As the cry for the reinstatement of the death penalty gains momentum as another culture wars topic, I think we should reflect on the legal system that gave us the Birmingham six, Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, and now the Letby one.
IMO this case always stretched the limits of credibility. I think Letby was a convenient and vulnerable scapegoat for wide ranging medical profession and NHS failures.
Now, like the cases I mention above, it’s no longer about Letby’s guilt or innocence. It’s about the establishment protecting a flawed justice system. A system that has just whacked kids for rioting and let the politicians that incited the racial hatred walk free.
I was always a little shocked to see that someone could seemingly so easily be convicted on multiple counts on the basis of what appeared to be purely circumstantial evidence. Made the whole thing seem like a witchhunt to cover the failings of the trust she worked for.
My old mate John Sweeney, who recently did award winning podcast series about Ghislaine Maxwell and Putin, has been doing a great series about Letby trial. Depending on how closely people were following the case there may or may not be much new in it, but I really enjoyed it. He’s perhaps a bit of an acquired taste being a classic old school journo (aka a bit of a ham), but I have so much time for John; one of the few people who’s made both Trump and Putin squirm asking tough questions, plus he was one of the people to go into battle for the postmasters when he made a BBC panorama about the horizon scandal a decade or so ago.
This whole saga must be an ongoing torture they do not deserve for the parents who lost their newborns.
As a trial by media of Lucy Letby continues there are a couple of things that need focus. Ignored by the recent medical panel convened by defence to reopen the case, were the deaths that had occurred at Liverpool Women’s NHS where nurse Letby did her training before the Chester unit that featured in her trial. Babies’ breathing tubes became dislodged on 40% of shifts that Letby worked at Liverpool Women’s hospital between October and December 2012, and January and February 2015.
More ghoulish evidence collated here
Either NHS baby hospitals are in a terrible state with so many babies needlessly dying, or, like the glaring coincidence of the outbreak of Covid occurring within a mile of a corona virus research lab in Wuhan, the simplest answer is the right one.
I agree that it is no coincidence that the Press leapt on Letby as a useful scapegoat for underinvestment and appalling hospital management.
But when there is one obvious common factor, and no other, which is directly linked - time and place - with so many mortalities, then (as @Susannah says), the simplest answer is the right one.
The two propositions - Letby killed babies and the NHS is chronically underfunded and badly managed - are not exclusive.
Unfortunately, because of the way circumstancial evidence works, it may be that Letby was also convicted of murders and attempts she did not commit.
I recall much criticism was of the staff not listening to the mothers and dismissing their concerns, until too late.
Findings of the UK’s first inquiry into birth trauma - How some mothers were mocked, shouted at, denied pain relief, not told what was going on during their labour, left alone in blood-stained sheets, with desperate bell calls for help going unanswered – all examples of “care that lacked compassion”
At least people giving birth are by nature younger so likely to make it out alive to report.
Not the case for so many older people with lack of resourcing, poor or no processes, and quite a bit of cruelty institutionalised or on an individual basis.
