• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Putin & Russia

Silly McSilly Face said:
I'm sorry but a lot of that isn't true. The Letby case has unfortunately been hijacked by a huge amount of noise and I'm afraid you've been bamboozled by some of it as have many:
- Not a single expert witness has reconsidered. In fact, only a single "expert witness" gave evidence at trial, Dr. Dewi Evans.
- Medical evidence of foul play was also produced by the prosecution from all senior consultants that worked on the unit with Letby, all of whom are essentially "expert witnesses", being consultant neonatologists or paediatricians, all of whom suspected foul play in the deaths that occurred and all of whom suspected Letby to be behind it (and began a long-running campaign to attempt to convince senior hospital management to remove Letby from duty and begin an investigation). None of the prosecution witnesses in respect of the medical evidence have reconsidered their opinions.
- The mortality rate was only severely high while Letby was on duty. It was normal before she started work there. When the consultants successfully petitioned to have her moved from night shifts to day shifts, the unusually high pattern of deaths moved from night to day. When Letby was removed from duty, the significantly high mortality rate dropped back to normal. Police are currently investigating the spike in deaths that occurred at the Liverpool hospital where Letby was briefly moved to. These investigations are ongoing.
- Many of those that attempt to dispute the Letby convictions tend to play the game of taking each piece of evidence and dismissing it in isolation as circumstantial or unconvincing. When the vast majority of convictions are built on weight of circumstantial evidence that on their own don't add up to much, but taken together build an overwhelming picture of guilt. In Letby's case:
- All senior doctors working with her thought she was harming babies. One of them walked in on her standing over a crashing baby doing nothing but watching it die.
- A leading paediatric/neonatal expert witness agreed with their views that foul play had caused the deaths.
- The death spikes started when she joined the unit. Moved from nights to days as her shift changed and stopped when she was removed from duties.
- Letby attempted to hide her presence at the deaths, with evidence presented that she had modified shift entries and police found over 200 shift registers at her home address that she'd stolen from the hospital.
- Letby wrote things in her diary alluding to guilt , including the "I'm evil" and "I did this" quotes.
- As is typical in serial killer cases, Letby collected "trophies" from her victims, with the police finding objects belonging to the dead babies at her home address along with copies of their medical records which she had again stolen from the hospital.
- Letby "stalked" the families of the victims, including visiting their social media profiles on the anniversary of the babies deaths and footprint analysis showed she took interest or was looking for signs of grief.
Click to expand...

You are amazing. You are a polymath of almost Da Vinci levels, knowledgeable about everything and able to rise above all the noise that us mere mortals get 'bamboozled' by. I doff my cap to you.


You're right, Evans didn't change his mind on her guilt, he has kept changing his mind on how she had done it (because he had no actual evidence to go on) and has now retired and won't comment further on the case. He is also what is known as a reliable 'expert' witness for the prosecution as he says what they want to hear so he can be used time and time again. He actually contacted Chester police and volunteered (and by volunteered I mean offered his services rather than being approached for a large fee). There were actually 2 'expert' witnesses, the other a lady from Guernsey who basically said Evans was right but couldn't explain any of the glaring gaps in his variable stories and now refuses to engage with the process.

The roster was shown to be wrong. 7 deaths occurred while she was on duty. A further 11 (there were 18 in total) when she wasn't. She wasn't on duty for one of the deaths she was accused of so the prosecution made up a totally unsubstantiated allegation that she must have spiked a (or lots of because she had no control over which one was taken) nutrition bag with insulin before hand.

You talk about circumstantial evidence building to a case but it still remains merely circumstantial.

Can't find anything about a spike in deaths in Liverpool hospital when Letby was on placement. Plenty about unusually high number of NG tube dislodgements but nothing about death rates. Articles saying police were looking into deaths there but then the narrative changed to dislodged tubes.

There was no increase in unusual deaths in the first 3 years she worked there. It didn't 'spike' when she joined the unit. The deaths did drop after but was this because high-risk neo-nates went to proper units, did the level of staffing change or did the approach change because they were under the spotlight? Was she the only member of staff to leave in that window? Hmmm.

Spikes happened across neonatal units in the UK at the same time - nothing statistically significant at the Countess of Chester apparently according to presentations to the Thirwell enquiry..

There is a big difference between watching a crashing baby die and actually killing it. And one that she was 'caught red-handed' killing wasn't reported by the senior doctor at the time because he didn't think anything of it. He reported it a year later when other allegations came up.

Countess of Chester was a level 2 neo-natal hospital and wasn't equipped or maintained to manage the cases this involved. They were mainly tier 3 neo-natals and should have been sent to another hospital. The consultants and staffing were inadequate (both in experience, numbers and equipment) to manage these infants.

6 out of the 7 babies had thorough post-mortems and no evidence of foul play was found. These are very thorough inspections. The case files for all 17 were reviewed at multiple levels after each death as is procedure and no one identified any issues with any individual death (although Evans could spot the causes immediately .....)

None of the other nurses or junior doctors seem to think Letby was guilty (and have claimed to have been threatened by senior Chester staff to keep schtum or risk their careers) but the consultants who were actually responsible for the Unit all decided it must be her. Even though only one was a neonatal specialist.

There were obvious mental issues with Letby and the impact of the babies deaths had on her. Was this guilt for doing something or guilt because neo-nates were dying and she felt powerless to stop it?

The 'trophies' (as the tabloid press decided to call them) were blood analysis sheets and handover sheets and out of nearly 300 such sheets (dating back to her very first one) only 23 referred to any of the relevant cases. Odd way to collect 'trophies'. Other nurses have also said they take notes home sometimes.

The 'stalking' again was a small percentage of all the Facebook searches she obsessively did. She looked up one mother 9 times out of 3,000 searches of people. Letby wasn't in a good mental health for sure but the 'stalking' and 'trophies' is deliberate emotive serial killer language and cherry picking to create an impression rather than statistically meaningful. Other neo-natal nurses have said they do Facebook check ups on families to see how they are doing, send cards and even go to funerals so this isn't perhaps the 'stalking with intent' that it is being sold as.

Odd also that a killer who can murder in such an undetectable way is so careless with all the evidence stored in plain sight in her home.

Letby is a very odd character - that doesn't make her a killer. I don't know whether she is guilty or not but from my reading of the case and the follow up, the case against her is as you say, just circumstantial, and fairly weak at that. Why the defence didn't call Letby or any experts of their own is also odd. Perhaps they were certain that there was no stand up evidence against her and the jury would find reasonable doubt. Perhaps Letby wanted to be punished at the time because she felt guilty for not saving the infants. Who knows.
 
Lost Mango said:
You are amazing. You are a polymath of almost Da Vinci levels, knowledgeable about everything and able to rise above all the noise that us mere mortals get 'bamboozled' by. I doff my cap to you.


You're right, Evans didn't change his mind on her guilt, he has kept changing his mind on how she had done it (because he had no actual evidence to go on) and has now retired and won't comment further on the case. He is also what is known as a reliable 'expert' witness for the prosecution as he says what they want to hear so he can be used time and time again. He actually contacted Chester police and volunteered (and by volunteered I mean offered his services rather than being approached for a large fee). There were actually 2 'expert' witnesses, the other a lady from Guernsey who basically said Evans was right but couldn't explain any of the glaring gaps in his variable stories and now refuses to engage with the process.

The roster was shown to be wrong. 7 deaths occurred while she was on duty. A further 11 (there were 18 in total) when she wasn't. She wasn't on duty for one of the deaths she was accused of so the prosecution made up a totally unsubstantiated allegation that she must have spiked a (or lots of because she had no control over which one was taken) nutrition bag with insulin before hand.

You talk about circumstantial evidence building to a case but it still remains merely circumstantial.

Can't find anything about a spike in deaths in Liverpool hospital when Letby was on placement. Plenty about unusually high number of NG tube dislodgements but nothing about death rates. Articles saying police were looking into deaths there but then the narrative changed to dislodged tubes.

There was no increase in unusual deaths in the first 3 years she worked there. It didn't 'spike' when she joined the unit. The deaths did drop after but was this because high-risk neo-nates went to proper units, did the level of staffing change or did the approach change because they were under the spotlight? Was she the only member of staff to leave in that window? Hmmm.

Spikes happened across neonatal units in the UK at the same time - nothing statistically significant at the Countess of Chester apparently according to presentations to the Thirwell enquiry..

There is a big difference between watching a crashing baby die and actually killing it. And one that she was 'caught red-handed' killing wasn't reported by the senior doctor at the time because he didn't think anything of it. He reported it a year later when other allegations came up.

Countess of Chester was a level 2 neo-natal hospital and wasn't equipped or maintained to manage the cases this involved. They were mainly tier 3 neo-natals and should have been sent to another hospital. The consultants and staffing were inadequate (both in experience, numbers and equipment) to manage these infants.

6 out of the 7 babies had thorough post-mortems and no evidence of foul play was found. These are very thorough inspections. The case files for all 17 were reviewed at multiple levels after each death as is procedure and no one identified any issues with any individual death (although Evans could spot the causes immediately .....)

None of the other nurses or junior doctors seem to think Letby was guilty (and have claimed to have been threatened by senior Chester staff to keep schtum or risk their careers) but the consultants who were actually responsible for the Unit all decided it must be her. Even though only one was a neonatal specialist.

There were obvious mental issues with Letby and the impact of the babies deaths had on her. Was this guilt for doing something or guilt because neo-nates were dying and she felt powerless to stop it?

The 'trophies' (as the tabloid press decided to call them) were blood analysis sheets and handover sheets and out of nearly 300 such sheets (dating back to her very first one) only 23 referred to any of the relevant cases. Odd way to collect 'trophies'. Other nurses have also said they take notes home sometimes.

The 'stalking' again was a small percentage of all the Facebook searches she obsessively did. She looked up one mother 9 times out of 3,000 searches of people. Letby wasn't in a good mental health for sure but the 'stalking' and 'trophies' is deliberate emotive serial killer language and cherry picking to create an impression rather than statistically meaningful. Other neo-natal nurses have said they do Facebook check ups on families to see how they are doing, send cards and even go to funerals so this isn't perhaps the 'stalking with intent' that it is being sold as.

Odd also that a killer who can murder in such an undetectable way is so careless with all the evidence stored in plain sight in her home.

Letby is a very odd character - that doesn't make her a killer. I don't know whether she is guilty or not but from my reading of the case and the follow up, the case against her is as you say, just circumstantial, and fairly weak at that. Why the defence didn't call Letby or any experts of their own is also odd. Perhaps they were certain that there was no stand up evidence against her and the jury would find reasonable doubt. Perhaps Letby wanted to be punished at the time because she felt guilty for not saving the infants. Who knows.
Click to expand...
Pretty much all criminal cases that go through an actual trial are based on circumstantial evidence. I.e. if you have, say, CCTV footage of someone murdering someone, then a guilty plea is likely entered early. Those that claim the evidence against Letby is too weak to convict would probably not convict anyone of any crime where the sort of slam-dunk evidence I've mentioned didn't exist.

On the point about the defence not calling their own experts, this isn't odd at all really. The defence legal team's first job is to prevent their client from convicting themselves. That means avoiding any "own goals" in front of the jury. While the defence could likely have found experts (such as Dr. Lee and his team) that could look at the evidence and say "these deaths can be explained by natural causes" the defence will then test them under light cross-examination. Because the prosecution will be going at anyone put up by the defence and asking Qs in front of the jury such as "can you rule out foul play", "would it possibly be explainable by the explanation given by Dr's X, Y and Z" and "are you saying your fellow medical professionals have got it wrong?" And if they then start waffling or answer in the wrong way that's a disaster for the defence. It's likely that the defence couldn't find an expert witness that could maintain a categorical rule-out stance under cross examination and therefore felt it safer for Letby to go with nobody and let the prosecution try to prove guilt.

Killers and other criminals are often careless with evidence. You kind of seem to imply that the police finding evidence potentially pointing to guilt when searching her house actually implies that she is innocent, which just kind of sums up the craziness around the "free Letby" movement
 
Lost Mango said:
You are amazing. You are a polymath of almost Da Vinci levels, knowledgeable about everything and able to rise above all the noise that us mere mortals get 'bamboozled' by. I doff my cap to you.
Click to expand...

Hahaha, yes indeed, what a time to be alive, eh?!!!
Me? Little ol' mortal me?
I came to the realisation a few years ago that I will die knowing less than I ever thought possible because I recognise how little I really know versus what I thought I did.
It's good to think and search, exchange ideas, and converse, but I am more convinced than ever that we don't know half of what we think we do.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Pretty much all criminal cases that go through an actual trial are based on circumstantial evidence. I.e. if you have, say, CCTV footage of someone murdering someone, then a guilty plea is likely entered early. Those that claim the evidence against Letby is too weak to convict would probably not convict anyone of any crime where the sort of slam-dunk evidence I've mentioned didn't exist.

On the point about the defence not calling their own experts, this isn't odd at all really. The defence legal team's first job is to prevent their client from convicting themselves. That means avoiding any "own goals" in front of the jury. While the defence could likely have found experts (such as Dr. Lee and his team) that could look at the evidence and say "these deaths can be explained by natural causes" the defence will then test them under light cross-examination. Because the prosecution will be going at anyone put up by the defence and asking Qs in front of the jury such as "can you rule out foul play", "would it possibly be explainable by the explanation given by Dr's X, Y and Z" and "are you saying your fellow medical professionals have got it wrong?" And if they then start waffling or answer in the wrong way that's a disaster for the defence. It's likely that the defence couldn't find an expert witness that could maintain a categorical rule-out stance under cross examination and therefore felt it safer for Letby to go with nobody and let the prosecution try to prove guilt.

Killers and other criminals are often careless with evidence. You kind of seem to imply that the police finding evidence potentially pointing to guilt when searching her house actually implies that she is innocent, which just kind of sums up the craziness around the "free Letby" movement
Click to expand...
I don't know much about this case but the defence don't need to rule out foul play, they just need to give credible alternatives and put the case into an area where it's not beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution teams expert wouldn't be able to give a 100% guarantee either if asked if other expert explanations were plausible.
 
thfcsteff said:
Hahaha, yes indeed, what a time to be alive, eh?!!!
Me? Little ol' mortal me?
I came to the realisation a few years ago that I will die knowing less than I ever thought possible because I recognise how little I really know versus what I thought I did.
It's good to think and search, exchange ideas, and converse, but I am more convinced than ever that we don't know half of what we think we do.
Click to expand...
Socrates' definition of wisdom - understanding how ignorant you are
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Killers and other criminals are often careless with evidence. You kind of seem to imply that the police finding evidence potentially pointing to guilt when searching her house actually implies that she is innocent, which just kind of sums up the craziness around the "free Letby" movement
Click to expand...

No, I'm saying it is odd that someone who can plan something so meticulously that it leaves no trace at the scene on repeated events (nothing that was noted at the time or picked up on through 3 or 4 stages of review after each incident) is then so careless to leave bags and bags of 'evidence' around elsewhere.
I didn't say that suggests her innocence, I said I found it odd.
Which I do.
 
DubSpur said:
I don't know much about this case but the defence don't need to rule out foul play, they just need to give credible alternatives and put the case into an area where it's not beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution teams expert wouldn't be able to give a 100% guarantee either if asked if other expert explanations were plausible.
Click to expand...
Technically you're correct but it's very damaging in terms of jury perspective where defence witnesses concede points to the prosecution. Much more so in my experience than the prosecution witnesses conceding points. I'm purely speculating as to Letby's defence team strategy, but it is not uncommon for defence legal teams in my experience not to call witnesses to attempt to counter prosecution experts. It is a high risk strategy and as I said for it to be worthwhile, in this case, you'd have to find an expert willing to stand up in court and state that several consultant neonatologists and paediatricians with years of experience in neonatal care as well as an independent expert witness in this field, were wrong. If they just sit there and put forward alternate possibilities, that's weak in terms of helping Letby's case (far better for Letby's defence barrister to ask the prosecution witnesses if there are alternative possibilities) and as I've stated opens door for prosecution cross examination to use defence witnesses to 'seal the deal' in the minds of the jury.

So I suspect that Letby's defence team thought that it was better not to call expert witnesses to go in front of a jury.

The defence did however raise a hefty slew of challenges to the prosecution expert medical evidence including some of the points raised in this case but these challenges were rejected by the court of appeal. The main challenges were:

- That only one prosecution medical witness was a qualified neonatologist. This was rejected by the court as neonatology has only relatively recently become it's own distinct discipline with its own qualification and previously had simply been regarded as a sub-set of paediatrics and while only one of the consultants called had qualified as a "neonatologist", all the prosecution witnesses were experienced in "neonatology", having become consultant paediatricians specialising in neonatology prior to this being a distinct practice field.

- That Dr. Evans had a previous adverse court finding against him. The court of appeal rejected this argument.

- That Dr. Evans had not practiced since 2009 and as such shouldn't be regarded as an expert. The court of appeal again rejected this argument.

- That Dr. Evans had initially assisted the hospital with its investigation and therefore couldn't be regarded as independent. Again, rejected.

- That Dr. Lee, whose paper Dr. Evans had referenced in evidence disagreed with how his paper had been interpreted and also felt that the deaths could be explained by natural causes. The court of appeal rejected this argument (if you're interested in the rationale it's because again, these arguments were open for the defence to make in court and they chose not to make them and Dr. Lee was a witness open for the defence to call in the trial and they chose not to call them. Appeals for convictions or acquittals will not be allowed based on a desire by the losing side to rerun the trial in the hope of a different outcome, for any appeal to be successful, Letby's team have to demonstrate that either:
- There was an error in the trial on a point of law that renders the convictions unsafe.
- New evidence that wasn't available to the defence at the time has subsequently come to light that renders the convictions unsafe.
 
Lost Mango said:
No, I'm saying it is odd that someone who can plan something so meticulously that it leaves no trace at the scene on repeated events (nothing that was noted at the time or picked up on through 3 or 4 stages of review after each incident) is then so careless to leave bags and bags of 'evidence' around elsewhere.
I didn't say that suggests her innocence, I said I found it odd.
Which I do.
Click to expand...
In my experience it is very common.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Someone made a funny comment about sending Letby to the front to counter all the Russian rapists and murderers and as is the way grew arms and legs
Click to expand...

My flippant point was also only meant to be that most of our criminals don't really look like Chelsea Headhunters. Extinction Rebellion grannies and hooky accountants called Ian aren't really a rival to the Wagner regiments.
 
Lilbaz said:
I live in camden. They're all over the place.

I don't care how they identify themselves. Everyone deserves happiness and freedom to express themselves. As long as it doesn't effect another persons happiness or freedom.

Say what you want though it was a part of why the dems lost. Along with immigration and biden being well past his best.
Click to expand...
This is a weird human, and especially western, fallacy. It's paradoxical and impossible to achieve.
Intent/responsibiliry has to be central to any position - so anything deliberately done, or recklessly done, that affects someones else's happiness or freedom
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Major & complex criminal investigation from past stint in the police, as well investigative roles for banks and other financial services cos. All that's behind me now i work putting the world to rights online.
Click to expand...
Sorted it for you; you are quite welcome :) 😅

I think of GG as an old coffee house, a gathering place for gentlemen and intelligent lady or two, to debate current affairs, and the far more vital matters concerning Spurs! A lot came out of coffee houses...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back