Is "Killer Nurse" Lucy Letby Actually Innocent?

In the Netherlands it seems we have a case like this once every 25-odd yrs? Usually they turn out to be statistical outliners in the end: Someone just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a kinda group thinking tunnel vision happens to blame someone for the deaths… (modern version of a witchhunt) It's sad but it's like if you throw a dice often enough you will end up with long strings of snake eyes eventually for no reason other than shit like that happens sometimes. If we're lucky we discover this early, before going to court. Often we fail and don't catch it soon enough to avoid lot of pain and suffering of an unlucky innocent person

'Private Eye' is covering this in depth across numerous editions. It does appear that Ms Letby was a victim of a miscarriage of justice in order to deflect from the real problems in the NHS: deliberate underfunding, running it down in order to make private healthcare both more attractive and eventually the only option.

She’s probably guilty but the government should have to prove it beyond doubt. Jurors go in believing that defendants are usually guilty

Can you dig a little deeper into this case? There are many inconsistencies and contradictory evidence coming out almost weekly. Hope to see another episode on this topic.
Thank you!

Her defence team seems poor

Letby is guilty and if you studied the case and its notes you would see this..Here in the U.K there has been a surge by mainly people on the right that suddenly scream Letby is an innocent princess..One of her biggest fans is a Tory M.P called David Davis..Davis hasn’t been right about not a lot and he smells a book here..Letby’s fans also are anti vaccine and conspiracy fans..Again unless you followed the full investigation and court case,I would judge it on a couple of bad articles..Please remember that there are families grieving the murder of their babies..So have faith in the very in-depth police investigation with input of very respected experts and our court system..Look at this before running off in the company of conspiracy theorists and David Davis..

Guilty

Fundraiser for appeal? Letby receives free representation.

I truly believe she is not guilty

The reason that the media coverage and nothing else was brought to the leave to appeal is because Mr Myers knew the process had to be followed before the application to the CCRC happens. It's basically a matter of getting this procedure done so the entire caseload can be passed on to Mark Mcdonald, Lucy's new Barrister. Mr McDonald has a huge team of world class specialists and also some politicians on his team for the upcoming application to the CCRC.

Were vaccines involved?

But if they found that all the babies under her care died of the same two causes of death.... that seems pretty clear cut to me that she obviously did it right? The fact that the death times followed the change in her schedule is too fitting.

Are you claiming that Lucy is innocent because she is a white lady? Smh, she is guilty and she is a serial killer

No such thing as a fair trial in pseudo-courts or the actual legal system.
It's all fixed imo/ime.
God will judge liars!!

Miscarriages of justice are collateral but God will judge !!

She's as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of pooh! Wake up and read the facts.

Believers know God brings healing to the sick, and the doctor or healer assists this healing. Pagans use techniques as a God and equipment to diagnose. We had a seminar in the Hinduja Charitable Trust discouraging this practice of of subjecting the patients to tests and tx without a good clinical diagnosis.

Just an FYI: the UK allows appeal on POINTS OF LAW. Ie. the Law was misinterpreted.

It allows review when new evidence appears. The evidence of that guy who wasn't called isn't 'new' as it was there at point of trial.

I think you are making the same mistakes as the statisticians who are getting involved. The majority of evidence wasn't based on stats so, they are being a little dishonest at best.

My main thing is she knew she was being investigated at which point anyone guilty would surely burn the journal. The journal kind of makes me feel it’s more likely it’s been mis interpreted. ​​⁠I mean I journal and lie because I manifest so I write things I’m grateful for that are not even true, rly anyone can write anything

You think she's probably guilty. But you don't know. You think she had a fair trial but you don't know. Ok.

Another surprising couple of things which came out after the trial and raised concerns over jury prejudice were:

1) Evidence of possible jury prejudice. The court received an anonymous e-mail from someone claiming one of the jury (named in the email) had been in a cafe where this person had overheard them discussing the ongoing trial saying "the jury have already decided she's guilty" before they had even heard all the evidence and before they deliberated. The police did try to make contact with the e-mail sender but never got a reply so the judge decide not to replace the jury member accused. Then some time later after the jury had reached verdict, the person who sent the e-mail did reply and the police did investigate further. It turned out that the jury member named in the e-mail (who claimed to police he had never been in the cafe) his girlfriend actually worked in the cafe and had some dispute with the cafe owner or another employee there over a money owed for the girlfriend selling her mobile phone to this person. Which involved the police going to the cafe and the person being forced to pay the girlfriend for the phone. The police and judge concluded that the e-mail was therefore sent by the person who bought the phone as a way of getting her boyfriend on the jury into trouble, since jury members take an oath not to discuss or disclose anything related to the ongoing trial. This to me is highly suspicious and does raise some questions: how would the person in cafe know the girlfriend's boyfriend was on the jury she told them? Why make such a claim if its untrue since it's not going to get the girlfiend into any trouble. And the person sending the e-mail could well face prosecution for perverting the course of justice/jury tainting. It seems to me a bit unlikely that a guy on jury with a girlfriend working in a cafe had never been in that cafe to see her. And Lucy's defense raised concerns over jury bias and impartiality but again the judge dismissed the concerns and decided not to replace the jury member or the entire jury.

2) Further risk of jury bias: As is usual with court trials in UK there's a ban on media discussing or reporting on the case until jury has reached a verdict. However during the trial procedings there was an article on the trial and crimes Lucy was accused of published in the New Yorker in America and available to see online. This was brought to the judge attention who then ordered the New Yorker article to be blocked from being viewed onlne by anyone in the UK. However as most people know, an internet block on accessing web pages or a Website can't practially be enforced because anyone with a VPN could easily still access the article. If the article was mentioned in open court (I believe it was hence concern raised by defence of biased jury risk) or if any of the jurors had discovered it online, they may well have seen it before the Internet block was imposed or even after it was blocked using a VPN. Or one or more jury members simpy asking someone online outside the UK to screenshot the New Yorker article and send it to them.

For those who haven't read or heard the hours of court transcripts or don't have the time, here's a summary of how the prosecution presented its key evidence to convince a jury of her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt:

1) Timing and opportunity: The prosecution suggested that because Lucy was working on the unit at the time of each baby collapse and death (even for babies not asigned to her and not in the rooms she was working in) it follows Lucy was the common denominator.
Simply being on the unit at the time babies collapsed was too much of a coincidence.

On the surface yes it does a look suspicious Lucy was never far away and always on shift or just about to finish one when babies collapsed. However, at least one and maybe more than baby collapsed that wasn't under Lucy's care in another room. And Lucy being present or on shift when babies died doesn't necessarily mean she caused the collapses maliciously or that it was done intentionally.

2) Retaining baby unit paperwork: When the police searched Lucy's home they found she had been storing hospital medical paperwork she'd completed and signed in a shopping bag under her bed. Some of the paperwork was for some of the dead babies, but not all. Lucy made no attempt to hide or destroy the paperwork even after her first arrest (there was a shredder in her bedroom she'd owned a long while used for shredding bank staements). The prosecution suggested Lucy had kept the paperwork either to hide evidence, or as a trophy, ie something linked to the babies and crimes. A lot of serial killers like keeping something directy from the victims or related to the murders, such as death scene photographs or newspaper artices.

This was rather weak evidence, since if Lucy had taken it home to conceal evidence she could have just shredded it any time. Why leave it under your bed where police could easily find it? You could argue that Lucy had kept the paperwork to protect herself because of complaints she raised about issues she thought were bad practices on the baby unit. And a somewhat toxic work environment emerging between the Lucy and other nurses and Lucy and one or two doctors working on the baby unit. Holding onto the paperwork detailing procedures she carried out and for medicines she administered that are time dated and signed by Lucy as well as her nurse colleagues and doctors who co-sign makes sense in that context. You could also argue it was just a habit of Lucy's to keep the paperwork for babies under her care as a nurse. Perhaps because she found it useful to review baby care procedures and her written observations. Or perhaps to indicate which nurses and doctors she had worked with after babies were dying. She may have thought keeping that paperwork might be useful later because it showed which nurses and doctors were working with her on shifts when baby deaths occurred and also when babies didnt die.

3) Baby parents interaction and social media searches: Lucy sent sympathy cards to some of the babies parents personally. She also did social media posts for parents with photos of baby's that were fine didn't die. The prosecution relied heavily on the Facebook/social media searches of dead babies names to support their theory that Lucy was either getting some sick pleasure seeing the parents grief online in social media posts, or she was checking to see if they had said anything bad about her and whether she might be suspected.

You could also equally argue Lucy she just checking to see if the parents or anyone else had responded to sympathy messages or comments she had posted on their Facebook pages or announcements about funerals which she may have wanted to attend since the baby's were cared for and she had got to know the parents visiting the unit. Or just to see what the parents were saying about the hospital incase she might discover things discussed between the hospital doctors and baby's parents. Any issues the parents might have had with the standard of care provided and any grief counselling support offered etc. The bottom line is there's any number of reason why a nurse on a baby unit might be doing searches for parents on Facebook of deceased baby's. Frankly I'd be surprised if someone in Lucy's situation didn't do the searches and have some social media interaction with parents of baby's under her care whom she met and spoke with frequently.

4) Doctor A romance and attention seeking: The prosecution presented this as motive evidence and also to call her morals and honesty into question. Their motive premise was Lucy caused the babies collapse to get Doctor A's attention and was excited when babies collapsed and Doctor A attended to the dying babies with her. Doctor A was a married man, and the prosecution suggested that Lucy was totally obsessed with him and that they had been having an affair. Lucy flatly denied that saying they were just good friends and had travelled to London once or twice for a day out.

Again, rather weak evidence by prosecution and grasping at straws you might argue. For me, having read all the transcripts where the prosecution revealled Lucy's private text messages with Doctor A, although they showed she had been on a visit to London outside of work with Doctor A and that Doctor A was a friend who supported Lucy with reassuring texts during the difficult period for Lucy when one or two other doctors raised concerns to senior management recommending Lucy be removed from the unit and things became somewhat toxic between some of the nurses and Lucy after the first request for her removal was dismissed. If Lucy was having an affair with Doctor A or obsessed with getting attention from him, considering they had acces to hers and Doctor A's phone presumeably, they didn't present anything close to support their claim, ie message exchanges indicating more than a friendship, love or a sexual relationship. Lucy put an x kiss and a heart emoji at the end one message which the prosecution seized on, but it's not unusual for girls to put x kisses and heart emojis on their messages to friends. Maybe there was some attraction there and flirting, but if they were having love affair the prosecution didn't do a good job at proving that with one kiss and heart on one message. They could have just called Doctor A as a witness and asked him under oath if he had been having an affair or sexual relationship with Lucy but they chose not to. The prosecutions claim that Lucy caused the baby's to collapse to get Doctor A's attention and got excitement and a thrill out of being with Doctor A trying to save baby's lives in a critical condition seemed to me rather far fetched. Firstly Doctor A wasn't always on duty and didn't attend every collapsed baby. And secondly, there's surely far easier ways of getting a young attractive Doctor's attention that don't risk you losing your career and ending up in prison for the rest of your life. Like asking him out for a drink after work, sharing work breaks together. And failing that love bombing his phone with messages inviting him to your home for some raunchy sex usually does the trick and gets a man's attention if he's at all attracted to you and the type to cheat on his wife. Lucy is an intelligent woman and anyone who isn't insane would realise you can't keep causing babies to collapse and die just to get the attention and excitement of a doctor in an emergency. It's just not realistic to think you can keep doing that before the frequent deaths and someone sees you or the police are involved and you end up getting caught.

I live in the UK and have been following the trial and case very closely even going through the hours and hours of court transcripts.

I can't say whether Lucy is innocent or guilty but what I would say is that the prosecution failed to prove guilt and method of killing beyond any reasonable doubt which is a requirement for a jury to reach a verdict. The trial has the country divided with many thinking it was a serious miscarriage of justice. There are also a lot of questions unanswered over poor hospital unit operating practices and poor senior management decisions. Some believe Lucy may have been a convenient scapegoat. Some of her friends refuse to accept she's capable of doing this and even some of the nurses who worked with her have expressed some doubts in interviews after she got convicted. While others are utterly convinced she's guilty, including the police, doctors and some of the parents of deceased babies.

The problem with the trial was the prosecution's case was entirely circumstantial evidence hearsay from witnesses. And expert witnesses were used to reach conclusions on the method and cause of death which was not fully explained or proven. There were no eye-witnesses that saw Lucy doing anything to the babies. There weren't even any complaints against her in terms of nursing care for the babies other than she had a tendency to go check on babies in rooms she wasn't asigned to care for. There was no physical evidence linking her directly to the babies deaths. The method of killing wasn't clear with expert witnesses suggesting it was caused by air being plunged into the babies IV and over-feeding in other cases.There was nothing in her background or childhood to suggest she had pathological tendencies which is unusual to see in a serial killer you would expect to see some red flags. There wasn't even any real credible motive offered other than attention seeking and an excitement thrill.

And then of course, there was Lucy's 'confession' post-it note. If you can call it a confession. it looks to me more like a person having a mental breakdown very confused after being arrested and accused of the most horrific crimes. It's not a nice neat confession in the form of a journal entry describing how and when she commited crimes. So the post-it note has to be taken in that context of her mental health and mind state at the time. Taken in isolation and out of context, it doesn't carry that much weight as evidence so although it certainly could and should have been allowed into evidence, the judge should have really advised the jury not to treat it as an admission of guilt by itself to reach a verdict if the jury has doubts or is conflicted over other evidence. Unfortunately the judge didn't do that so for some jurors the post-it note alone may have been sufficient for them to think she's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

If she had confessed on the post-it note as they claimed, why did she deny she had caused the babies deaths all through police questioning and continue maintaining her innocence thoroughout the court trial? She wrote the post-it note sometime between her first arrest and police interrogation and suspension from work and her subsequent second arrest at her parents house when she was formerly charged then bailed pending trial. She made no attempt to hide or destroy the post-it note even when she knew the police would almost certainly be coming to our parents house to formerly arrest her and have to search that house too for further evidence so likely to find the post-it note. If it was a confession you'd expect someone to just come clean and admit everything to the police because cooperation and entering guilty plea means less prison time. On the other hand, if it wasn't a confession and just an out-pouring of emotional thoughts during a mental breakdown you'd think she would realise if the police discovered the post-it note it would be pretty damning evidence with 'I did this, I am evil' wrote on it and so destroyed it before the police came. Maybe she forgot about it, who knows.

Setting aside the post-it note and whether she is guilty or not, there were some serious issues with the way the prosecution presented its case and the court trial itself.

Lucy's defense was terrible and put up no challenges to the prosecution's relentless leading questions, unsupported accusations, not relevant questioning and frequent hearsay. Witnesses were not cross-examined especially the so-called expert witness their star witness who it turned out was a doctor who hadn't practised medicine in well over a decade so wasn't really credible. Other witnesses including nurses that worked on the unit were not called as witnesses for the defense. The defense failed completely in presenting a series of falings on the hospital unit ranging from using wrong used sized tubes in babies that kept falling out, one baby left without IV fluid for 4 hours, another baby that partially collapsed having to wait 30 minutes before a doctor attended in a medical emergency. Inexperienced new nurse put on unit with babies that needed more experienced nurses. Nurses not co-signing for procedures and medications at same time as they're supposed to. Senior nurses not supervision properly with nurses using mobile phones to text on the unit and some nurses leaving babies to go look in on other babies they weren't assigned to. Accusations causing a toxic work environment between nurses and nurses and doctors.

Many people in the UK, including high profile public figures, academics, legal experts, MP's and Lords are all now coming to the same conclusion as myself that setting aside how the deaths occurred and whether Lucy was to blame intentionally or unintentionally, the way the trial was conducted and based on circumstantial evidence and theories presented by expert witnesses makes the verdict legally unsound as it leaves room for reasonable doubt. Lucy was also denied an appeal which is odd. A case like this one could have been overturned on appeal due to the lack of credible evidence presented linking Lucy to the deaths and a failure of the prosecution to establish Lucy's actions and malicious intent caused each death beyond a reasonable doubt. They also failed to even establish to the jury the precise method of how the babies were even killed by Lucy if it was deliberate. The coroner autopsy's were inclusive that's why they relied on expert witnesses.

In the UK judicial system the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. In Lucy's case all through the trial the prosecution acted like she was guilty from day one. With speculative suggesting questioning and statements like 'You pumped air into the babies didn't you?' and 'You enjoyed the attention when babies collapsed didn''t you?' 'You raised several complaints to senior hospital management about bad practices and about doctors on the hospital unit. You were cleverly covering your tracks by deflecting blame away from yourself, weren't you Lucy?'

The expert witnesses called raised some eyebrows too. Some of them which the prosecution relied on to determine cause of death weren't from the hospital and one not even a practising doctor. He hadn't practised for 12 years so wasn't really a reliable expert since medical practices have changed a lot in the last 12 years. Lucy's defence did appeal the judge for the expert to be excluded due to lack of expertise credibility, but the judge denied the appeal.

absolute dogs&it.

From your voice, I am guessing that you don't give s *it about Letby. Let me listen a bit more. Your voice makes me ill. "typically 2 to 3 death per year". I think you are telling lies. These are not believable figures for an NICU. Are you aware (you should be) that the death rate for NICU babies is very very high compared to other babies. One survey says 29% chance of dying within 28 days if you are in an NICU. Another survey said 10%. You have been scammed. Letby is a patsy. You have been listening to the lying propaganda.

In the Beck case no writings in her home in her hand were found saying "I am evil. I did this."
That just HAS to be not forgotten
Although I certainly accept lack of Cc TV coverage, othdr deaths in which she could not have been involved, lower than satisfactory levels of staffing and quite unsatisfactory hygiene in the neonatal unit.
BUT WRITING THAT has NOT helped her case.

She is guilty 100% good thing we had smart people rendering her judgement. And she'll never see the light of day ever again.

when the states health service is incompetent they have to blame soemone other than themselves to save their own skin

Someone could have planted the written evidence. It’s been done before. The cops seemed hell bent on prosecuting this girl.

Well two months later and this case is falling apart like a chocolate teapot

No she didn't do it.

But the case runs into problems when it's actually 17 deaths, and much of the evidence was that she was present (as was one doctor but they were removed off the chart) when the baby collapsed and/or died. So they had cherry picked the cases, in some of them she wasn't the nurse caring for them. She was one of only two band 5 nurses (highest is 6) who often would take sicker babies. They tried to portray the babies as well and healthy, but they weren't, they were low-birth weight, premature, multiples and needed lots of extra care. The unit was downgraded shortly after she was removed, they were taking babies they were ill-equipped to care for and the unit had a whole host of other problems too. These claims were made after she successfully made a case of bullying by the doctors and was about to return to the unit. There was no pathology evidence or anything other than circumstantial evidence as they were not deemed suspicious except in retrospect. No incident reports, no one saw her do any of the things and NICU/SCBU are very open plan. Some of the evidence is severely flawed, in one case they claimed insertion of air into the stomach based on a x-ray done on a particular date but she'd been off and never saw the baby until next day. They then changed the claim to something else as the supposed means. Normally if a baby pukes they might not be tolerating their feeds (and in at least one of those cases she wasn't caring for the baby but might have relieved during a break) but in her case it was an attack even though there was nothing to say they gave the baby any additional milk or what really happened there. Even the claim of taking home records was handover sheets, something that many nurses take home in their pockets. Hospitals don't launder uniforms any more, so they get washed at home.

There might indeed have been a killer on the loose but there doesn't seem to be the hard evidence there to prove that. The jury was told they didn't need to be certain of cause of death or how it was done, only that they were sure babies were harmed. So it's very complex and really there should be a retrail or appeal allowed to examine again those claims.

No

Your arguments about coincidences etc. omits the detailed cross examination and totality of evidence. This was a very long trial. The jury took considerable time to deliberate. The grounds for appeal were considered. The defense had every opportunity to call experts. Sensationalism.😮

Letby - the nurse accused of being a serial killer of babies, is a serial killer of babies. The jury (and babies' parents) are correct.

You didn't know about that her therapist asked her to right all her thoughts down ?

she's guilty, however the crime others made were to let it carry on for years. the doctors who raised concerns to senior nurses got pushback. typical case of women pulling ranks and scheming to protect each other. that's the real scandal.

It's about her personality disorder. And statistics is irrelevant because she was involved every time a baby struggled or died. In one month there were more cases than in a whole year beforehand.

There was another you tube video on this case where she was advised to write her thoughts down regarding the infant deaths by her Counsellor she was seeing at the time, but this wasn’t revealed to the court.

These so called journals are no journals but a form of Therapy to help her cope with something she didn't do. Her councilor told her to wri5e them. This is a corrupt NHS blaming a nurse and a corrupt justice system that doesn't give a single damn about justice.

Lucy Letby is a normal person. Kind, caring, dedicated to her job. Willing to serve society. Everything you call 'suspicious' I call normal. NHS documents taken home - normal. Writing down thoughts as part of a counselling session - normal. Thinking about the little babies who died by writing down their initials and using FB to find out how the families are doing - normal. Lodging a Grievance procedure against her employers for bullying and slander of the worst kind - normal (brave also). What is not normal, which you fail to mention, is that no medical expert witness was called by the defence - very abnormal. The behaviour of police, barristers, some doctors and so-called independent witnesses - abnormal (two are mired in controversy over claims they abused their authority as doctors).

Though you don't actually dismiss the doubts here, I think you've done a real disservice to the conversation by making it seem like Adams and Gill have this outsized importance on the doubters' side. There are countless people with real, relevant expertise and no links to grifting/sleeze/wacky ideas who are expressing well-founded concerns about the convictions. The real argument about Letby's trials and her innocence/guilt is much more interesting than the story of two odd people and the handful of Redditors obsessed with them.
By the way, in your summary of the case against Letby, you said it started with four deaths that were "deemed unexplained". This is simply wrong; the pathologists' reports listed natural causes of death for 6 of the 7 infants Letby was convicted of murdering. The 7th was just "unascertained" (which is not uncommon for infants).

If the case was entirely circumstantial, how can science be on trial?

In questioning when asked about the notes and diary entries, she DID NOT mentioned that others had advised her to write things down by her GP or by occupational health ftom the hospital, just that writing was how she processed things. On arrest, she will have been told "that it may harm your defence of you do not mention when questioned something you later relay on in court". The questioningly was over a number of days each arrest. She will have had legal representation, and they would have advised her to mention this. Even so, they could still have used it later. They did not.

During the initial trial, Lucy was cross examinined for 15 hours. When talking about the notes, the prosecution spent a whopping 7 MINUTES on them. Obviously very important.

You dispose of handover sheets etc, in confidential waste at the end of the shift. Lucy did not. The sheets "came home with her". (And there was hundreds of them covering a few years.) Did she take them back to dispose of properly? No. Did she shred them at home? No as she didn't have a shredder. She kept them. For years; and a couple of house moves. Some ended up at her parents house in a shredder box when she moved back for a few months. Her excuse? She hoarded and collected paper. When asked about the lack of invoices and bank statements she saide she shredded them. They would appear to be trophies.

Yes, the unit was understaffed, however it would have been understaffed prior to her working there when they averaged 3 unexpected deaths a year. Lucy hurt and killed babies. She falsified medical records to try and give herself an alibi. Claimed not to know about air embolus, even though she passed course which included them 2 weeks before the unexplained deaths, and reported equipment as being faulty which would cause an air embolus if not fixed, so lied on the stand.

Two juries have found Lucy guilty.

Transcripts of the trials and police interviews are now available to purchase. Its a pity the guardian didn't bother.

Agreed

She was always around when there were deaths and she didn't like being kept away from the ward where the very ill babies were being treated.