3 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

There is also an element of seeking to comfort those parents who lost children, probably to Letby's criminal behaviour, but whose cases were not brought. 

 

It's a horrible position to be in either way, but if I were the parent or grandparents of a dead baby, I would probably benefit from a knowledge that the murderer of my child, not of other children, received her just deserts

 

Not that it makes much difference, because the baby is still dead.

 

 

 

 

I would think the police 7 years ago may have concentrated on the cases they were surer of bringing to Court.

 

Firstly I'd want to be more certain than I am at the moment that the deaths were not simply down to poor care in the unit, as the experts who are looking into the Letby case are suggesting.  This is reflected and possibly supported by deaths elsewhere in the country (Nottingham for instance). As I said above, when the jury were told that the deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital were in some way exceptional, this is compared to what? There were 10 deaths a year at Nottingham.

 

From my current understanding of what I've read it seems that, in the interests of economy, both prosecution and defence use the same 'expert' witnesses which must be something of a compromise. Unless you can ask the witness concerned, Dr Dewi Evans in this case, whether he has any opinion on the guilt or innocence of the defendant and he can honestly answer 'No' (which seems very unlikely to me) then he is already working from a bias. This is why I'm disgusted that there were no expert witnesses (other than a plumber FFS) appearing for the defence. Evans put himself up as an 'expert' witness (he wasn't head hunted) when he heard about the investigation into the high number of infant deaths at the Countess of Chester. This would suggest that he was already of the mind that a murderer was at work (his previous expert testimony had been in murder cases). 

Edited July 2, 20251 yr by Wanderer Vagabond

1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

This is why I'm disgusted that there were no expert witnesses (other than a plumber FFS) appearing for the defence.

 

This point I do agree with. Both sides, regardless of whether it is a civil or a criminal matter, should have access to equivalent expert evidence if they want it, but note this does not mean "if they can afford it". 

 

As the arguments over Letby continue, this seemed a fairly impartial journalistic investigation into the current position (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002h3lx/panorama-lucy-letby-who-to-believe).

 

As I've repeatedly stated, I don't know one way or the other where the truth lies, I would say that if everything nationally had been hunky dory with the maternity units, I might have come down on the side of her guilt, but the simple fact is that they aren't. It seems that at the moment, the Countess of Chester Hospital cannot even run an emergency department (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c15ln1j0dkko) and this is 2 years after the conviction of Letby when one might have hoped that corrections would have been applied across the entire Trust Estate, this clearly hasn't happened, and this is without regarding the poor maternity care elsewhere in the country (Nottingham).

On 02/07/2025 at 16:26, Machpoint005 said:

 

This point I do agree with. Both sides, regardless of whether it is a civil or a criminal matter, should have access to equivalent expert evidence if they want it, but note this does not mean "if they can afford it". 

 

I've just watched this podcast by Mike Neville from Private Eye who has been pursuing the case and the comment he made during the broadcast was that he had spoken with Dr Michael Hall, the expert witness for the defence who was never called to give evidence. That immediately raises the question of why?

 

 

14 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I've just watched this podcast by Mike Neville from Private Eye who has been pursuing the case and the comment he made during the broadcast was that he had spoken with Dr Michael Hall, the expert witness for the defence who was never called to give evidence. That immediately raises the question of why?

 

 

Hi, that’s Dr Phil Hammond who is talking, AKA MD of Private Eye. Phil is/was a GP and a GU medicine specialist (it’s not on his wiki page, but he was). More recently mainly media based stuff, some quite well known.

He played a major role in getting to the bottom of the Bristol heart surgery disaster, and has highlighted a few other NHS problems too since then .
 

It does make a lot of sense. You do need to be a bit of a detective as a GU specialist apparently 😁. 

Have to say that with the recent revelations regarding the Lucy Letby case, I genuinely don't know what was going on there. The previous posting I referenced an expert witness that the defence didn't call, and now it appears that one of the principal prosecution witnesses was under investigation by the General Medical Council at the time that he was giving his 'expert' evidence at the trial (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/03/lucy-letby-case-expert-witness-peter-hindmarsh-was-under-fitness-to-practise-investigation-during-trial). Not wishing to comment on the circumstances of the investigation but it seems that it was a deliberate action by the CPS to ensure that the jury were not told of this at the trial. Now my recollection of the rules of disclosure at criminal trials is that you are obliged to disclose to the defence any matters that might undermine the prosecution case or assist the defence. If one of the main prosecution is under investigation my opinion is that would be relevant and the jury should know about it. The defence barrister apparently didn't apply to the judge to order the disclosure of this information to the jury but when asked why he didn't, declined to offer any response on the grounds of 'client confidentiality'. 

 

It starts to sound as though both the prosecution and defence were working against Letby.

Senior Lucy Letby hospital boss arrested - BBC News

1 hour ago, Justin Smith said:

Senior Lucy Letby hospital boss arrested - BBC News

It is an interesting development but given the pitiful state of Maternity Care in this country, is it really looking down the right end of the microscope? It isn't just the Countess of Chester with high infant death rates, Yeovil District Hospital Maternity care has only just re-opened after being closed for nearly a year due to serious concerns regarding it's operation (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2q6ydn76qo). Nottingham is also currently being investigated (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyvg0vlkk0o) and questions are also being asked about Leeds NHS Trust (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5gd48v10jo). So when the article you linked says ".... the response to the increased levels of fatalities....." compared to what? There are higher levels of fatalities than would be ideal throughout the country. This, for me, is the weakness in the conviction of Letby. The jury were given the 'evidence' that the level of fatalities was anomalous but it doesn't seem that they were provided with the fatality rates of other hospitals. The panel of experts led by Shoo Lee, (the neonatalologist who states that his work was misrepresented at the trial) put the deaths within range of statistical error and mainly down to poor care regimes within the unit (a similar criticism that could be made of many other maternity units).  

It seems that the Thirwall Report has come to the conclusions expected, but since it was simply looking at the Letby Case (and predicated upon her guilt) I have to say that it seems a bit of a waste of money. Such a report should have been directed at maternity care throughout the entire country which by all accounts is failing. It is somewhat outrageous that Senior staff at the Nottingham Trust refused to engage in the enquiry into the high number of baby deaths within their maternity unit which rather begs the question of '"Why?".