clicks, too. Let the legal system do whatever it has to do. I don’t have an opinion on the trial at all; it is not my place to do so.
I don’t know whether she is guilty or not but having total faith in the British legal system has not necessarily always brought the right results in the past.
I think the principle is that it is not perfect but, on the whole, it does a decent job. Interestingly, there is far more noise from the general public about the leniency of convictions and sentencing than harsh or wrongful convictions. The balance the legal system has to take makes the BBC’s task look like child’s play.
That’s a nicer summary of what Lord Denning said.
About the appeal of the Guildford Four.
Denning’s comments on the Birmingham Six were even more disgusting
“Just consider the course of events if their action were to proceed to trial… If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous… That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, ‘It cannot be right that these actions should go any further’.”
Denning certainly became less impressive as he aged. He was a radical (in the context of the legal system) who seemed to try to do what was right even if the statutes tried to make him do something else. Without excusing his comments on the Guildford Four and the Birminham Six, he was also a force for good at times. Particularly earlier in his career.
My point about the legal process doing a decent job on the whole is exactly that. It is not a perfect system and so it is right that no one should ever trust the legal process entirely. It does have a system of appeal and review. Even for the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, ultimately, that system did get to the right result. Obviously far too late and it required too much effort to be considered satisfactory.
My take on the Letby case at the moment is that one or two aspects of the evidence is being challenged in the media. Possibly by people who have sufficient insight to be taken seriously. But it also seems to be being challenged by people who don’t have the expertise and haven’t seem the evidence.
Lastly, no one commenting on this story, on this thread has been party to all of the facts as they were presented to the court and the jury. I find it odd the levels of certainty that something is wrong in this case from peole who are getting their evidence from the media alone.
I don’t know the rights and wrongs but ‘someone’ is flooding my Twitter For You timeline with posts defending her. I have spotted dozens in the past four hours; more than Ukraine, Gaza, Winter Fuel and anything else, frankly.
Tells you all you need to know about social media like X.
String em up by the neck!
It’s the only language they understand!
Don’t get me started about fly-tippers! I’d swing for… etc
Not seen anything on Bluesky which is a very nice place.
Is it that you have “For you” selected, rather than “Following,” perhaps @niallb? The former is twitter’s algorithm showing you what it wants you to see, and it seems to get reset to be the default regularly.
The prospect of another trial must be so awful for the parents of the babies
Could they try her on the same cases again or would they have to re look at cases they didn’t pursue before?
They want the truth I am sure. The alternative to Letby being guilty is that they died of natural causes. That may be easier to live with than the thought of someone murdering them.
There is a third possibility. That the hospital’s care of sick babies was generally inadequate and that Ms. Letby, while not being entirely innocent, has been scapegoated.
Correct
There are plenty of possibilities but very few of them are plausible. And none seem to have any evidence. However, of course, any lack of evidence is prima facie evidence of a cover up it seems.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgl5yyg1x6o
There was a case in Australia where a woman whose four children died in infancy was convicted of murder and jailed, then subsequently found not guilty and pardoned.
These things happen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Folbigg