The Campaign To Release Lucy Letby

In recent months the campaign to release Lucy Letby has been heating up. Out of the blue, it seems like hundreds of “experts” are now weighing in, making adamant claims of her innocence.

It seems like a very well orchestrated political and media campaign. Three former administrators from the Countess of Chester Hospital were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence, and manslaughter, following the trial of Letby. Is it any wonder this has become a political football?

We all know how the so called experts weighed in on the covid fiasco, and many continue to do so. It is difficult to understand how a nurse manager in the US can weigh in, and claim with certainty that Lucy was an outstanding young nurse, who she (random nurse manager from 4,000 miles away) was very proud of. What?

How can a nurse manager from another country assess a nurse who she has never even met, or worked with? This woman is one of the so-called experts who has jumped into the political melee.

Thousands of lay people are also on the innocence bandwagon. One has to wonder how a jury of eleven people who went through thousands of pages of evidence for many months, could get it all wrong?

The assumption is that all of the doctors who sounded the alarm were corrupt, lying and covering up their own incompetence. That means a group of seven neonatal consultants at the hospital who raised formal concerns, were all in cahoots for some reason.

Doctors are very adept when it comes to fiercely protecting their own professional careers and reputations. They are by no means pure as the driven snow when it comes to being underhanded, and prone to blaming others for anything that might make them look bad.

But it does not make sense that all of the doctors would take an interest in pointing a finger at one person without a cause. They would know it would lead to an intensive, and in-depth investigation. If they were trying to cover things up, they would not want an in-depth investigation. They know about the power of unions. They know the charts are a legal document that would be dissected by police, and used in court. 

I don’t think it is feasible for seven neonatologists to develop a vendetta without sufficient cause. How many people in any professional setting would want to weigh in on, and be forced to testify in a murder trial? How many would want their own competencies, and judgement to come under intense scrutiny? 

Clearly they did not bring their concerns forward without recognizing the gravity of what they were faced with. They soon found out the powers they were up against, but they did not back down. It speaks to the strength of their own convictions. 

Furthermore, if Letby is actually innocent, and was the target of a witch hunt, the police force had to be co-conspirators with the doctors. They would have had to see some reason to scapegoat Letby for the problems in the NICU where she worked. Why would they seek a scapegoat in such a situation? If there was no validity to the doctor’s complaints, the police would have simply said there was not sufficient evidence to pursue it. 

This case had to go through layer upon layer of investigation, at every single stage, long before it even got to trial. Yet somehow the court of public opinion can now loom larger than the justice system?

All those who are claiming she is innocent now that a political campaign is underway, and the “experts” contributing to this have nothing to lose, and possibly something to gain. They are boldly moving in to use their opinions, to override the jury system in the UK.

We all know that miscarriages of justice do occur. No one wants to see an innocent person locked up. But what is alarming about this case is that an in-depth investigation, and lengthy trial is potentially being tossed over a multitude of random opinions.

In my opinion, in order to make the claim of innocence, they will have to go over all of the evidence, and one by one turn over every single conviction. What if it turns out she conclusively murdered three babies, instead of seven? What if she attempted to murder just two of them?

How do they explain the fact that the death rate rose dramatically while she was there, and dropped dramatically when she was gone? What about the babies that recovered after the attacks by Letby when they were sent to another hospital? And then promptly collapsed again, after being returned to her care?

How does anyone explain why insulin was put into a TPN bag, when none of those babies had orders for insulin? How do they explain that Letby asked the police if they “”had the bag”? How would she have known the insulin had been put into a TPN bag, when she was being questioned about administering insulin to a neonate, unless she knew that was how it was administered? There are many ways to administer insulin.

How do they explain the babies who were very stable, suddenly collapsing shortly after she came on shift? Or when she did a break relief for another nurse. The nurse left the baby in stable condition, and before the end of her break, the child was having a cardiac or respiratory arrest. That is highly suspicious.

How about when Letby returned from vacation, and said she was going to be “coming back with a bang”. As soon as she returned, there were more collapses, sending shock waves through the entire unit. 

How do they explain the alterations she made on the charts? Or taking stacks of handover sheets home with her? Or all the things she wrote in her diary? What about the confessional notes she left in her apartment for the police to find? She knew she was out of control. 

They claim the notes she wrote admitting to the crimes, were written under duress because she was traumatized by the accusations. She wrote that she was evil, and did it on purpose. Would an innocent person say that?

The entire situation had spiralled out of control. There was not one incident, or a single mechanism of injury. Those babies suffered many attacks, using a variety of different methods.

There is no doubt that some of the responses to the collapses were rife with mistakes. It is very common for doctors to have difficulty getting a central line in, or intubating, in a crisis situation. Sometimes the correct instruments are not readily available, or the crash cart has not been kept up to date. 

It is common for people to make mistakes, and to miss key information. That does not mean there is a conspiracy. It just means the competency is not always 100% because to err is human. In most of those cases, those who attended the resuscitations were completely caught off guard.

It is not difficult to believe that the management was grossly negligent, because sadly, that is common. It is not difficult to believe that some of the doctors, or people involved in the many resuscitations, would have made errors. It is not uncommon for certain people to dislike each other, and/or complain about each other within a hospital setting.

It is uncommon for seven consultants to see patterns of intentional harm, and unexpected collapses. It is very uncommon for the parent of any professional to go to grievance related meetings with the administrators of a hospital, as Lucy Letby’s father is reported to have done. Why would they allow that? What about confidentiality? What about the fact that he was not working there – she was? She was not a child. She was an adult who was placed in charge of premature neonates, which was a position involving significant responsibility. 

If it is true that Lucy Letby’s father attended meetings with the administrators surrounding her case, to address the doctor’s concerns, and Letby’s grievance over being removed form the unit – that is very abnormal. In fact it is unheard of. Since when does the parent of an adult professional intervene on behalf of their child in a work setting?

During those meetings, his influence was so significant that he got the administrators to side in favour of Letby. As a result, the doctors were forced to write a letter of apology, and agree to work with her. Even that was not good enough. They were told they must be “happy to work with her”.

It appears she never did get back to work, because a police investigation had been launched.

For all those who adamantly claim she is innocent, they must admit to the fact they are being influenced by a campaign. There is no way random people could have heard all the testimony, or gone through thousands of pages of evidence.

I listened to about seventy or eighty per cent of the trial that was made public. The testimony of the parents of the babies was heart wrenching, and candid. Did they too have a motive to scapegoat Letby?

After listening to the trial, I did think the jury got it right. I could not see how they could ever overturn every single case, because they went through painstaking evidence to convict on every single case.

In fact there were numerous cases that were highly suspicious, but were overturned due to a lack of conclusive evidence.

It seems like there is now a massive amount of sympathy for Letby. But what about the babies? What about cases of attempted murder that caused some of them to be severely handicapped? The sympathy for them seems to have evaporated.

Regardless of the outcome, and in spite of the political furor, and experts weighing in – there is no way Letby can be completely innocent. It was not a matter of a single victim, or even three of four. The victim count was more than twenty.

The babies did not die of sepsis. There was no outbreak of infection to speak of. Instead there was a series of random, and repeated attacks on various infants.

Staff could have been burned out, understaffed, and poorly managed. Sadly that is the way it is in most hospitals. But none of those things lead to murder, and attempted murder, or even the suspicion of murder.

The suspicions that began to revolve around Letby happened because of a dramatic increase in deaths, and near deaths, which had no reasonable explanation. Understandably those deaths, and collapses would be cause for alarm.

It did not take too long to realize she was on duty for each of those critical incidents. Not two or three of them, but more like twenty.

Is it possible the efforts of her influential father, combined with the arrests of top administrators, and their political connections, have led to a campaign of innocence? Not based on proof of innocence, but based on the creation of a presumption of innocence? Designed to get them all off the hook?

How much does it take to drum up expert witnesses once a political campaign is launched?

If she is truly innocent, let them bring forth solid new evidence, combined with proof of police corruption, and conspiracy.

The tables would have to turn on many people, to include all of the doctors. Then let a new jury hear all of the evidence. The separate the new evidence from the original evidence, case by case, for every single infant, and see if they can overturn all of them. It would take another year long trial, and weeks, if not months of deliberating.

I hope whatever happens, the truth comes out and stands firm. Personally, I have more confidence in the jury system, than I do in so called experts who are coming out of the woodwork after the conviction.

If a political campaign, and the influence of a disgruntled father with political connections, can overturn a jury conviction, what has happened to the justice system?