Lucy Letby Case #41

[LittleMy]

Reeeeeeeeally fucking guilty.

 

[Tofino]

I wouldn’t ‘sell my story’ as such, but I feel like I would want the public to know my baby had a name and they were more than just a letter of the alphabet. I would possibly release a statement with a name and photo or something. But this would absolutely be dependent on my circumstances at the time, impact on other children and family etc

 

[justkeepscrolling111]

genuinely how can the defence do it, i know it's their job but idk i couldn't do it for any money in the world

It’s a job. It’s also a very important job. Imagine if you were accused of a serious crime and someone told you there wouldn’t be any trial or defence representation for you because no one would do it? Similarly, not everyone who is accused of a crime is guilty and so the right to a fair trial is crucial.

 

[MmmB777]

Sadly I am all too aware that most people think defence KCs are awful people but he has to cast doubt on the prosecution’s case, that is a vital part of doing his job and it does not make him a “tool”. Would you prefer it he said nothing at all and she appealed on the basis of defective representation?

I hope you can understand emotions run high, especially for those that have followed this trial for nine months. I wouldn’t take it personally. BM has had no trouble telling the court to be disparaging of somebody that’s a “professional witness” despite expert witness work being a perfectly legitimate job so I think should ever find these comments, they won’t make him lose sleep. He’s incredibly good at what he does but people here would probably like to feel free to share their frustration. And have a laugh.

 

[LittleMy]

It’s all he can do. There is literally no plausible defence so it’s all he can do is attack attack attack. Attack the staff, the standard of care at the hospital, and try to discredit the other witnesses including the parents.

 

[Tofino]

So use of the ‘haha’ react button is banned, but Gill is permitted to mouth off on there on a daily basis, spread all sorts of misinformation and claim that the doctors are baby killers? Ok then, I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up
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“they only made typical doctor mistakes and lots are made in badly run and underfunded hospitals.”

So why aren’t we seeing the same types of collapses and deaths in NNU up and down the country? Or even just in COCH still? If anything it should be even worse now post covid.

I notice not a single person has liked his comment in those 9 hours

 

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

He’s looking at each case in isolation and trying to offer legitimate reasons why the baby collapsed or died. He only needs to make the jury have some doubt that it was attempted/completed murder at the hands of LL. And that is possible to do and could get NG verdict if this was just one or two babies but this is 22 charges over a very short period. The judge’s directions will be so important because the overall picture is essential to seeing the wood from the trees. I can picture being on the jury and feeling like BM has a point here and there. But when you stand back and look at it in the context of an external investigation suggesting something other than failure of care at the unit you come back to reality. There are sadly many examples of institutional failures within the NHS, particularly maternity/neonatal and they get investigated (eventually ), reported on and hopefully changes made. Sometimes individual sanctions or higher ups moved on. You don’t see the entire blame being pinned on one person and murder charges brought!

 

[Refracton]

The Facebook group has been temporarily paused.

 

[RinsedHoops]

I also really think Dr Gibbs should sue him for defamation as well. He’s basically accusing him of either murder or negligence which lead to deaths here…

I feel like Dick has fallen down a QAnnon type rabbit hole. He's showing all the signs of conspiracy theory derangement. It's like he doesn't see these babies as people.

 

[Futtrit]

I mean if BM's goal today was to make everyone think he's a cunt then....

 

[AccidentalAcademic]

I've started writing this many times and deleted it. I'm not going to lie you've really got my back up but I know that's because I have an emotional connection to the subject matter and you very clearly have not.

I could've aborted my baby the day before he was born in this country. Legally.

If he was born in the Netherlands I could have murdered him the day after he was born. Legally.

The strict guidance you speak of, the criteria for murder (if a child is already born its not fucking euthanasia or palliative, it's murder) would've been met by my son and MANY of his friends within our community.

When he was born Louie had congenital heart defects, kidney problems and various other issues. He would have met the 'very strict criteria' but instead of murdering him I decided to just love him.

I think a lot of non-disabled people are ignorant of quite how much discrimination disabled patients face, especially when they have intellectual disabilities, and just how easy it is for medical neglect (and worse) to be legitimised. They don't mean to be callous, they just want to believe that it only happens to people who are terminally ill and for whom a painful death is imminent. It's so hard to hear it when you know differently. I have family members with similar disabilities to your son and I was involved in Mencap's Death by Indifference campaign nearly twenty years ago, if you remember that. Sometimes it feels like nothing has changed, but I know we have to keep fighting. Love to you and your son.

 

[tay65]

Ok so…

Obviously this is all just my own opinion.
Full disclosure, before the trial I thought “innocent”, because I didn’t believe a person could do such things on such a scale. Early on in the trial I was G but not for all counts, and for the past 6 months I have been firmly “guilty” for all charges, just so you have an idea of my biases.

I went to court today annoyed that I was only watching BMs closing and annoyed I couldn’t get off work to see BNEs closing or LL on cross. I was thinking “CBA listening to this tosser” but also wanting to see history being made as this case will be massive once it’s over.

My opinion of BM (not LL) has changed a lot today. I was impressed by him, if I was on trial I would want him as my defence.

Yes, he is bombastic, arrogant, and clutching at straws, but really that’s all he has to clutch at. He’s doing the best with what he has. He is a great orator, I found him to weave a compelling narrative (although I didn’t find most of it plausible). I think he’s very good at what he does, and having just read the Standard write up l have to say he comes across much better in person than the write up portrays.
I would describe him as being like that odd amazing teacher or lecturer you get who makes a boring, difficult subject easy to understand, that’s his style of speaking.

For the actual content of what he was saying I’ve done a bit of a thematic analysis, it broadly slots into 4 areas:

1. “The Prosecution has a theory and they’re bending everything to fit with it.”

Basically saying LL is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t, and no matter what happens the prosecution say that means she’s guilty. Bringing up things
like wrong or missed entries made by other nurses “but when LL does it, GUILTY!”, saying the prosecution are ignoring harm events that happens when LL was off duty (on the table of events he said there was 2 or 3 missing). A lot of implying the prosecution had cherry picked stats (but BM actually did the same in his closing).
He really laboured the “innocent till proven guilty” point and was quite compelling in how he presented it, it was a stirring speech about one’s duty to the accused.

1. “Experts ain’t shit”

The crux of this argument was that the expert witnesses were not impartial, had an agenda and were firmly on the prosecution team. Also questioning how expert they actually were.
As others have said he really went to town on Dewi Evans, however I have to say this was the one thing he said today in his closing that he actually had a bit of evidence to back up. I was quite surprised by some of what I heard and saw about this expert witness. I want to check back in the live reporting to see what was said as I don’t want to say anything I’m not allowed to, but the things he said did give me doubt in the motivations of the witness (not of LLs guilt).
However he over-extrapolated this and tried to paint Sandy Bohin as unreliable “by association” but then had nothing to back this up, so then did not sound credible.

1. “Buttering up the jury”

I think he over-egged the pudding massively here and I think this is where observers found him condescending. I think he was trying to ride on the coat-tails of BNEs success with “you’ll tell us if we got it right”. He kept on with things like “if you think a piece of evidence isn’t important or doesn’t fit, then you disregard it, it’s up to you, it doesn’t matter what I or anyone else say” (paraphrasing). But he said this too much, going on about how he has faith in the jury and how it’s up to them what evidence is important and what isn’t. He used it as a tool when he couldn’t explain a piece of evidence, e.g. Lucy saying she wasn’t allowed to talk to work colleagues and then being pictured out with them, “you’ll decide if that’s really important or not”.
IMO he missed the mark here and tried to kiss arse too much, it came across insincere.

1. “If you can’t attack what someone is saying, attack the way they say it”

He mentioned often how the prosecution have been hostile to LL in their cross examination. Went as far as almost mimicking BNEs voice when saying
“I do” after LL said “you think I pushed it [the feed] in”.
Said a lot of things about how they belittled LL, how they seemed outraged that she had dared argue back and defend herself.
The “go commando” comment was fairly well covered in the live reporting.
He also kept alluding to this being the first chance the defence has had to really properly address the jury and get their points across, like they haven’t had chance to bring things up until now.



Onto Lucy herself, this was a big motivation for me to visit court, to actually see this person (on video) with my own eyes. Others have commented on her appearance through the trial, and yes she looked more tired, miserable and heavier than her social media pictures. What struck me is how still she was. We all sat in hot courts for hours today and naturally people shifted around in chairs, scratched, drank water, fidgeted. LL could go >1 hour before any perceptible movement, just stock still and staring straight ahead for hours. It just seemed a bit weird.
Later in the day it looked like she dabbed her eyes with a tissue 3 times, but it was during the time BM was tearing Dewi Evans apart, so it seemed like an odd time to be emotional.
There was a point this afternoon where the speakers went wrong and made a horrible noise first and then quite a funny echo when BM was speaking, most people in court laughed briefly, even BM and the police and counsel. LL made no perceptible reaction. She did use that moment after when they were trying to sort the IT to have a bit of a look around the court.

Impact of todays closing on the jury:
There was only two points today that gave
me cause for concern.
Firstly; if somebody found the heaps of medical evidence to be too confusing or difficult to consider, then BM gives a neat
excuse for all this, I.e. that it was all cherry picked anyway to fit the “guilty till proven innocent theory”, and then you don’t have to trouble your mind thinking about it all, because the jury gets to decide what’s important and what’s not. I think this is why he’s popular on the Facebook groups. Hopefully there is nobody on the jury like this.
Secondly; the Dewi Evans discussion visibly swayed some of the people sitting on my side of the court and I think could have the potential to put doubt in the jury’s minds.
Otherwise anyone with half a brain could see all BM did today was well constructed, theatrical waffle.

Personally I think BM knows she’s toast and knows she’ll be up again on more charges before long. He’s just doing his job and honestly I quite enjoyed watching
him do it, as much as one can with such a dark subject matter.
---

Yes I did, too much for one day

I've enjoyed reading your very perceptive view on your visit to court. As you say he very much maligned the experts. I just don't understand why he didn't bring his own experts to back this up if they were so bad. I think BNE saw some of this coming last week when he told the jury they could put aside Evans' testimony if they wished because the other witnesses' testimony backed everything up. I hadn't noticed LL's stillness or her dabbing her eyes. I agree he cherry picked by way of citing the most innocuous part of her notes i.e. "not good enough" and his perceived meaning of this and not mentioning the more damning comments she had written. I also thought it was quite pathetic when he showed the picture of her noticeboard with normal things on it. It was like he was saying it would contain pictures of serial killers if she was guilty. He also mentioned the insulin and it sounded like he was saying the second attack was a lesser injected amount than the first. This seemed to be opposite to what BNE said last week and I found this difficult to understand. However I had a look on Reddit earlier to see what people were posting and someone has posted what sounds to me like a very knowledgeable explanation about the insulin and this person is saying that BM has misunderstood the insulin results and it is the way BNE has described (why didn't BM recruit an expert to assist him with this) therefore she claims BM has misinformed the jury today about the insulin. He also inferred the texting at work was normal and everyone did this but BNE's in depth breakdown last week of LL's texting was not normal or appropriate. My friend said she thinks BM does not for one minute believe LL is NG which is what you've said and is just doing his job. It will be interesting to see what the next four days brings from him and whether he'll have the jury "eating out of his hand" and I really hope this will not be the case.

 

[Haveyouanywool]

3:35pm

Mr Myers it may not have been anyone's fault that Child E was at the Countess, but Liverpool Women's was 'full'.

He says it is "not extraordinary" that Child E became unwell, and one of the nurses suggested that stress could have caused acidosis and, as a consequence, bleeding.

Mr Myers says Dr Bohin would not consider bleeding as a cause of death.

He says he knows it is distressing to talk about, and Child E did bleed to death.

He says "everybody here could see [Child E] needed a blood transfusion".

This shite is really boiling my blood.
It’s like saying, someone’s been stabbed but we all know a blood transfusion would have saved them.
Not being stabbed would have saved them.
Pity the parents having to listen to this fucking shite. I’d want to render someone to be in need of a blood transfusion.

 

[DellaC]

The delays at this stage must be very difficult for the families to take. They must be exhausted Lucy's parents too.

 

[LittleMy]

Richard Gill, I say this kindly, but…

 

[Windowtothewall]

I'm weirdly pleased BM is doing what he can to defend her this week - so she won't win an appeal. The jury can see as we can, that he needed to have witnesses and evidence that respectable senior doctors were lying and conspiring. The prosecution have given us their evidence why they believe LL lied, and if BM wants to discredit witnesses, he needs more than his say so!

 

[sebanna]

Wonder how many of the countries neonatalist, pediatricians and medical experts BM contacted before he called the plumber.

 

[Cheddar Chalpupa]

The fact Lucy Letby can’t be a murderer as she had a photo of her self smiling on her wall
Was she meant to have photos of her holding up bags of insulin with a death stare.

Excuse you, you must have missed the part where she texts about gossip, races, and salsa and never about doing murders. How could she have been a serial killer and never once mentioned it in all her boring texts?

 

[avabella]

Mr Bojangles is doing really well.
He had some soaked mealworms for the first time today and loved them. He doesn’t want to miss out when we’re having dinner and tries to cadge stuff even though he’s not going to like it. He’s taken to sleeping on the dish drainer (seems uncomfy) which is handy for cleaning (bleaching I may add).
I’m leaving the door open so he can go in and out as he pleases, he’s not gone far. A lot of wing flapping and has managed about a 3 - 4 foot flight. It was raining quite heavily today and he was like ‘what’s going on?’.
I didn’t realise crows have an opinion on everything, they do. Apart from the cawing, it’s hmmm, ehh, what?, is that so, or the equivalent in bird noises.

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I mean, good on you, but this terrifies the absolute shite out of me

 

[IGiveUp22]

I find it frustrating that he, who isn’t a medical professional, is speaking to the jury like he is.

I know BNE also did this, however he was led by the medical experts. I would be more inclined to listen to BM if he too had a medical expert which supported all these things he is spouting