Strandedinbrexitland

I love books, films, food, wine, walking, everything outdoors,
& Europe.

[Martyn Pitman @MartynPitman]

https://t.co/jC6WCnJqpn

Interesting and insightful article in the Spectator today about the #LucyLetby case and widespread implications of her poternial innocence. The final paragraph is relevant to every single whistleblower who has been victimised and persecuted by the NHS.

[Guy Rowland @guyrowlanduk]

"The world has gone from thinking Lucy Letby is a monster... and a year or so ago I was in that category... and it has now flipped around to 'actually no, this is wrong. Something terrible has happened here'".

Sir David Davis MP.

https://t.co/BndHRVOSe0

[Diana Merrick @merrick_diana]

THE LUCY LETBY CASE REPRESENTS A FAULT LINE IN LAW, MEDICINE & PUBLIC TRUST, WHICH IS WHY SHE CONTINUES TO BE HELD AS A POLITICAL PRISONER

This is why the legal system will go to extraordinary lengths to keep her imprisoned forever. The only thing that will overturn this conviction is if people continue to make a noise on mass not just now but also if or when she is released.

I say if or when because, as with the Post Office scandal, the more injustices stacked up, the harder it became to admit they had got it wrong.

The case of LL affects the legal system, NHS, family courts, & the use of expert witnesses. If her conviction is seen to be unsafe, it raises questions about how evidence is gathered, how statistics are applied, how whistleblowers are treated, trust in consultants, & how institutions protect themselves instead of the public.

It highlights NHS management culture & pressures, the ability of juries to assess complex medical evidence, & the reliance on expert witnesses who may not be reliable. This case can no longer be seen in isolation, as it is a fault line running through law, medicine, & public trust.

https://t.co/9mezfuvOdZ

Without paywall:
https://t.co/K3296iItu3

This article discusses exactly this point. Logically, most people would think, in a civilised country as we believe we live in, once a team of the top neonatologists in the world had told us, "There were no murders," that would have been it! You would have thought the next day they would have been round with a key to let her out of jail.

The fact that hasn't happened leaves people who don't know enough about the case thinking there must be things the panel didn’t examine, something they must have missed, even though that's not rational. The answer to the question is laid out in the above article.

Essentially, the court and government do not believe it's in the public interest to make the public insecure and distrustful of multiple aspects of the systems we all live under, and they don't know how to fix it, with too much money involved. To them, the lesser evil is to keep an innocent nurse locked up forever as a political prisoner.

That's why it will be so difficult to get her conviction overturned, but we must fight for her, and fight for changes in all these areas that cause this miscarriage.

[Dr Svilena Dimitrova @NeoDoc11]

OK, so the “I’m right, everyone else is wrong, and I’m going to come up with some offensive phrases to show I’m so much cleverer than everyone else” continues…

But I am worried that this is distracting attention from the many other culprits in this case...

I am also concerned about Dr Evans’ wellbeing. Whilst it is easy to frame his behaviour as arrogance or malice, that is not the only possible explanation. His repeated public statements and interviews despite police requests for him to stop, his decision to keep the babies' records when at the end of the trial he was instructed to destroy them, his repeated use of inappropriate and sexualised comments, his criticism of actual experts even though he is non-expert himself, his dismissal of expert reports he hasn’t read (or even requested to read) and bizarre conclusions on what they have said or not said based on media reports, his behaviour leading up to changing his mind post trial on a baby (and numerous times during the trial when reality didn't fit his proposed narrative). Now he claims not to have known about when Letby was even there, despite her name being clearly present in the notes – unless he is saying he did not read them....

The above, just a few amidst the many, are all serious red flag behaviours. Could they be related to malice? Of course. However - that's not the only option and Dr Evans' increasingly bizarre behaviour makes me worry about whether what comes across as ignorance and/or malice may in fact also be confusion, distress and complete lack of ability to emotionally regulate. There are relevant medical conditions that can present with such behaviours that should really be excluded before anyone concludes that his actions are malicious. If we immediately presume malice without considering and excluding other (medical) explanations for Dr Evans' erratic behaviour, we are no better than him assuming deliberate harm in 10 minutes over a cuppa - and then proceeding to focus solely on finding evidence of murder in all cases.

These red flag behaviours were also clearly visible in Dr Evans' original reports and testimony, yet the police, CPS and Judge Goss failed to notice and/or act on them. It is true that this case should never have been escalated into a murder investigation in the first place and it wouldn't have been without Dr Evans. But - and this is a big BUT - he is not the only one responsible by a long margin.

So why is Dr Evans now the only one being attacked? In my view he is simply a convenient distraction - someone easy to scapegoat due to his disinhibition - while the judiciary, police, CPS and COCH consultants avoid accountability for their failures? How convenient it would be for them to blame it all on Dr Evans', wouldn't you say?

So let's not scapegoat a human, who for all we know may actually be unwell, in order to solve this scapegoating case. Let's not forget that this scapegoating based MoJ in fact commenced with the actions, or indeed lack thereof, by the COCH consultants, at least two of whom are still actively practising and have received zero consequences for their well documented extremely poor (and arguably negligent and criminal) behaviours. Let's not forget about the role of the police, CPS, Judge Goss, the disgracefully biased journalists, and - in the last 18 months - also the coroner and the GMC who have paid no attention to the issues repeatedly raised with them by a variety of professionals. Don't let them all wash their hands with Dr Evans. Please don't.

@drphilhammond @LucyLetbyTrials @DavidDavisMP @DavidRoseUK @PeterElston1 @Michelehal7344 @DOckendenLtd @MartynPitman

[The Lucy Letby Witch Hunt 🦋 @LetbyWitchHunt]

"I've never lost a case" - #dewievans
Define losing a case Dewi? Ur meant to be impartial as an expert. What on earth does it have to do with winning, u absolute loon #LucyLetby

[Paul Bronks @SlenderSherbet]

Me when I pronounce 'paella' like pah-eh-yah.

[Rex v Lucy Letby - Full Disclosure @RexvsLucyLetby]

🔴Listen to an interview with Danny Bogado, the director of a new @Channel4 documentary called 'Conviction: The Lucy Letby Case', discuss why he wanted to make a film on the case, how he recruited contributors and why he feels it is important that audiences make up their own minds about Lucy Letby's guilt or innocence (without spelling it out for them).

https://t.co/A1QzcNuxSX

[The Lucky Heron @LuckyHeronSay]

Nothing to see here, just Lionel Messi giving Lamine Yamal a bath 🤯

[WilliamHallett @William26139338]

Part 2 of 2, closing submission of senior management, Lucy Letby https://t.co/BwzB5cNHGr… via @YouTube

The 2nd part of the superb response of the senior managers’ KC to the Thirlwall Inquiry.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

Thank you Spain.

I implore other countries to mobilise their fleet to grant the flotilla safe sailing to Gaza, and deploy a real humanitarian convoy to break the blockade.

That's what people want. That's what humanity commands.

If not in the time of a Genocide, when??

[Indiman @merchant47]

The legal system needs to get it into its thick head that Dewi Evans was a rogue witness who worked to order, even changing stories when a better narrative came along. He defecated over their precious system.
#Letby

[Richard Horrocks @RichardHor54460]

To anyone who can make it. JUSTICE FOR LUCY LETBY.
#LucyLetby

[Robert Goudie @rob_goudie]

If #LucyLetby were guilty, we might expect at least one piece of direct inculpatory evidence to emerge in an investigation that originally spanned 100 incidents – particularly in a closely monitored neonatal ward.

At 10% per incident, the likelihood of Letby slipping up would be 99.997%. With less effective monitoring – say only 5% chance per incident – we would still be looking at a 99.4% likelihood of detection.

Yet not a single piece of direct inculpatory evidence came to light even though investigations into Letby's original 100 incidents took place over years.

The explanatory counterclaim was that Letby was "very clever at covering her tracks."

But that suggests circular thinking:

Q: How do you know the defendant is very clever?
A: Because no direct evidence was found.

Q: Why was no direct evidence ever found?
A: Because the defendant is very clever.

That is a tautology, not a proof.

It is a tautology that subtly reverses the burden of proof: here, absence of evidence is rhetorically repurposed as evidence of guilt, rather than reinforcing the principle that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Not least, the claim that direct inculpatory evidence was missing solely because "Letby is very clever" also diverts attention away from the multiple reviews that identified an underperforming unit with aggravating environmental factors (e.g., reports of sewage repeatedly backing up into the unit from the drains and resistant Pseudomonas contamination in the taps).

And even though the Crown Prosecution Service cancelled a formal statistical analysis of the case data, others have stepped in to take a closer look.

For example, in the paper by McLachlan & Fenton, How unusual was the spike in neonatal deaths when Lucy Letby was working?, we read:

"Using data available to police, barristers, the court and journalists at the time, we show that, from a strict probabilistic view, there was nothing unusual about the number of neonatal deaths CoCH disclosed in their FOI (CoCH, 2018)."

Specifically, the chance of observing at least nine neonatal deaths out of 3,047 births at CoCH in 2015 was 34.2% (about one in three), while the chance of observing at least eight neonatal deaths from 3,057 births in 2016 was 40.4% (about two in five).

These are probabilities akin to those you get from rolling a dice.

The Lucy Letby case is a reminder that extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence – yet here, the most extraordinary fact is the complete absence of any incriminating evidence across so many alleged crimes.

[Gary Lineker @GaryLineker]

WTF?

[Spring Ford @SpringFord14]

@triedbystats The Crown always wins.

As a whole the case against Letby is ludicrous. World's stealthiest killer murdered 7 babies without leaving a trace.

But they say look at the minutiae.

When an objection is raised against any point, they say "look at the whole". There is no whole.

[Debbie Kennett 🧬🌳 @DebbieKennett]

This is a very interesting albeit somewhat lengthy interview with the neonatologist Professor Colin Morley. He was asked to be on Shoo Lee's expert panel but had to decline the offer because he didn't think he could cope with the time commitment. #LucyLetby

[Dr Svilena Dimitrova @NeoDoc11]

After reflecting on Dr Evans’ comments in the new documentary (to be released next Monday), I wonder if he realises that when I raised concerns about his role in the Letby case, I was not questioning his competence during his practising years. I have no reason to doubt that he was capable in his time, nor do I have any evidence on which to base a judgment either way.

The issue is that he appears to have made assumptions about the competence of the COCH medical team without any experience in the neonatal world as it has developed since his retirement. In his expert reports and testimony, he has clearly taken the view that if a doctor reported doing something, it must have been carried out competently. Unfortunately, that was absolutely not the case in some of these cases.

In Dr Evans’ era, neonatal care was a very different world - fewer consultants, more limited interventions and a much more hands-on apprenticeship model of training. But judging today’s standards through that lens is grossly misleading. It’s like a cardiologist from the aspirin-and-bedrest era judging modern interventional cardiology - they wouldn’t be in a position to even begin to competently assess whether current practice is up to standard.

That gap is illustrated by many examples, such as him describing babies as “simple things.” Were I to discuss something like the modern competent management of a baby with PPHN (persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn) today, for example, I’m confident it would quickly show how far expectations and standards have moved on. And I am sure it will expose big gaps in his knowledge of how neonatology has developed.

The reality, as I am confident every competent neonatologist and neonatal nurse would confirm, is that even basic interventions like bag-and-mask ventilation, which sound straightforward, are in fact easy to get wrong. Dr Evans’ assumption that such actions were always done effectively underpins the problem with his analysis. What he said in the documentary suggests he has little to no insight into this.

Dr Evans can’t seem to see that no one is saying he didn’t know what he was doing when he practised. The point of us having exposed substandard care at COCH that contributed to, or even led to, the deaths and/or deteriorations of some of these babies is not the same as anyone saying he personally lacked knowledge of neonatology in the time he practised many years ago. Yet he stays stuck in arguing that he wasn’t wrong, that he had neonatal experience.

And I personally don’t dispute that he delivered good care to neonates once upon a time - in his day, he probably did. But that isn’t the issue. The real point is that he cannot reliably judge what happened at COCH using outdated knowledge of standards and medical expertise that no longer reflect the reality of delivery of modern neonatal care.

@drphilhammond @PeterElston1 @DavidRoseUK @DavidDavisMP @Voice4theDead @MartynPitman @DOckendenLtd @Michelehal7344

[Dan Wootton @danwootton]

Many people will not want to hear this, but I repeat after months of my own research...
LUCY LETBY IS INNOCENT AND HAS BEEN SUBJECTED TO ONE OF THE BIGGEST MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE IN BRITISH HISTORY.
I know how difficult this is to accept because it smashes your trust in the NHS, MSM and UK judiciary.
But that is the reality.

[Rex v Lucy Letby - Full Disclosure @RexvsLucyLetby]

Lucy Letby defence expert slams 'unfair' justice system and says he is 'appalled' he wasn't called to give evidence

https://t.co/2giFfeUzze