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Peter Hitchens on Lucy Letby - 'I am uncomfortable about this trial' | SpectatorTV
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- čas přidán 12. 07. 2024
- Lucy Letby will never be released from prison after being found guilty for seven counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder. The former nurse who has consistently maintained her innocence recently lost her attempt to appeal the case. Outside court however, there has been a growing chorus of voices raising questions about some of the key evidence presented in trial. One of those people is the Mail's Peter Hitchens, who speaks to The Spectator's data editor Michael Simmons for SpectatorTV.
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The judge told the jury that even if they were not sure about the cause of death, they could still find Letby guilty.
The judge was emotionally biased and came across as a sadist.
@@aoae-hf3rz Your right The judge delighted in sentencing her to life without parol, a morbid sense of personal victory.
@@aoae-hf3rz you're just saying that because you think she's innocent! 😂 Evidence of sadism please.
@@PedrSion please give the whole summing up and context, because we all know you NG people hate "cherry-picking" but keep doing it.
@@miacat1727 I saw the video. Is that what a delighted person looks like? You're delusional if you believe that looks like delight. Tell me at what point he looked delightful. His expression was the same throughout delivering the sentencing
I’m retired child protection detective of 25 years I too was extremely surprised by the verdict and the lack of medical opinion to counteract the evidence from the prosecution
In my time I’ve never had a case so serious succeed in mere circumstantial evidences
Wether she did it or not there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond doubt clearly
Letby's Lawyers only produced 2 witnesses. One was the Hospital Plumber, the other was Letby herself.
How on Earth did they not produce expert witnesses to counter the testimony given by the Prosecution's witnesses?
The main Prosecution Witness, Dr. Dewi Evans, twice cited a paper on Insulin overdoses in babies - the Author of that paper has come forward to state that Dr. Evans was wrong. Never mind that Autopsies on both babies didn't find evidence of Insulin overdoses - and the test needed to determine whether there was an Insulin overdose, was never performed.
Her Lawyers need to explain themselves.
Go to CrimeScene2Courtroom channel on CZcams and start listening from the video 'Lucy Letby - The Police Search' onwards. These videos are a reenactment of the original trial based on the actual court transcripts purchased by someone who actually attended most days of the trial so he was able to demonstrate times when there was a dramatic pause or what her tone of voice was when she said certain things. These videos will take you through all 17 cases in the trial and then you will understand why she was found guilty of some counts, not guilty of others, and no verdict reached for others. I think there is an assumption that this was a blanket verdict and she was found guilty of everything, but that isn't true. The jury took their time to go through each case one by one.
@@stevegregson4357 do you know who her father is ' fred west ' yep ' how do i know this ' becsuse im mr armchair detective ' by the way ' shes is guilty as fred ' & as sin ☠️
Corcumstantial evidence IS evidence
@@janlittle2148 & there was alot 👍 guilty in my book
I do wish people would actually listen to what Mr Hitchens said . He said he has no opinion on her guilt or innocence but believes strongly that there wasn’t enough evidence in his eyes to convict and that a retrial or appeal should be granted . I agree with him
@@kevinconnolly759 Then in that case what he is arguing is that trial by jury is not a viable system. The jury alone can decide if the evidence suffices. Not journalists and social media.
@@Maisiewuppp well he says he believes in trial by jury but has had his reservations of late . I must admit I do wonder how in some of these super high profile cases the jury remain unbiased . I’m aware they are supposed to listen to the evidence only but I’m not entirely sure that’s human nature .
@@Maisiewuppp The jury isn't really the problem; the problem is the judge who should've been far more stringent as to what evidence could be adduced - allowing the prosecution to use such cherry-picked data and an expert witness who applied for the position rather than being approached as a true neutral is inexcusable. In the first example, I don't suppose the judge even had the knowledge of statistics to know that... unfortunately the judiciary think they're far cleverer than they are... in the second example, he really should've known better...
Hitchens also said, the case made him feel uncomfortable, was unsafe. Many people have that same feeling about this trial & how it was conducted. Fair play to him for having the guts to disagree with the narrative & not be brainwashed by the system.
@@pedrinho7 then the Defence could easily have produced their own expert witness to refute the Prosecution EW and case and they didn't. There's no way the Prosecution would have secured Evans unless they thought his evidence was going to be excluded and they were correct. Back up your cherry-picking statement and please don't say they only investigated cases when Letby was on duty unless you were part of Operation Humingbird and can say other deaths weren't looked. I can't promise they were because I wasn't part of the taskforce, so please explain how you know other cases were not investigated. Back up your cherry picking statement and prove the other deaths were not eliminated. The police don't work in the way you're trying to imply. They don't just go along with people saying another person has done something wrong.
hope the guy interviewing hitchens never ever gets on a jury
He was playing Devils Advocate. Normal practice when conducting an interview ?
@@Fanakapan222 i dont think he was
Many years ago someone I worked with was on a jury for a serious case. She was a very intelligent person and was horrified that the jury convicted the guy, with her being the only one standing against the guilty verdict. She said all the evidence was unsafe and speculative but that the others who also thought it unsafe agreed to go with the majority. Its frightening that this can happen.
This has been bothering me since I was 8 years old. The fact that majority opinion can be a herd mentality of closed mindedness leading to injustice.
@@pamwilson4050 terrifying
Yes, i too have witnessed first hand Jury members kajoling other to change there mind and give a guilty verdict, however, i did stand my ground and refused to budge and said for me there was not sufficient evidence to find the defendant guilty. I also informed the 2 main instigaters on the Jury if they did not stop the intimidation i would inform the court usher.
A relative of mine was in the coppers and called (when retired). She gave verdict on a Rape case. at least two of the members didn't wan too be there and wanted to get home so that they could see shiot on the TV in one case and go to a party in the other (very young). Of the rest at least one of the blokes was bigoted racist and sexist.
The evidence thankfully she said was indeed crap - and of course the CPS have to bring cases of rape now whether there is a real prospect of them being thrown out (which I sone of the reasons there is such a back log and severe resourcing problems) - and of course Prosecutors now would be very brave to drop them.
Anyway the case was thrown out - but imagine if she had been in the minority for an acquittal.
@@elainewojnicki9610that sounds dreadful that there was intimidation going on. What was in for the instigators what way you voted?
I heard there was 23 babies died on the ward, but they only investigated the ones she was on shift for, which was 13. Even if they remove those 13 from the list they are still well above average, so why hasn't the ward been investigated. It's possible to have a serial killer AND negligence on the same ward. It's also possible it was all negligence.
There was another nurse who was on duty and five deaths occurred she was not investigated
@firecrest27 I bet its easy to set a colleague up in that game.
FAKE NEWS 🤫
@@innocentman3346 Ah, so it's a set up. It's the colleague against whom there is no evidence who is guilty, and the woman against whom the evidence was so extensive it took 21 months to present who is innocent.
@@Dogfacedbloke no-one said that
This presenter ... and lots of the posts here ... are missing the point completely. They all say "Were you in court ? The jury were and they heard all the evidence". A jury is comprised of regular people ... plumbers, teachers, lorry drivers, accountants ... not people with medical experience. Therefore, they have no option but to base their verdict on the evidence presented to them by the 'expert witness'. Lots of doctors and scientists have said that his evidence was seriously flawed ... and leading statisticians have ridiculed the spreadsheet that was presented as being worthless. All the stuff about facebook searches and taking notes home etc are red herrings. This case most definitely needs to be re-examined.
I think "were you in court" is the crux of the problem. They were confined to a court whereby crucial information may not have been available to them.
@@georger-c4645 Absolutely agree. The Judge can influence a trial enormously with rulings on what is or not admissible etc etc etc. Also if video/tv were allowed in court then we could at least say "well I wasn't in court but I did watch it".....not perfect but much better than the current 'no peeking' situation we have now.
I was not in court during the OJ murder trial but I am convinced that the jury reached the wrong verdict. I am not alone.
@castlerock58 well members of the jury in the OJ case have even since came forward and admitted they knew he was guilty but found him not guilty because of some sort of retribution for the Rodney King police brutality.
Agree as a Nurse I would want this re-examined. Especially as she did put in a grievance before. It's all very wishy washy and as a young woman I would want anyone reading my diary and what I used to write !!! It's all circumstantial IMHO
We were told the Fujitsu 'Horizon' IT system installed nationwide by the Post Office was perfect, infallible and could not produce errors and false accounting. Therefore we were told we must believe that all sub-postmaster fraud convictions were 'safe and effective'.
@marqbeatty2694 what's parcel's gotta do with anything relating to letby?
@@paulis8107 Grow a brain or don't comment.
@@marqbeatty2694 how many dead babies 👶 was it blamed for?
And that there was no fraud in the 2020 US election 😅🤦
All of these systems are incompetant these days...
@@paulis8107 You clearly know nothing about the Post Office misdemeanours.
Lucy had no choice but to agree that two babies were harmed with insulin because her defence counsel inexplicably agreed before the first trial that this was the case even though there was no credible evidence to support this.The two babies alledgedly harmed are alive and well eight years on.The police were only called in after Lucy won a grievance procedure against doctors and an RCPCH investigation in 2016 cleared Lucy and criticised doctors and consultants for the atrocious conditions on the neonatal unit.
@@trevorchap21 correct 👍🏼
It was one consultant ... his colleagues then fell into line.
Well that's more detail than Peter gives. Thanks.
@@trevorchap21 She shouldn’t have agreed then.
@@JohnPretty1 Then Letby’s a fool for allowing it.
Having been a victim of an NHS stitch up myself when I worked in an NHS trust, I can completely concur with what Peter has said. When something goes wrong, often they look for a scapegoat as they're so afraid of the repercussions. I like Peter Hitchens, he says it as it is and agree with him on many things.
As a Nurse I've never been stitched up myself but I have witnessed Nurses who have been. If questions arise around poor Drs. practices I've witnessed them close ranks to prevent scrutiny of their profession.
Completely irrelevant
@@Curryking32000 Well said.
I was stitched up with a diagnosis where a supposed expert wanted to amputate my leg above the knee and got others to join in, after a scan to find the cause of a leg ulcer.
The bloke didn't believe me that the "unusual bone formation" was actually a bone graft and commited his diagnosis to record before I had chance to contest it.
They seriously do close ranks.
@@JohnPretty1 she wasn’t stitched up, you seeing a stitch up in the NHS (allegedly) is irrelevant her conviction
She is guilty. That is obvious
@@darrenambrosiaWhat specific evidence 'proved' this for you?
I was a Nurse for 25 years working in ICU ( Adult not Paediatrics). I followed the trial very closely and was shocked at the conviction.Hitchens is correct about her defence team who time after time missed many opportunities when questioning the prosecution witnesses. If I recall the only witness the defence called was the hospital plumber. A retrial will in time be called.
I sincerely hope so…but not enough outcry is happening
The defence had to go admit that someone was killing children in the hospital. The prosecution did the most forensic investigation I have ever seen. It is far beyond reasonable doubt.
They may have admitted that, but they did not have to. Nothing the prosecution said could only be explained by a serial killer hypothesis . Indeed, that is now becoming clear more widely.
my wife too is a senior nurse and has serious concerns having read the New Yorker piece
Now that I realise that no one can comment publicly on the trial while it is going on I can see how the narrative can be skewed in one particular direction. A trial is a process and all processes are subject to human error therefore if a trial is investigated and found to contain errors then the result should be appealed and a retrial should take place especially when a person is sent to prison for the rest of their life. I think that Mr Hitchems puts forward a very good argument and he has a keen conscience.
Peter, I would love if you investigate this case and write a book about it. If she’s innocent, that would help.
100%
I have seen a huge number of wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice during my lifetime - these wrongful convictions are NOT uncommon as we have seen time and again…many people serve a very long time indeed before the truth is revealed.
These nurses killing patients trials seem to pop up somewhere in the world every 10 years. The nurse is inevitably found guilty and after a few years is inevitably released after new evidence or some injustice was discovered.
I think it's a form of mass hysteria, similar to the periodic satanic-riduals-at-the-local-daycare trials that pop-up.
There is an investigation after a natural statistical blip in patients deaths. The media picks it up, magnifies it and whips up the hysteria. The police feel pressure from families and the public to obtain "justice" on an imaginary crime and the poor nurse who had the statistical bad fortune to be working during most of the deaths becomes the sacrificial lamb.
Once time and the hysteria passes and no one cares about the deaths, they are free to release the innocent person.
Bristol Poly and Bristol University in about 1992 were doing some research on what prisoners were reporting about their convictions (prisoners mind so caution please). One bloke who sharp elbowed into this (I would have like to have helped but brushed off the indirect invitation) said that (third hand) the figures were about 25% said they were wrongfully convicted. Then again there is the argument they would say that wouldn't they?
Go to CrimeScene2Courtroom channel on CZcams and start listening from the video 'Lucy Letby - The Police Search' onwards. These videos are a reenactment of the original trial based on the actual court transcripts purchased by someone who actually attended most days of the trial so he was able to demonstrate times when there was a dramatic pause or what her tone of voice was when she said certain things. These videos will take you through all 17 cases in the trial and then you will understand why she was found guilty of some counts, not guilty of others, and no verdict reached for others. I think there is an assumption that this was a blanket verdict and she was found guilty of everything, but that isn't true. The jury took their time to go through each case one by one.
I grew up in Australia in the 80's, and remember how the whole nation was utterly convinced the Lindy Chamberlain was a monster who had killed her baby, l mean it was so clear and obvious and everyone was completely furious with a mother who had murdered her baby and then used a ridiculous "dingo took my baby* excuse. A few years later it turns out she was actually completely innocent. It happens.
totally agreed but her legal team need to be accountable as well they let her down
I fear that as the NHS deteriorates further and more and more patients die we will see more trials of this type as managers try to cover their incompetence.
I don't know if she's guilty but we'll see more of this.
Agree, the case sets a presidence of unlawful findings to protect the medical establishment. Questions, who will be next. Frightening.
Like the post office
you don’t want to see more murderers being convicted?
Strange take
@@fainitesbarley2245how many were murdered in the post office scandal?
@@darrenambrosia That's your take on what he said, I fail to see how you can draw that inference.
I think the verdict should be questioned for sure! It doesn't sit right at all for lots of reasons.
What was the problem with the conviction?
@@davidc3839 it clearly is unsafe which bit of that do you not get ?
@@markennyee I don't get people like you who hang onto conspiracy theories. I bet you have a whole list of them.
@@davidc3839 will you eat your boots when you are proved wrong ??
You mean she doesn't have the serial killer looks and demeanour you're used to from the telly
LL had made 17 complaints about the conditions and poor treatment of babies
from doctors on unit. The consultants didn't like her a mere nurse embarrassing them, so they made a counter complaint, which management investigated and unusually actually vindicated Letby, and they made the consultants write a letter of apology to Letby. It seems they wanted rid of her, so they ganged up again against her...I believe they had intended to just force her out, but once the police became involved they couldn't back down, and ot snowballed out of control. Seeing one of the consultants being interviewed on TV after the case, the interviewer stated that the doctor was a hero...he very nearly broke down in tears, I think that was because he realised he eas far from being a hero, if fact he'd just helped put a conscientious young nurse in prison for the rest of her life.
@@user-of9bq7zu2h are you on Twitter?
Really good to see the change of heart that's happening all around us.
@@user-of9bq7zu2h were are the 17 complaints and were the documents read out by the Defence?
and have you seen those consultants giving interviews ? clearly lying
Rather a lot of circumstantial evidence. My understanding is she was on duty every time. It's also taken 10 years of gathering evidence to prove guilt. Not a quick stitch up job.
Your understanding is wrong. Among other things, several other deaths took place on that ward in the same period, but were not included in the indictment. I do urge you to read the growing store of material available on the web, in which the case is re-examined.
@peterhitchens4240 Of course other deaths took place. It's an intensive care unit for premature babies for goodness sake ! You're conflating two different things. Eg , Everytime England play without Harry Kane they lose 25%. When Kane plays , they lose 5% of games ( not actual results btw ).
Your argument is that these type of stats are not so relevant and can be somewhat queried. Over a 2 or 3 year career period or 2 or 3 seasons , they surely do have meaning , as they can be compared to the " normal , average " longterm results of other staff and/ or players in the same " team ". The more stats, the more accurate are those stats.
@@johnristheanswer I wonder how much effort was put into understanding her competence and concentration levels. Knowing what to do and then doing the right thing quickly and confidently is obviously important in this job and wouldn't be helped if she was somewhat ditsy, if that's a word. That could explain worse outcomes over a long period. To assume everyone performs at the same level is a gross assumption.
Without reading up on this case, I can say that if my engineering management want a job doing quickly, don't give it to me. I can do it well but I'm just not that motivated for high output and spend too much time chatting, texting, reading the news on my phone or the ESG crap that the company puts out. Much of it promoting the case for diversity hiring rather than competence. The NHS is ground zero for diversity hiring... it is its raison d'etre now.
@@geoffmilnerSo true 🤣.
You can't talk about patterns of babies deaths following Lucy's shift patterns when you cherry pick the cases she was charged with. There were 10 other deaths on the unit in the same time period. When they are included into the statistical data the pattern will disappear because crucially there would then be context of the performance of the hospital unit in its entirety.
31 deaths in all, before the ward was demolished because it was very old an unsanitary.
This case has stunk from the beginning. many of you may have seen her initial arrest but what you will not have seen is the way the police dug up her garden to make her look like Fred and Rose West. Perception is everything.
It was clearly a stunt to make local people think she must be guilty if they are going to such lengths. In this case the jury has been led totally by expert witnesses and emotion of the victims being babies. We all now know how expert witnesses can be. Pompous old men with a lot of power in their hands who think they know everything like Gareth Jenkins who decided by himself the failures in his system didn't apply to all the sub-postmasters he was working to convict.
"We all now know how expert witnesses can be. Pompous old men with a lot of power in their hands who think they know everything"
Unfortunately the situation is a great deal worse than that and has been for a very long time. It's often enough not much, to extents even not essentially, about professionals and professional and personal ego over balance and reason. It's so much worse, often.
It is about money. Money, money, money, money, money. In such a high profile case a so-called expert - often an expert who is ready to do not too far away from anything to help one or the other side in a trial - is simply not going to offer "expertise" on which the whole case more or less depends for their standard fee of £20,000-£50,000. With such a high profile case with a lot of emotional baggage in the population experts are likely to cost at least £100,000 but easily may charge hundreds of thousands. (From the public purse as the Prosecution is paying it.)
There are experts whose very well remunerated livelihoods depend mostly upon trials income - basically professional court trials appearers, many of whom are ready to provide "expertise" for and also against the accident in a case depending on who is asking - and paying - defence or prosecution. For accused persons who have to pay to defend themselves their counsel may not be able to afford much to investigate and rebut expensive prosecution "experts" who are themselves paid handsomely by taxpayers.
No, if only court expert testimony were just a situation about genuine farts who love the sounds of their own voices and over-value their professional opinions. At the end of the day a lot of court experts, often these who have appeared many times, are people who have spent quite a lot of time practising how to say, how to pass off convincingly, that what they say is valuable and important information.
There is a lot of money in it for them.
Totally agree
Don't forget about the two doctors in this case, they were influential in starting it.
@@ncooper8438 absolutely. A similar sort of thing happened to my friend’s mother. If you talk about a masonic stitch up involving police, doctors, lawyers you're labelled a conspiracy theorist……if Lucy Letby isnt a scapegoat, I don’t know who is?
"It was clearly a stunt to make local people think she must be guilty if they are going to such lengths"
Completely false. Also if they suspected strong she maybe a serial killer, its pretty protocol to do such things.
"Pompous old men with a lot of power in their hands" It would appear that getting this women out of jail has (by the recent rhetoric flooding everything) become the War of the extremist Left.
Hitchens whistling when he speaks is really annoying me
Then get a new hearing aid.
wow. i can't unhear it now.
That's why his dream career in adult phone chat dived. 😜
@@edelgyn2699 🤣😂
I would imagine everything annoys you.
I use to work in a neonatal unit and I can come up with another reason why those babies died and it has nothing to do with Lucy Letby. I also am not comfortable with this trail because I personally think she is being scapegoated for someone else's incompetence. I don't think anyone deliberately set out to kill babies on that unit but someone's incompetence did.
I was very uncomfortable with the verdict after hearing some dubious witness statements. I would love to know your reasons, especially as you had first hand knowledge of neonates.
@@patpat4317 it's because I have worked at a neonatal unit I am uncomfortable with the trail. From what I have listened to about the unit Lucy worked in it sounds like bad management, poor leadership and incompetence killed those babies.
The unit sounded very understaffed and they kept taking in very sick babies instead of transferring them out when they knew they didn't have the nursing staff to safely care for these babies. In my unit we would have phoned round other units if we couldn't safely provide care. Also they should have reduced the number of cots, which is what a responsible unit manager would have done and put a contingency plan in place. That wasn't done and these babies were put at risk as a result. No one questioned the management of the unit. The whole blame for the deaths was put onto Lucy. Of course she was on duty when most of the deaths occurred. When you work full-time and do extra shifts the chances of you being on duty when these babies died is quite high but that wasn't considered. I have had experience of children and babies becoming unwell after I've nursed them on a shift, and come in the next shift only to realise that and I have went over my care with a fine tooth comb to see did I miss something. Her writing notes saying she is evil and she did this, I understand that. You do a lot of soul searching when a child or baby dies in your care and it is a horrible experience, you question everything you did, I've done that with one child I can imagine what was going through her head when a number of babies died on her shift, esp if she was looking after them. Some of the things the prosecution were saying about them being well babies, these babies were not well. They were in a neonatal unit. The one about injecting air into a babies tummy via ngt and causing air in the gut that killed the baby. That sounds more like Nec and because can kill a baby from birth to 3 months. Premature babies are more at risk of neck as are sick neonates. I have never put 10mls of air down a baby's ngt but I have aspirated 10mls of air from them. If a baby has a lot of air in it's tummy it will be uncomfortable and it will vomit. I could go on but I will stop there. It's just a few things that make me query this whole trail and it's verdict.
The way she would be caring for certain babies she wasn't assigned to, and pushing otberstaff away to take over care... is really concerning
@@HumanimalChannel not really. When staff go on break you take over their babies also maybe the nurse looking after those babies didn't really know what to do and she did, esp in an emergency situation. This happens in all units staff with more experience take over from staff with little neonatal experience. That could be all that was happening there but it has been protrayed a different way. Some of those staff may not have liked the way she took over from them. Also she could have been helping them look after their sick babies if she saw that they were out of their depth with them. Esp if they were new staff with very little neonatal experience.
How many babies have died suspisiously since Letby was imprisoned I wonder.
That's a question you're simply not allowed to ask. It goes against the required narrative.
EXACTLY MY QUESTION! If they increased on her watch and nowhere else, if they have gone back to 'normal' figures since she was removed- doesn't THAT speak volumes ?!
@@peteblanco7640 Don’t you think the fact that the unit was down graded and took on far fewer cases of seriously at risk babies coupled with the fact that the authorities would be desperately making sure that nothing was going wrong and covering their own backside would ensure that things improved after Letby was removed. Suspicion, dubious interpretation of statistics, and the authorities desperate need to find ‘someone’ responsible played a part in things. Stats will tell you anything you want to believe and circumstantial evidence has been found to be suspect and even downright wrong in too many cases in the past. Just imagine going to prison for the rest of your life if there was no incontrovertible evidence to convict you, particularly if you were innocent.
Shortly before the deaths started the unit started accepting much younger and sicker babies.
During the period in question, the number of neonatal deaths that also happened when letby wasn’t on shift was also significantly above expectation.
Following this period the unit stopped accepting babies as young and as sick.
The common factor is the inability to look after babies that young and that sick, not letby
@@carolinejohn4537it doesn’t if you see my response below
Having worked for the NHS for the whole of my career, and I’m now able to retire, I can say with absolute conviction that Lucy has been scapegoated for systemic failings of the CoC Hospital.
The sewage that contaminated the pipes and sinks etc would have undoubtably left bacteria in the water that staff washed their hands in, prior to undertaking invasive procedures such as the insertion of an umbilical venous catheter.
They were caring for babies that they weren’t staffed or equipped to care for - babies that were severely premature with the odds of survival stacked against them.
I’m still mystified as to why Ben Myers KC did not call the pathologists who conducted the postmortems to give evidence and challenge the presumptions of Dewi Evans - who only had the medical notes with which to draw his conclusions and dismiss the findings of several pathologists.
And the statistical evidence only serves to prove that Lucy was 100% on duty when she was meant to be. Why, oh why, did the defence not call a statistician to the witness box?
Imagine the litigation and the compensation, for all the families whose babies died, if Lucy had been rightly found innocent and an inquiry found the trust had been negligent and failed in its duty of care. The NHS couldn’t allow that, now could it?
Statistician Richard Gill offered his services and was threatened with legal action by the police.
@@KingBee24 that is absolutely contemptible! There seems to be a lot of underhand goings-on. The fact the defence only had one witness. Just appalling
Yes it’s likely, follow the money
Spot on. Government and it's agencies can never be seen to be wrong - include the police, the NHS etc. So they cover up. Remember Hillsborough??
Smug..............if Lucy Letby was found to be innocent, the government at that time would be culpable, and we can't have that, can we?!!!
I have no clue if she is guilty or not but there was something strange about her entire prosecution.
The media bombarded the public with information about how she was weird, sinister, evil and malevolent...... but I never got told about any EVIDENCE of her guilt.
It seemed to be all character assignation and very little facts.
Given the emotive nature of the crimes, its fairly easy to drum up hate towards an individual so that the jury convicts based on impressions and not information.
I have to admit that very early on I thought "guilty or not, that girl is going down"
There should be television cameras in the courtroom for every case as important as this, with no limits on public discussion.
I just replied to one commentator, not a judgment on the verdict but simple fact, there was no evidence. That's not a comment on the verdict just that there was no direct evidence connecting her to any crime. The case the prosecution presented was based on opinion, association and statistics. All of which can be questioned. Hitchen's et al aren't making judgment about innocence but the procedure and safety of the verdict.
there is also a huge character assassination if you express doubts about the case. I saw a youtube video analysing those who disagree as having personality disorders, being attracted to her, or disbelieving somebody 'so middle class like themselves' could be a murderer. They are trying to scare people away from questioning that which should be examined - the justice system.
@@firecrest27 That ignores the fact that several neonatal experts have expressed concern about some of the evidence presented during the trial, something we've read about only since the verdict. Personally, like most people, I was persuaded by the weight of associated evidence she was possibly guilty. Since reading the many doubts surrounding the verdict that possibility has been thrown into confusion. Maybe the ones attacking doubt about the verdict are the ones with personality disorders and unable to question what is obviously not as clear as it once seemed.
there is also the "nobody would have thought that this woman could possibly have committed such heinous acts" (therefor she must be guilty), they repeat this again and again, as if they want it to print into our brain. People are more than willing to believe anything, they've seen it all. This, I find weird.
I implore anyone who thinks she may be innocent to read the full court of appeal 42 page report online before making that judgement. The evidence against her is in fact overwhelming
Yes, but is the evidence against her reliable, is the question?
From what I've read, and it may be wrong, there are serious issues with it. I'm intrigued. I'm going to keep on digging. Below is what I've read.
Following the verdicts, it was revealed that Lucy Letby's Barrister, Benjamin Myers, KC, sought to have the expert witness evidence of Dr Dewi Evans dismissed from the case. The Judge presiding over the case denied the Barrister's application stating that it is for the jury "to determine, as with any witness, his reliability, having regard to all the evidence in the case."
This decision to permit Dr Evans evidence is controversial, as permitting the jury to evaluate expert witness testimony is distinct from that of a general witness. It was previously found that, “In determining the issue of admissibility, the court must be satisfied that there is a sufficiently reliable scientific basis for the evidence to be admitted. If there is then the court leaves the opposing views to be tested before the jury.” R v Dlugosz [2013] EWCA Crim 2, [2013] 1 Cr App R 32 at [11]”
At issue is the reliability of the evidence on a scientific basis. It is evident that none of the normal practices used to determine air embolism as a cause of death were applied by Dr Evans, and the one publication he referred to does not relate to air embolism through ambient air entrainment in the vasculature. Dr Evans determined that the infants died due to air embolism by referring to a 1989 research paper, which described gas embolism, due to the usage of high ventilation pressures which is a practice no longer applied to neonates. None of the findings on autopsy suggest the children died due to air embolism.
It is apparent that a crucial element in the Lucy Letby case is the reliability of the original investigation. It is of great concern that Dr Evans conducted the investigation with the assistance of the consultants who were present on the ward at the time of death, and where, in any other setting, such individuals should have been treated as suspects. A further factor is whether Dr Evans was qualified to conduct any investigation given that he is neither a forensic scientist, nor a pathologist. Dr Evans has no formal training or background in the principles of scientific research. It is highly irregular for a group of medical doctors to play a primary role in carrying out a criminal investigation. In most other jurisdictions such activity would not constitute an independent investigation.
That's means the Letby fan's would have to do actual research and reading!
And if they are too lazy to read, then they should listen: Go to CrimeScene2Courtroom channel on CZcams and start listening from the video 'Lucy Letby - The Police Search' onwards. These videos are a reenactment of the original trial based on the actual court transcripts purchased by someone who actually attended most days of the trial so he was able to demonstrate times when there was a dramatic pause or what her tone of voice was when she said certain things. These videos will take you through all 17 cases in the trial and then you will understand why she was found guilty of some counts, not guilty of others, and no verdict reached for others. I think there is an assumption that this was a blanket verdict and she was found guilty of everything, but that isn't true. The jury took their time to go through each case one by one.
Did you also read the Birmingham 6 appeal?
You can thank Anthony James B-Liar for cases like these because of the changes he made to the uk equivalent of miranda rights to make it easier for the UK courts to convict people. He changed the law so you can't use anything you didn't disclose during the time of your arrest and during the interview to be inadmissible as evidence if you introduce it later. In other words, if you say no-comment, when you are interviewed by the police, the UK courts take this as an indication of culpability. That is to say, if you reserve your legal right not to incriminate yourself by declining to answer a question, the courts can take that as a tacit admission of guilt. Where is the justice in that?
What do you mean? Surely she can say nothing when arrested, and then still defend her self in court?
Hitch says he not read the evidence which warrants the conviction, I would ask ,how much of the evidence has he read?’ Or is his view based upon the articles in the newspapers he refers to?
If he has not read the actual evidence , then why is he saying that the verdict was wrong ? He cannot judge what he has not seen .
@@BlackStump172 exactly, based on the interview, it seems Hitch has read a few articles, and this forms the basis for his suggestions retrial.
@@121mcvUK Exactly, I don't have any issues with people having different opinions of the evidence but when they haven't actually read proper sources, like court reports, then I can't help but see it as sloppy journalism and muddying the waters unnecessarily.
We dont have trial by media in this country. Thank God !
@@mikewilson8513 Are you sure about that?
Yes, I was also troubled by the things I read about this trial.
If a case as strong as this can't be considered a guilty verdict , then we would struggle to find most people guilty. Peter says he believes in the jury system yet then says they are not experts. No they are not , that's why expert witnesses give evidence , and as much as possible try to bring understanding of the subject to the common man / woman , who would be on a jury.
You're not keeping up ! Dozens of doctors and scientists have said that the 'expert witness' presented the jury with incorrect information.
Because it's more important that somebody is guilty than the right person being guilty?
How is this case strong,noone saw her do it,,,the post mortems done on all the babies did not prove their theories,,,nothing linked her to the murders apart from the fact that she was the nurse on shift and don't forget that those weren't the only children who died,another nurse had 5kids die on her,why isn't she in prison
If you know anything about the rule of law then you’ll know this case is not strong
How was this a strong case ?
I agree , there is something uneasy about this whole case!
The entire case was based on suspiscion & conviction based on circumstantial evidence. A trial of LL v system. unreasonable doubt, scapegoat verdict.
If you had watched the trail, the defence admitted someone was murderering babies on this unit. They didn’t dispute it. There argument was it wasn’t her. It was utterly forensic.
What do you think it means that "the defence admitted someone was killing babies". If I'm not a serial killer how could I be in a position to "admit" that someone was killing babies.
@@jamesrobinson9167when the police announced there was a serial killer on the loose in Yorkshire was it the police doing the killing and not Peter Sutcliffe?
It's not as if we have recently seen a vicious cover up by the Post Office, Government and Judicial System that led to wrongful convictions of innocent people is it?
The conviction is not being claimed unsafe because the evidence is circumstantial. Most convictions are based on circumstantial evidence
Peter does a good job of articulating our 'conspiracy theories' around this case. He doesn't know if she is guilty or innocent. He feels uncomfortable enough about the conviction to ask whether or not justice has been served. We didn't spend 10 months listening to the evidence in court, like the jury did, but we have seen the 'smoking gun' evidence of the roster data, confession note and insulin analysis, and we have pulled it apart with very little effort. If the best evidence is flimsy, why can't we assume that all the other evidence is worse?
Was the one consultant who repeatedly pointed the finger at Letby ever investigated himself or were the doctors above suspicion?
So it's the theories of a tabloid journalist against a mountain of evidence that a jury agreed with....
@magenta6754 nobody else was ever investigated on the ward. The doctors blamed her fairly early on and by all accounts the police ran with it- classic texas sharpshooter fallacy. Therefore everything from her text messages to her Facebook searches were viewed from the angle of that she was a killer and sold to the media as such.
The New Yorker article STILL isn't available in the UK
Try using a VPN , it's blocked in this country which kind of speaks volumes about the case. The link is still active, check it out, you'll be shaking your head in disbelief like I was
I followed the trial and was not convinced by the evidence and was flabbergasted when the jury came to a guilty verdict. I feel that the media and social media influenced the jury .Her guilt was not proven beyond reasonable doubt
totally agree.
Just after the verdict on the first trial I was sat next to a criminal barrister on a plane. We discussed the case. His arrogance was awful. His point was that she was found guilty and therefore was guilty he just didn't accept that the courts ever got things wrong. I went on to list some but it made no difference to his closed mind.
@@AmandaPotter-i2z the test is beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases and she was found guilty. Therefore it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The Jury saw the entire trial.
An acquaintance of mind was jailed for 8 years for rape which he probably didn't commit.
I was a witness at the trial in that the accuser initially came on to me in a bar in front of my wife. To be specific she asked if I could be her sugar daddy and that she gave excellent BJs. No kid. I asked the friend (not the accused) who'd brought the woman into the bar to take her away and this he did. Unfortunately, in doing so he introduced her to the man she ended up accusing of rape.
I knew the accused because he'd done some building work for me and I said I'd help him.
He gave me the bundle of evidence and one thing immediately stuck out as a lie by the woman which was that she claimed that she'd gone to a bar with her boss after work and they'd drunk two bottles of wine before she got the tram home. The point of this was to say that she didn't know what she was doing when she invited the accused into her bed that night.
However, this wine consumption couldn't have been possible because her statement gave the time she left her workplace and there was irrefutable evidence as to the time she got on the tram. For this all to be correct, she would have had to down a bottle of wine in 5 minutes flat.
I met her 10 minutes after she'd got off the tram and she seemed stone cold sober.
There was no forensic evidence presented in this trial.
In a rape trial, it's often the case that there is very little actual evidence other than one word against another and so the credibility of the accused and the accuser is vital. If one side can show that the other side is lying about one thing then the jury might conclude that they were also lying about the rape itself.
I pointed this out to the accused's solicitors and fully expected them to make a big thing of it at the trial because the accuser's boss testified in court as to the bar evidence.
But the accused's legal team made no reference to it when the boss was on the stand.
It would have been game, set and match for the defence but it just wasn't raised and the verdict was guilty.
There were another couple of major inconsistencies that weren't pointed out by the defence that I won't go into here.
The builder, just like Letby, had been terribly let down by his legal team.
I consulted one of my oldest friends, a criminal barrister about what to do next.
He advised that in the absence of further evidence that his only ground for appeal was that his defence team had misrepresented him and that he should use a specialist firm of appeals solicitors for this. I conveyed this to him.
What did he do next?
He only asked the existing legal team to give him their opinion as to if THEY had misrepresented him.
Of course, they concluded that they hadn't. He didn't even get as far as that appeal and he served half his 8 year sentence in a cell next door but one to Rolf Harris.
And when I read that Letby's appeal was being handled by the very same useless legal team that had let her down so badly in the first place, the memories came flooding back.
Post script. The accuser's ex partner approached the builder in a local pub after his release. He sympathised with him and told him that he was her fourth victim.
How do you explain the insulin?
My gut feeling has always been she didn’t do it and definitely didn’t get a fair trial
I was uneasy about this case very early on and I’m reassured that there is significant apprehensiveness emerging about the verdict and court process. Thank you Peter Hitchens.
Go to CrimeScene2Courtroom channel on CZcams and start listening from the video 'Lucy Letby - The Police Search' onwards. These videos are a reenactment of the original trial based on the actual court transcripts purchased by someone who actually attended most days of the trial so he was able to demonstrate times when there was a dramatic pause or what her tone of voice was when she said certain things. These videos will take you through all 17 cases in the trial and then you will understand why she was found guilty of some counts, not guilty of others, and no verdict reached for others. I think there is an assumption that this was a blanket verdict and she was found guilty of everything, but that isn't true. The jury took their time to go through each case one by one.
Thank you Mr Hitchensen for speaking up for Lucy
Yes, many of my nursing colleagues feel the same.
It's all all about been beyond reasonable doubt. So how do I eliminate the doubt created by the evidence the autopsies showed no foul play. If I fail to remove that reasonable doubt then how can I in good conscience reach any conclusion.
The hospital avoided dozens of legal suits for gross negligence by framing one 'lone maniac', and they pressured sufficient gutless careerists on the staff, and hired for huge sums of money sufficient 'experts' to make it stick. How long will it take for this to be recognized widely.
The hospital has avoided nothing. They defended her initially. How can she be framed when the hospital was in fact negligent for not removing her? Your theory is contradictory.
@@Flash-sr8hm Not at all. You should examine the time line.
@@Flash-sr8hm Listen to what Peter Hitchens said.
Mistakes happen, sure. Still waiting to hear why this is one. What's the injustice? Nobody wants injustice but let's hear some specifics.
Simple ,no real evidence , no confession .no witnesses , just character assassination
she was there so she must be guilty quite laughable I was shocked she was found guilty . Just take a look at the so called expert witness Evans a beat up old quack who had not practiced med for ten years sets himself up as an expert then on the stand says he is not an expert , she was cross questioned about wearing pyjamas for over 30mins total miscarriage of justice I am ashamed to be British disgusted ,and as for the media they found her guilty before she stepped in court . Thank god at least some one who is listened to like Hitch has had the guts to speak out
Try answering the following questions: (1) why were none of the deaths or attempted murders reported as suspicious incidents at the time, or revealed to be suspicious by the coroner? (2) why did the judge allow medical evidence to be given on air embolism by a retired practitioner who had never even encountered one in his practice? (3) why was that evidence allowed to be supported by a research paper (much outdated) which the author claimed was misinterpreted by the courts? (4) why were statistics allowed to be used in a way which the Royal Statistical Society claims is misleading? (5) why didn't the Defence call its own expert witnesses?
I see no good argument at all in not wanting to confirm the initial verdict and examine all the evidence and arguments. Those wanting to double down on the conviction can make sure it’s right. What are they afraid of? Wouldn’t they want to get it absolutely right?
Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Hitchens on a particular issue (on this one, I am neutral), his great powers of reasoning always make him well worth listening to.
He is however, prone to rash conclusions based off naught but anecdotal experience or testimony.
I'd argue his reasoning deeply compromised as a result. He's a contrarian, which is the real reason he gets wheeled out over myriad topics.
Likw Peter Obourne, he is actually quite refreshing. He genuinely tries to ignore dogma, which is why he is often unfairly castigated as capricious.
@@whimsicalamoeba5465 To call someone a contrarian simply because he often is in disagreement with what most people think is perhaps the most condescending and distrustful thing one can say about another person. It presumes that the person is dishonest and doesn't mean what s/he says. It is only reasonable to presume that anyone who makes such presumptions is her-/himself dishonest and doesn't mean what s/he says. The liar always thinks everyone else is a liar.
@@whimsicalamoeba5465 like his brother.
@@castelodeossos3947that’s not the meaning of contrarian. Contrarian describes a person’s disposition, not their motives, which, in any case, are likely to be multifaceted. It’s clearly Peter’s disposition to run against the herd. Like any disposition it can have advantages and disadvantages.
Contrarian Peter Hitchens being contrarian
Now he's borderline "no fool like an old fool".
@@ileanamuntean7338 Nah, there is usually reason behind his objections - you can't write him off as a fool. I mostly don't agree with his conclusions, but I recognise he's reached them by applying logic and genuine concern.
@Otter We need people like that because too many of us don't question popular thought. He may go off in the 'wrong' direction, but he often gives the alarm about issues that we should reconsider.
How do you explain the removal of breathing tubes when she was around.
breathing tubes come loose. And just because she was on shift when that happened doesnt mean she removed them.
I’m confused - why are we talking about her potentially being innocent when nothing coming out in the 10-month long trial suggests this?
It's because everything in the 10-month trial, only suggests she is guilty, nothing came out that actually proves it.
its part of a wider agenda to undermine our systems in the uk. hithcens is part of that problem.
Because the evdience of her guilt is so weak and full of holes. English courts do seek to prove innocence. They attempt to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
@@peterhitchens4240 Bullshit.
Nothing suggested her guilt either
Mr Hitchens
Is not on his Own, relating to this Lady's Sentence.
Experts from the Following Universities such as Edinburgh, Harvard,Bristol & members of the Royal Statistical Society are questioning the way Crucial Evidence was Presented in Court.
One of the Scientists who's Paper was cited in the Original case has suggested that his Work was Misinterpreted.
Other have gone as Far as to Suggest that, rather then being a Calculated Killer LETBY is a Victim of NHS failings.
BRITAIN WAKE UP.
@donalobrien7582 do stop saying "WAKE UP".That phrase is so old and overused since Brexit, Covid ,BLM, Me Too,it's dragged out every time.
Weren't her journals/diary pretty incriminating?
Only if you thought she was guilty already
@@peterhitchens4240So what you’re saying is that we should have a standard that nothing the accused has written should be admissible as evidence in court?
How can WE prove that she wrote those words?!
@@vinparaffin6082 It was her journal. You mean police created a fake journal in order to nail this woman to the wall?
I mean, you can keep pushing for a higher and higher standard of evidence-but eventually you’ll just have to let everyone out of gaol.
@@abcdefg3315 She confessed in her journal repeatedly.
The 2 worst things are the glaring statistical error re. her shift pattern and the dismissive way in which the judge refused to consider supporting evidence.
I honestly do not know if she did it or not but on the evidence, the judge should've called a mistrial on the basis of a serious lack of evidence.
Heaven only knows how the jury came to a majority guilty conclusion.
The judge doesn’t call a mistrial for lack of evidence 😂😂
Because they examined all the evidence.
They found her guilty because of the emotional connection we all have to protect children. The bar for proving guilt was lowered because of emotions
Maternity wards are failing mothers everyday., up and down the country look st the consultant who accused her. He said he caught ger virtually red handed . He ether did or didnt. Which one is it
... and this consultants 'evidence' is inconsistent ...
@@steveblundell7766 I have had experience of the nhs at its worst. One big cover up
Mainstream media were very slow on this one.
They legally couldn’t comment on the case while there was an ongoing legal proceeding
They should have had free rein to do so after the verdict last summer. It seems quote clear the primary purpose of the retrial was the maintain the reporting restrictions themselves. It is not surprising and was clear to most concerned health care professionals information and concern of this kind would emerge shortly after the lifting of restrictions.
Actually they've been very quick. She was convicted less than a year ago and already there has been one very long and detailed article in the New Yorker followed by two major stories in both the Guardian and the Telegraph and now contributions from Peter Hitchens and others. Expect a lot more to follow.
The purpose of mainstream media is to obscure the truth …
And if you can’t see that then they are doing a very good job of it.
@@cupofteawithpoetry Damning headlines and broadcasts around the world, relentlessly.
I've been listening to the court transcripts for a long time, the circumstantial evidence was enormous and police were very thorough, working for at least four years on this. Lucy herself was her worst enemy, lying unnecessarily and being very cold.
You haven't been listening to the Court Transcripts - they have only just been obtained.
Letby was observed on duty standing over an infant in respiratory distress and doing nothing.
And don’t forget the notebook of rambled psychotic confessions and keeping medical papers and logs as mementos beneath her bed.
You can’t ignore these things.
@niriop So if she had her hands in the incubator, they could've said she was tampering or attacking the baby!
She can't win can she?!!
Lucy said they are taught as nurses about "self correcting" but Jayaram, a man that changes his mind, more times than I change my underpants obviously disputed this.
For Christ's sake, he said the alarms weren't sounding, yet another nurse said they was!!
He should've been toast on that witness stand
@@bradleyday5829 Listen to me: she stood over the infant’s bed while it was in respiratory distress and was observed doing nothing for close to a minute.
Why did she do that?
There was rambles certainly but no confession. Go back and look at the actual evidence and stop making it fit your already made up mind.
@@niriop
I've just told you why
Read my reply again
@@bradleyday5829 I did. It makes no sense: why did an experienced neonatal nurse just stand there?
Peter Is trying the old trick of his older brother, saying controversial things to gain traction / attention.
But anyone that listened to the court transcript, in full, would find peter’s position on this matter disingenuous
Exactly. Hitchens is using those dead babies as stepping stones to get invited to do these paid interviews. He told us to destroy the Tories in 2010 and this year, after 14 years of failure, said the real problem is Labour. He was against EU membership but didn't vote in the referendum because he's a snob and doesn't like direct democracy. He's a vile creature.
💯agree👍😊
I feel uncomfortable about the interviewer.........
Honest question to the ones that feel she is innocent - how do you explain the 1 death in 7 years at the Countess. As soon as she leaves the phantom air embolis stops.
Because the unit was downgraded at the same time, she no longer worked in that unit. Therefore, they never had seriously ill babies in their care. Additionally, there was never any air embolism recorded by the Drs at the point of death or by the coroner.
You go back to Eastenders!
Air embolism wasn't found to be the cause of death and the Canadian expert on this insisted that the skin decolourisation didn't fit with air embolism. Regarding the drop off in deaths, the first responder is correct about the unit not taking on such serious cases also if your unit is under the spotlight you're going to do everything you can to make it look like a good unit, more staff more training etc. It seems like they then had issues in the maternity department, which to me sounds like they were taking money and resources from one unit to improve another.
I was interested in this case and I listened to the court transcripts that have been transcribed online. I spent hours. She's guilty. The prosecution went into detail of each event of fowl play that occurred. She was exposed as a sadistic killer. Hence why no members of the victims families are defending her.
Please tell more.
Look up the cross examination.
@@chrisdude9641 - link ?
@@autoclearanceuk7191 Go to CrimeScene2Courtroom channel on CZcams and start listening from the video 'Lucy Letby - The Police Search' onwards so you can hear for yourself what Lucy's explanations were. These videos are a reenactment of the original trial based on the actual court transcripts purchased by someone who actually attended most days of the trial so he was able to demonstrate times when there was a dramatic pause or what her tone of voice was when she said certain things. These videos will take you through all 17 cases in the trial and then you will understand why she was found guilty of some counts, not guilty of others, and no verdict reached for others. I think there is an assumption that this was a blanket verdict and she was found guilty of everything, but that isn't true. The jury took their time to go through each case one by one.
You listened to the Court reports nit the transcripts.
I don't know why we bother having juries that sit and listen to weeks of in-depth evidence when we have Peter Hitchens and some random CZcams experts to decide things.
Juries make mistakes, just like you have about the purpose of this video.
I don't know the ins and outs of all of this but I've seen some of the comments she said to parents whilst their baby was dying or in the immediate time afterwards and it was I felt, sadistically cruel. I actually started crying imaging how the mother (any mother) would have felt in one instance so mean was the interaction. This doesn't mean she did it of course but it adds to the picture for me.
No one cares about your feelings - we care about evidence
Did they report those words then or has it just come up in trial
The interviewing journalist does not understand that if you arbitrarily select those children you consider "murdered", then you can create a table like the Letby rooster table for every person on the ward (including the consultants who were, strangely, not considered as suspects and even worked together with the expert to make the case against Letby). There is really no statistical evidence whatsoever that Letby killed any baby, and, according to what I have read, the medical evidence is also flimsy. As it is a priori extremely unlikely that a nurse kills babies, Bayesian reasoning suggests that Lucy Letby has almost surely never killed any baby. Hitchens is still too reserved about this.
It was not arbitrary. it was those children whose collapsed were unexpected or unexplained.
@@Flash-sr8hm As far as I understand, there were no criteria that were decided on before the Letby trial started. The decision which children were included and which weren't was made by the prosecution. As a matter of fact, all of these children were originally, years earlier, considered to be natural deaths. There were another 17 babies in the same time frame which were not included. I think even Dewi Evans said at some point that he did not understand why other children he had assessed were not included. The approach taken by the prosecutors would work if they had some objective criterion which children were suspicious and which weren't. Moreover, they would have to control for confounding factors, e.g., how many shifts were done by Lucy Letby and how much by other nurses. Apparently, she was working more than the average hours.
@@JohnPretty1 Well, maybe. But he was in that way also misleading the audience about the facts of the case.
The case almost only rests on one pediatricians "insight". He notices the number of deaths, , then he selects which deaths are suspect, then he convinces the rest of the staff that Letby is here everytime an abnormal death occurs,then he's the only witness of Letby harming a child , then he's the wistleblower, and now he's the hero. From his testimony all the evidence could be seen as confirmation bias from what his own accusations.
@@backintimealwyn5736 ...he reported her to management, who investigated and found no wrongdoing by LL and made him apologize ... and he then went to the police ... and his evidence is inconsistent !
Why would she take paperwork home and collect and why write the note that was found. I think she is guilty.devil comes in many disguises.RIP little ones ❤
Can't blame the jury as they could only judge based upon the evidence they were presented. However, there was no expert medical witness for the defence to balance that of the prosecution, Dr Dewi Evans, a long-retired paediatrician whose speculative theories are now coming under fire.
The Justice system needs a set of standards for scientific/medical expert witnesses. The defence did apply to have Evans' removed as an expert witness based on his unsuitability but this was rejected by the judge saying that it was up to the jury how much faith to put in his testimony.
A judge in a previous case threw him out 'cos in layman's terms he was talking nonsense. He should never have been accepted as an 'expert witness'
What evidence 🤷🏼
@KingBee24 Agreed, Dewi Evans wasn't even a neonatal qualified, or expert in this field, only a long retired, paediatrician
@@fulham1958 Good point! The court took as "evidence" the testimony of a man, retired for over 10 years and who said there were symptoms described which he'd never seen before during many years of NOT being a neonatologist, so the only possible explanation in his mind was a serial killer nurse, ignoring all other factors.
I've seen him being interviewed and the arrogance of the man is astounding, assuming guilt and making up hypotheses to fit. He needs to be exposed and soon.
That sounds ropey to start with.
Why would a judge do that?
Our judiciary are becoming politicised.
Things can go badly wrong with judge only trials too. Has Hitchens actually read the entire transcript? Or has he simply read articles in the Guardian and New Yorker and formed his views on that basis? Can I suggest you obtain the opinion of senior counsel rather than journalists?
P.Hitchens does make that point.
Has Hitchens actually read the entire transcript? I don't know, do you? Or has he simply read articles in the Guardian and New Yorker and formed his views on that basis? I don't know, do you? Can I suggest you obtain the opinion of senior counsel rather than journalists? Here, you assert that you know something. Do you?
These issues first come to light through the media.
Now brave people need to step forward and have a look.
@@scabthecatDid you actually listen to what he said? The New Yorker had the transcript of the entire trial and published it so he read it all not just a few bits.
If the statistical evidence is worthless the medical evidence unsound and without an evidential basis and the insulin test data gathered by a non forensic level test then the whole case collapses. It's not necessary to know every word spoken in 10 months. The foundation of the prosecution's case is crumbling because it is speculation not science
She’s clearly guilty
I swear I'm having deja vu. I can recall the huge uproar when beverley allitt was charged....the very idea that a sweet nurse would intentionally harm anyone was unfathomable. I can remember 'expert witnesses' complaining her trial wasn't fair, right down to wanting the whole conviction quashed on the basis she was tried in absence due to her being in a hospital for an eating disorder. Even after she confessed she still had people proclaiming her innocence. Her trial was all circumstantial evidence too but they were right.
Good point. However there have been cases, one in particular that Hitchens mentions of a Nurse who was wrongly convicted of a more than similar crime.You may well be familiar with the case of Lucia de Berk, if not then you may discover there is a counter argument to your take.
Lucy's conviction should be quashed as the medical evidence is "utter crap" The babies Lucy was supposed to have murdered had post mortems and were found to have died from natural causes. Unless, of course, you prefer to believe the long retired, discredited paediatrician, Dewi Evans, who fantasized about air embolisms and insulin poisoning. And whoever put that bogus spreadsheet together should be prosecuted for fraud. The level of negligence and incompetence on that unqualified neonatal unit was breathtaking
This is going to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justice this country has seen.
I doubt anyone would be defending a male nurse in this situation. The fact she's a reasonably pretty young woman makes people rush to her defence.
@@johntgw I don't remember Ben Geen or Colin Norris attracting this many defenders
@@johntgw What a puerile argument !
I have studied many the transcripts of the case including her cross examination, from the evidence she is definitely guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Don't lie. You haven't studied anything but shitsheet tabloids
@@pjcnet where did you get the transcripts??
Peter is 100% correct nowadays people are judging by emotions or being uncomfortable rather than evidence presented or not presented we see people saying auditors are making them uncomfortable and it's illegal
One witness was apparently a plumber ???
Indeed, the only expert witness called by the defence, and his evidence is of great interest. The unit's plumbing was frequently affected by unhygienic leakages(let me put this delicately).
@@peterhitchens4240 The case of Canadian nurse Susan Nelles springs to mind which you could say is on a similar line & the maternity unit in that Hospital needed extensive upgrades revealed in a press release of November 2023 so was it really fit for purpose as some of the complaints didn't appear to do it justice ?
@@peterhitchens4240thank you for that. I also feel that there has been a miscarriage of justice.
@@peterhitchens4240 Half of the plumbing problems the plumber described had no relevance to the unit and the other half didn't occur on or around the dates of the incidents in the indictment. The defence didn't put forward an association between the plumbing problems and the health conditions of the babies.
A few months ago a family recieved a £30 million pay out due to negligence in the baby's care in icu. Now Lucy is a lot cheaper. Because criminal payouts are capped in the thousands. This is criminal.
Bingo!
omg that makes so much sense
Thank goodness I’m not on my own I’m am very uncomfortable with this conviction
There was no evidence produced for a fair conviction. This case produced nothing more than opinion, one sided stats and suspicions
If we the people are to TRUST our law are courts there must be clear evidence. I am not saying she is innocent BUT prove she is guilty
I’m heartened to see many people on here smelling a rat……I’d only met L L haters up til now….
She had written confessions in her handwriting , she had medical notes under her bed relating to all victims
She searched the bereaved parents thousands of times on social media
She was on shift every occasion
She was completely detached from any emotions during the trial. She changed her nursing documentation she changed her statements and she changed her story to fit narratives
It’s hard to comprehend such evil given her career and innocent looks but she is undoubtedly guilty in my mind and justice is served
Facts.
All that evidence has been refuted. Listen to the 'we need to talk about Lucy Letby' podcast. It details everything, by a doctor and statistician.
@@therian_forever12 it can’t be refuted it’s factual. We can all have opinions and yes I concur that the physical evidence is lacking but the circumstantial evidence is enough.
@@Panda-ff6cd You clearly don't know what a fact is.
@@blahblahblah2929 yeah alright. Ain’t gonna get into an argument with a stranger on the internet. You have your beliefs I have mine
Simon Webb (history debunked on youtube) has a very interesting view on this as he used to write a lot on true crime. Issues with this case revolve around the Judge's comments in both cases & conduct of the defence team.
@@manofkent4472 Webb compared it to a different case and then dismissed the guilty conviction because it shared a similarity, ignoring all of the additional evidence and witness testimony.
Please spare us from jurors with the mentality of this host. This is the problem with statistical ‘evidence’ and the general public. The deaths on Letby’s watch were not the ONLY deaths. If you cherry pick from the total mortality you can implicate, most likely, multiple staff on the unit, by coincidence. In each case, when the individual “moves from the day shift to the night shift the deaths move with her”. If you are fool enough to cherry pick at the data, or simply prefer a conviction to statistical rigour, such coincidence is inevitable. OTOH there probably wasn’t a single member of staff on duty for every death during the period of the cluster. Letby, as a matter of fact, wasn’t. You are then left trying to discriminate which deaths were suspicious enough to include in the data and run into another problem - of the PMs at the time, none were flagged as suspicious. This trial did not convince me that there was anything other than a cluster of deaths which was entirely plausible given the unit WAS assessed as deficient in standard of care at that time.
Interviewer is very sharp. Good job.
For the people defending her, would you let her care for your child??
I have a bad feeling about this......
If this were a male nurse absolutely no one would be questioning his guilt. No one questioned Harold Shipman's "circumstancial evidence" conviction. Women can be capable of horrific crimes too.
I absolutely agree everybody questioning this case is annoying she did it, i don’t care about all the moaning they are doing about circumstantial evidence and beyond reasonable doubt sometimes they are just guilty and she is guilty she had a motive she wrote a note calling herself evil and she looks guilty because she is also the numbers don’t lie
Absolutely completely true.
But a dodgy conviction is a dodgy conviction regardless.
@@Bigshrimps Have you read the New Yorker article?
Beverly Allitt.
@@garyphisher7375 i just read some of the aritcle. It is very very long. It does mention the handwritten notes. The article doesnt provide any explanation for why she wrote it or put forward any defence for it.
The police helped secure nearly a thousand convictions against Post Office workers.....And "incredibly" no crime was ever committed....Good police work that...And as the judiciary likes to slap its own back on, \and remind us of.... "that's what the appeal courts are for "
The police played no part at all.
@@patpending8134 so who arrested them and on what evidence
No they did not. It was the Post Office executives using the Criminal Justice System for Debt Collection purposes.
@@ScruffyTubbles a you’re saying that over 900 people were never charged with an offence and investigated by the police as to whether they were innocent of the accusation or guilty of the accusation?
@@patpending8134 😂😂😂😂 say what! 😂😂😂
I’m really uncomfortable with this. We need to have this reviewed
Are you uncomfortable having already done your due diliigence by reading/listening to the court transcripts and what was actually said by Lucy herself? If not, please do the 10-20 hours of homework before concluding that you don't understand the topic: Go to CrimeScene2Courtroom channel on CZcams and start listening from the video 'Lucy Letby - The Police Search' onwards. These videos are a reenactment of the original trial based on the actual court transcripts purchased by someone who actually attended most days of the trial so he was able to demonstrate times when there was a dramatic pause or what her tone of voice was when she said certain things. These videos will take you through all 17 cases in the trial and then you will understand why she was found guilty of some counts, not guilty of others, and no verdict reached for others. I think there is an assumption that this was a blanket verdict and she was found guilty of everything, but that isn't true. The jury took their time to go through each case one by one.
it's so interesting to see this case go from "she's a literal witch and worst person on earth who is 100% a baby killer" to this
Yep, now there's even going to be a documentary on MSM titled something like "Did she really do it". They changed gears fast
It was her own colleagues that reported their concerns, and the hospital ignoring them that allow her to continue to kill, additionally can anyone satisfactorily explain why the excess deaths stopped upon her arrest?
tell me you know nothing about stats without telling me you know nothing about stats
Erm.... maybe it has something to do with the fact that the ward was downgraded after she left. Serious cases now go to Liverpool or Manchester.
@@QPRRhinoThe unit was downgraded at the same time whereby they stopped taking high risk newborns.
It was one consultant. The other consultant then fell into line. Many of her fellow nurses say she's innocent. The excess deaths continued after her arrest and stopped when the unit stopped taking such premature babies.
@@KingBee24Her fellow nurses called her the angel of death
Hmm but I still can’t get the fact that she wrote ‘it’s my fault I did this’ etc and ‘I’m evil’ and how she kept loads of souvenirs from the babies and letters to the parents and all the attention seeking behaviour after the deaths AND how she was the only one with the babies when they died, out of my head.
Can’t blame the sacred cow ‘AR NHS.
That fame seeking consultant needs looking at.
indeed, that consultant reeks of insincerity and celebrity desire
I’m not sure what to think of the Insulin cases! She could have pierced the TPN or Dextrose bags with a 22 needle! The insulin would have leached to the bag! There doesn’t seem to be a direct hit on a specific child!
Also it seems that Lucy was an ITU trained RN one of very few at the NIC Unit at that hospital and she was working many 12 hour shifts with limited skill mix to assist!
The patent numbers, acuity are beyond expectations, surely for that area of England.
The British system of jurors must be reviewed in subjects that they are not experts. How much knowledge did they have in Science, Chemistry, and Physics to make decisions on guilty or not guilty?
Some doubt the guilty verdict because they cant believe that an attractive white British girl from a regular background could do such a thing,i have faith in the verdict. The jury sat through all the evidence and didn't base their verdict on snippets of information as are most people here.
In 'The Mail on Sunday' Peter Hitchens has long supported the return of the death penalty, and advocating that the time scales of any appeals be shortened considerably. Had his proposal been enacted, Lucy Letby would be looking for a posthumous pardon!
Do you think juries would be more careful convicting when the evidence is poor if there was a DP?
@@paulthomas963the prosecutions ought to be more rigorous
I dont think you would go straight from court to the gallows...In the USA they sit on death row for years, I doubt we would be that different considering our cultural similarities.
@@paulthomas963
Yes I do
So what about the note saying 'I did this, I am evil' and her journal?
... also the dozens of notes saying "I am innocent"
You're Scottish, your opinion on any matter is by definition irrelevant 😎
What about it? That could mean anything.
Notes were all written when she was already accused and questioned by the police for the baby murders.
She was under intense pressure and scrutiny of what could have been a false accusation messing with her mental sanity ?
From very early on I felt there was something off about all of this
Yeah pure Nicola Bulley vibes.
Everyone come quick, this loon has a ‘feeling’ it is a bit ‘off’
@@darrenambrosia 🤣
What kind of person writes down on paper ''it was me, i killed them'' what kind of person steals items that belong to the families of dead babies as what trophies? What kind of person looks up those families on social media?
@elih9700 someone who is overstretched, overworked and undertrained? Someone who cares about the babies they are helping and feels guilty and responsible when she can’t help them? Maybe someone who is mentally struggling to cope with an important job in a shit department that wants to check that the family is faring well with their grief?
Not saying this is necessarily the case, but it is certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt
@@quimby85 The defence agreed that someone killed the babies, just not their client.
Definitely want all trials conducted in the CZcams comments and the pages of the Daily Mail. Much more reliable than in a court with a judge and jury.
If only the trial was filmed we'd know!
The thought of being sentenced to life is unbearable to me. Especially if I was innocent. But whether I did it or not I would certainly rather die.
If she is innocent that that is horrific.
Good job she isn’t innocent
@@darrenambrosiahow do you know?
@@Happyheretic2308 it’s obvious
@@darrenambrosia as someone who has a legal background, I have to tell you that it is far from "obvious".
@@Happyheretic2308 as someone else with a legal background, I can tell you it is
The weight of evidence exceeds a normal murder trial
NOT JUST A COWARD ' BUT SHE IS GUILTY AS SIN ☠️
evidence!
"should we not have more faith in our jury system"... How on earth is allowing an appeal not having faith in exactly the same system? This kids are borderline disabled.
Is Peter talking through a whistle! I can’t listen to this as my dog is howling 😗
I know those paediatricians and used to do a study on those babies. I believe she’s guilty and so did the jury.
The conviction is safe.
The prosecution was required to prove that Lucy Letby had killed or attempted to kill a baby by a deliberate and unlawful act or acts. Expert evidence was given as to the nature of the harm, or combinations of harm, which Letby was alleged deliberately to have inflicted or attempted to inflict in each case: for example, the causing of an air embolus, or the damaging of a baby's liver, or the administration of insulin.
The prosecution relied also on other relevant facts and circumstances, such as Letby’s writing of a note which appeared to be a confession, her retention of "trophies" and confidential documents, her presence at the time and place when most of the sudden collapses occurred, the fact that a number of the babies concerned suffered a catastrophic collapse only a very short time after their designated nurse had briefly left the room, and the fact that siblings suffered harm at or about the same time as each other.
The defence to each charge was a denial that Letby had deliberately committed any unlawful act which caused, or attempted to cause, fatal harm.
The defence raised - but adduced no affirmative evidence of - other possible explanations for the collapse or death.
The jury were directed as to the need to exclude those other possibilities before they could convict.
The prosecution maintained that Letby’s responsibility for the deaths and sudden collapses of the babies could be inferred from a raft of circumstantial evidence. Letby alone was present on the unit at the time of all of the deteriorations and deaths and was the common factor in all of the cases. She appeared to be fixated with being involved in events in the intensive care nursery and involved herself unnecessarily with babies who had been designated to other nurses.
She created, it was alleged, false
entries on certain documents to hide her activities, to provide her with an alibi or lay the ground for invented explanations. She retained and took home a large number of handover sheets as "trophies" of her crimes. These handover sheets were confidential documents and should not have been removed from the unit. Over 200 were found hidden under the applicant's bed. After the collapse or death, she searched for the names of some of the babies on the indictment and searched out their families on Facebook. Various handwritten notes were found at her home. One of those notes said “I’m evil I did this”, which the prosecution argued amounted to a confession.
The conviction is certainly not safe. The babies Lucy was supposed to have murdered had post mortems and were found to have died from natural causes. Unless, of course you prefer to believe the discredited, long retired, paediatrician Dewi Evans who fantasized about air embolisms and insulin poisoning. The medical evidence has been so thoroughly discredited that it almost appears to have been conjured up out of thin air. And who or what killed the other 10 babies that died over the same time period? Babies also collapsed when Lucy wasn't in the hospital. And whoever created that bogus spreadsheet should be prosecuted for fraud.
Saying Lucy retained and took home large number of handover sheets as "trophies" is pure speculation. There is no evidence for it. Likewise searching for families and babies on facebook is not evidence of mass murder. Notes written in the depths of despair are not proof of murder either. Lucy also wrote I did nothing wrong and I'm being persecuted.
The level of negligence and incompetence on that unqualified neonatal unit was breathtaking.
That is the only crime committed.
You've obviously not been following the case. Read any of the recent articles in 'The New Yorker', 'The Guardian' or 'The Telegraph' ...
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
WRONG.
@@KingBee24 I’ve read all the recent DT articles, including the ‘Special Report’ that questions the statistical evidence. I’ve also read the New Yorker article. I have not read the recent Guardian article, though from what I understand it covers most of the same territory as the DT report.
I looked closely at this case and i had grave concerns about the outcome. In my opinion this conviction was NOT beyond areasonable doubt and i felt the Judge approached this case presuming she was guilty and needed to prove her innocence. That is NOT how the law works, you walk into the dock as an innocent individual, then the crown must prove your guilt. A whole life tariff is the most severe sentence in British law, because of this i believe an appeal should be mandatory.
This is probably the ONLY time i have agreed with Peter Hitchens!!
Imagine if it turns out she is not guilty. Those poor families ...
I'm with Peter on this.
Yes me too (I rarely agree with him). As someone from a medical background, who has been in neonatology units as a junior, with understaffing, and inadequate training and supervision of juniors, I feel this one both lacks the appropriate and rigorous dissection of medical "evidence", and of the statistics around which this case revolved. I don't know whether she did these things or not, and none of us want to further traumatise the parents, but in my view there is unsufficient evidence to convict to life meaning life.
@@bill-zv3gh I agree and thanks for your input.
I looked at a website called Science on Trial (not sure if it's a reliable source), and I was deeply shocked by what I read. If true, then it seems the whole trial was possibly a kangaroo court, chopping and shaping the evidence to fit the alleged crime.
Now I don't know if she is innocent or not. What I do know is that something here smells quite off, and my preference would be to establish a truly independent proper expert view (review) of all the available evidence. Until then, in my opinion, the conviction is extremely insecure.
The following is what I read on the website:
Following the verdicts, it was revealed that Lucy Letby's Barrister, Benjamin Myers, KC, sought to have the expert witness evidence of Dr Dewi Evans dismissed from the case. The Judge presiding over the case denied the Barrister's application stating that it is for the jury "to determine, as with any witness, his reliability, having regard to all the evidence in the case."
This decision to permit Dr Evans evidence is controversial, as permitting the jury to evaluate expert witness testimony is distinct from that of a general witness. It was previously found that, “In determining the issue of admissibility, the court must be satisfied that there is a sufficiently reliable scientific basis for the evidence to be admitted. If there is then the court leaves the opposing views to be tested before the jury.” R v Dlugosz [2013] EWCA Crim 2, [2013] 1 Cr App R 32 at [11]”
At issue is the reliability of the evidence on a scientific basis. It is evident that none of the normal practices used to determine air embolism as a cause of death were applied by Dr Evans, and the one publication he referred to does not relate to air embolism through ambient air entrainment in the vasculature. Dr Evans determined that the infants died due to air embolism by referring to a 1989 research paper, which described gas embolism, due to the usage of high ventilation pressures which is a practice no longer applied to neonates. None of the findings on autopsy suggest the children died due to air embolism.
It is apparent that a crucial element in the Lucy Letby case is the reliability of the original investigation. It is of great concern that Dr Evans conducted the investigation with the assistance of the consultants who were present on the ward at the time of death, and where, in any other setting, such individuals should have been treated as suspects. A further factor is whether Dr Evans was qualified to conduct any investigation given that he is neither a forensic scientist, nor a pathologist. Dr Evans has no formal training or background in the principles of scientific research. It is highly irregular for a group of medical doctors to play a primary role in carrying out a criminal investigation. In most other jurisdictions such activity would not constitute an independent investigation.
Sends shivers down my spine,
Having done jury service, I wouldn't like my guilt or innocence to be decided by a jury- it's very much a lottery.
I wonder how this case rubs up in Hitchens mind regarding his own belief in capital punishment .