TO THE BEREAVED FAMILIES, a year after the Lucy Letby conviction, time is likely to have made little difference to their grief and discussion of the case is not intended to diminish their horrendous experience. But a year has made a difference in the general discussion and it is striking.
The New Yorker published a 13,000 word article reviewing the evidence at the first trial. Since then other big media, such as The Telegraph, are asking questions and raising concerns. Sir David Davis MP is considering whether a miscarriage of justice might have taken place and will be scheduling questions and requests for review in September around the same time as the public inquiry. For those unconvinced by the evidence at both trials it will be reassuring to note that the system to some extent might work in the end in this case.
The central questions are about the statistical evidence and the use of expert testimony.
Statistical evidence being a bit cherry picked is not new. It led to the conviction of Sally Clark in 1999 of murdering her children before being exonerated. Same for Angela Cannings in 2022. Now The Royal Statistics Society advises that juries are given support to understand some limitations in presented data which didn’t happen in the Letby trial. The Royal Statistics Society has now written to Lady Justice Thirlwall offering support on the use of statistical data and asking for it to be covered in the public inquiry that she will chair. There are questions about the use of paid expert testimony and whether the prosecutions’ medical expert, Dr Dewi Evans, gave an ‘expert’s opinion’ rather than an expert opinion based on evidence.
Sir David Davis was keen to point out that the people raising these big concerns aren’t just ‘conspiracy theorists’. They are experts. But there are some aspects of this case that just seemed a bit off and it doesn’t take an expert in law to see what looks unfair.
Prosecution lawyers aren’t on the defence side. That’s why judges are needed to keep the trial fair and balanced. But lines of questioning from the prosecution which seemed more about Letby’s personality than evidence were allowed to take place. Questions such as ‘Is there any reason why you cry when you talk about yourself and do not cry when you talk about the dead and seriously injured children’ or ‘how would someone act if they had killed a baby’. No one seems to have objected, and systematic gaslighting of a defendant seems to have been allowed in open court.
When Letby was described in the second trial as being caught ‘virtually red-handed’, no wise judge intervened to point out these words are nonsensical. A shoplifter wouldn’t be convicted on being caught ‘virtually red-handed’ but for a murder trial it was allowed to stand.
The judge also suggested in his advice to the jury that if they believed the first conviction then they could find her guilty at the second trial. Now I’m no legal expert but really? Is that English law? Why bother with a trial?
The media had an unrestricted field day after the first trial guilty verdicts. The Daily Mail reporters who won a media award for their Lucy Letby podcast are now reassuringly adamant of her guilt. That’s the same Daily Mail which was piously concerned that ‘angel of death’ Letby felt ‘smothered’ by her parents – leading, one assumes, to her actions. The Guardian said that people who don’t accept Letby’s guilt are in denial because of her outwardly normal appearance and even her whiteness.
Gaslighting not seen since a lab in China released a virus or women-hating women didn’t vote in Hilary Clinton. The BBC claimed that no one wants to believe a serial killer exists. Really? The media pundits seemed peachy keen. The New Yorker article was banned from publication in the UK until after the second court case lest it influence the jury. Makes sense? Not a bit.
Justice is meant not only to be done, but seen to be done. Sir David should remember that many people are voicing concerns about this case. Not just the important people. Not just the experts. Regular people too.
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Photo of Countess of Chester Hospital from public domain.
Gail Macdonald previously wrote about the Lucy Letby prosecution here.
